About the treatment
No acid, no heat, nothing left working afterwards
Dermaplaning is the only exfoliation we offer where nothing is applied to your face at all. A sterile single-use surgical blade is held nearly flat against taut skin and drawn across it in short strokes, lifting the dead surface layer and the fine vellus hair caught up in it. That is the whole treatment.
Because there is no chemistry involved, there is nothing carrying on once you leave and nothing to neutralise. Whoever is holding the blade can see exactly what is coming away as it happens and can work harder over one cheek and lighter over another, which is not something an acid left on a timer allows.
It is also why it suits people who have run out of options. At our Timberlands Drive clinic in Red Deer this is regularly the first thing we try on somebody whose skin has reacted badly to everything they have been sold.
Why people book it
Four reasons, and the hair is only one
The peach fuzz is what it is known for. It is rarely what brings anybody back for a second one.
Make-up stops catching
Foundation sitting on flaking skin and fine hair goes patchy within a couple of hours. On a cleared surface it lies flat and stays where you put it, and that is the difference most people notice first.
Products begin to work
A serum applied over a layer of dead cells is largely wasted money. Applied to freshly cleared skin, the bottle you already own starts behaving like a better one. For most clients this is the real value.
Nothing else is tolerated
Skin that stings under glycolic acid and flushes after anything warm generally has no objection whatsoever to a blade. There is no reaction to have.
Something is coming up
A wedding, a photograph, a reunion. Two or three days beforehand is the right window, and it is the most common reason we see a first-time booking.
Why here
What a central Alberta winter builds on a face
Skin defends itself against cold, wind and friction by thickening its surface. Around here it gets a great deal of practice.
Cold that holds for weeks
We are far enough north that the warm winds arrive weakened and less often than they do further south. That means longer unbroken stretches in the same hard, dry conditions, and a dead layer that keeps accumulating rather than being reset.
Windburn from work and from play
A day on a site, an afternoon on a sled, ice fishing on a lake with nothing between you and the horizon. All of it leaves the same rough band across the cheeks, and all of it responds to the same treatment.
Hard hats and balaclavas
Anything strapped against the face for hours traps moisture and creates friction, and the skin underneath toughens in response. Jaw and forehead are where we see it.
Every four weeks is the rhythm
Your own turnover takes about that long to rebuild what we remove. Coming more often than every three weeks means taking the barrier down faster than dry air here lets you replace it.
Indications
What is it good for?
Whatever is happening in the top fraction of a millimetre — roughness under your fingers, light that will not reflect properly, lifting skin, soft colourless hair.
A plugged pore has to be drawn out, which a blade cannot do — book a Hydro Facial for that. Discolouration is the province of the AFA peel. See our Red Deer clinic page for everything we offer.
Between appointments
What to do for the other three weeks
The appointment is the easy part. What you do in the month that follows decides whether the next one starts from a better place or the same one.
Stop exfoliating at home
A scrub, an acid toner and a cleansing brush on top of a monthly blade is a barrier under constant attack. Drop the physical exfoliation entirely and let the treatment do that job. Your skin will look better, not worse.
Use the window
For the fortnight after, your products penetrate better than they will all month. If you own one good serum, that is when to use it consistently rather than saving it for an occasion.
Protect it, every day
Freshly cleared skin burns and marks more easily, and here that applies to snow glare in February as much as to a field in July. Daily sunscreen is the difference between compounding a result and undoing it.
Getting ready
Pre & post treatment
Leave your actives alone beforehand, protect the skin afterwards. That really is the whole thing.
Before your appointment
- Five days without a retinoid. It is the single thing that turns a comfortable treatment into a stinging one.
- Three days without acids, scrubs or a cleansing brush.
- A fortnight since any waxing or threading on the face.
- Turn up with an unburnt face. Come back from a day out on the ice or the water with colour in your cheeks and we will rebook you.
- Washed and properly dry when you sit down — and flag a cold sore history before we begin.
The week afterwards
- Faintly pink for an hour or so, and nothing anyone will remark on.
- Sunscreen every morning, and again if you are outdoors on snow or in a field.
- Keep it to three things for three days: cleanser, moisturiser, sunscreen.
- No sauna, steam or hot tub for 24 hours.
- Book the next one at four weeks rather than waiting until it has worn off completely.
Results
Dermaplaning before and after
One treatment at You Glow Aesthetics. The tone has not changed; what has changed is the way light behaves across the surface, so look along the cheek and the jaw.
The scale of the change depends entirely on what was sitting there to be taken off. Expect the first two weeks to be the best of it, tapering as your own turnover replaces what we removed.
Also on Timberlands Drive
Treatments that work well around this one
- Hydro Facial in Red Deer — the standard partner, done straight afterwards
- AFA Chemical Peel in Red Deer — for tone and pigment a blade cannot reach
- Microneedling in Red Deer — texture below the surface rather than on it
- Red Light Therapy in Red Deer — calming, and effective on a freshly cleared surface
- Dermaplaning brand-wide — how the treatment works across all our clinics
