Microdermabrasion Facial Treatment Before, During and After

So you have a microdermabrasion facial booked, or you are about to book one, and what you want to know is whether it hurts, whether you will be red at work the next morning, and whether one session does anything. It does not hurt. Your face will be pink for an hour or 2 rather than a day.

And one session gives you skin you can feel the difference on by the afternoon, while the changes you can see in a mirror need a run of appointments.

What the machine is doing, in one line: either a diamond-coated tip or a fine jet of aluminum oxide crystals is dragged across your face under suction, and the top layer of dead cells comes away with it. That is the facial Wrinkle treatment, mechanically.

Before Microdermabrasion Treatment

What You Stop Using and Who Gets Turned Away

The week before decides how the facial goes far more than the day itself does. Skin thinned by an acid, a retinoid or a wax strip gets the same passes as skin that has not, and it is the thinned skin that comes out blotchy and stays that way into the evening.

The 5 to 7 Day Rule on Actives

Clinic pre-care sheets, the kind you get emailed after booking, agree on the same list. Retinoids come off first, tretinoin, adapalene and the over-the-counter retinols, then the acids, then benzoyl peroxide, scrubs and anything with hydroquinone in it.

• Stop retinoids, AHAs, BHAs, benzoyl peroxide and scrubs 5 to 7 days before your appointment.
• No facial waxing for 7 days minimum. Several practices ask for 14, and threading counts too.
• No chemical peel, laser or micro needling in the previous 2 to 4 weeks.
• No Botox or filler in the previous 14 days, since suction can move product that has not settled.
• No sunburn. Arrive burned and you are rescheduled, not treated.

The waxing one catches people. Brows done on Tuesday and a gold facial on Thursday is how you end up with 2 shiny red arches for the weekend.

Who Gets Turned Away at the Door

An active cold sore is the common one. Abrasion spreads the virus across the face, so a blister anywhere near the mouth means the appointment moves. If you get them at all, say so when you book, since many providers will suggest a short antiviral course starting about 3 days before. Rosacea is a no as well, flaring or quiet. Open acne, anything with a head or a scab, gets skipped, because dragging a tip through it carries bacteria from one spot to the next.

Then there is isotretinoin, the Accutane question. Nearly every salon and clinic still keeps to 6 months off the drug before any resurfacing, some say 12. A task force writing in the Journal of Cutaneous and Aesthetic Surgery rated microdermabrasion as safe in patients on isotretinoin, but that has not changed most consent forms. Say what you have taken and when, and let the provider decide.

During Microdermabrasion Treatment

30 Minutes Under the Wand, Pass by Pass.

You lie back, the hair goes under a band, and the face is cleansed twice, the second time with something that strips oil so the tip glides rather than skidding. On a crystal machine you get goggles or gauze over the eyes, since a stray puff of aluminum oxide is the one unpleasant thing about this facial. Diamond machines skip the goggles and the dust.

The wand itself is about the size of a thick pen. The esthetician draws it across the skin in overlapping strokes, forehead first as a rule, then each cheek, down the nose, round the chin, and every pass leaves that scratched, tugging feeling. The suction is what you notice more than the grit. It pulls the skin up into the head of the wand as it moves, and on the cheekbone and the temple, where there is less padding, it feels stronger. No numbing cream goes on for this. What you might need, if you bruise easily or have thin skin under the eyes, is to ask for the suction turned down before the first pass rather than after, because the little purple marks some clients find the next day come from the vacuum, not the abrasion.

Depth comes down to how many passes an area gets and how hard the suction is set. A first appointment tends to be kept light, 1 or 2 passes over everything, so the esthetician can see how your skin answers before going heavier on the second visit. The upper lip is often skipped or done on the lowest setting.

After the last pass the face is wiped, sometimes with cold water, and whatever the salon layers on next, serum, a calming mask, moisturizer and always a sunscreen, goes onto skin that will now drink it. You are up and out within the hour, pink, roughly the color you go after a cold walk, with the skin feeling tight for the drive home.

After Treatment: The First 3 Days of Microdermabrasion

The recovery, such as it is, fits inside an afternoon. Healthline’s overview puts the redness and tenderness at a few hours, and the American Society of Plastic Surgeons lists no downtime or recovery period for the procedure at all. What the next 3 days do need is a kind of laziness with your skincare. The layer that came off was doing the work of a barrier, and by most accounts the skin takes up to 3 days to rebuild it.

• Cleanse with something bland and lukewarm, no scrubs, no brush, no hot water.
• Moisturize more than usual. Tight and dry is normal, flaky is normal, picking at the flakes is the one thing that leaves a mark.
• No retinoids, acids, benzoyl peroxide or topical acne products for 3 to 4 days, or however long your sheet says.
• Sunscreen every morning, and not the tinted moisturizer with SPF 15 in it. The skin is more sun sensitive for a couple of weeks, and what you paid for gets undone by one lunchtime in the sun.
• Skip the sauna, the hot yoga class and the pool for the first 24 to 48 hours, chlorine especially.
• Makeup is generally fine the same evening. Mineral powder sits better than a full liquid base on skin that is still pink.