My face has been looking a bit uneven and I have been thinking about laser skin resurfacing but I keep stressing about the recovery. How long will my skin be red or peeling and what’s it actually like in those first few days? I just want to know what I’m signing up for before taking the plunge.
Downtime varies by how deep your treatment goes. For lighter non-ablative lasers, downtime is minimal like just some pinkness and dryness for 2–3 days. For aggressive ablative lasers, expect redness, swelling, and peeling for a full week, sometimes longer. I did a fractional CO2 session and used all the recommended healing ointments from my clinic; by day 10, most of the redness was gone.