One of the most important parts of a skincare routine is thorough exfoliation, and there are a lot of ways in which a skin specialist can carefully use powerful treatments to unlock smoother, brighter skin.
One of the most popular of these is chemical peels, a topical treatment applied to the face that simultaneously works to remove dead skin cells from the surface of your skin and uses various ingredients to stimulate new skin cell growth.
Whilst there are peels that someone can apply themselves, the deepest and longest-lasting chemical peels can only be safely applied by a specialist practitioner qualified to use them.
Whilst they are often seen as a very modern treatment, and indeed most currently available peels are on the cutting edge of dermatology, the concept itself is much more established than one might expect, dating back centuries, potentially millennia.
The Dawn Of Dermatology
There are various types of chemical peels, but one of the most popular is beta-hydroxy acid peels, which are primarily used as a treatment for acne, particularly in smoothing out the bumps associated with acne scarring.
It was first notably used for this purpose as early as 1882, with the pioneering dermatologist Paul Gerson Unna describing the effects of salicylic acid before writing extensively about chemical peels in 1899.
Before this, Ferdinand von Hebra, founder of the Vienna School of Dermatology, described phenol (a vital ingredient in phenol-croton oil peels) as a chemical peel ingredient in 1874 based on the early work of William Tilbury Fox three years earlier.
Although he had described phenol as a peel as early as 1860, he also mentioned that “lotio carbolica” had been potentially used since the 1850s in London, and the first description of “carbolic acid” is credited to Friedlieb Runge in 1834.
Mr Fox was an early dermatologist before the concept of medical specialisation was even widely accepted in Britain, whilst he did use phenol and wrote about its effects in 1869, he primarily used it as a disinfectant in the same way Joseph Lister did rather than as a chemical peel.
However, whilst this highlights the history of solutions we recognise as chemical peels, the concept of a chemical peel predates even the earliest dates by over 2000 years.
The Dawn Of Medicine
In an article published in 2018 by the Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology, Mr Ursin, Ms Borelli et al argue that for as long as there has been a medical field of any kind, there has been some form of chemical peel.
These include multiple recipes in the Papyrus Ebers, one of the earliest medical texts ever made, including six for removing wrinkles and two for “enhancing” skin beauty, with another papyrus suggesting skin “inversion”, which could be interpreted as an early version of chemical peeling.
One of the first surviving treatments that resembles a chemical peel is the work of Diocles of Carystus (circa 375 BC – circa 295 BC), who as part of his writings on healthy lifestyles suggested a routine of using anointing oils and then rubbing one’s skin before taking a bath to wash it off, which would have a slight peeling effect.