Dr. Dennis Gross Extra Strength Alpha Beta Face Peel

The words 'face peel' have never appealed to me. I always think of that episode with Samantha in Sex & the City. I'm also not one to really fuss around with skincare and am usually quite minimalistic towards my approach. But in the recent months-year, my skin has wreaked havoc on me, my self esteem and emotions. Before all this my skin was at, for a long time, a very happy state of 'clear' with a few hormonal bumps here and there. Normal skin, how I miss the days. Then bumps started to appear, not acne bumps but textured flesh colored bumps. Then dryness! Severe and the tight type of dryness. It became unbearable to look at and sadly I couldn't even mask all of this with makeup because that's essentially what I looked like I was doing, putting a mask on my face. Makeup just accentuated the dry patches and bumpy texture. 

I then knew I had to fix my cleansing routine and tried a variety of face washes/moisturizers/exfoliators. Some worked, then stopped working. I usually get the initial day 1 and day 2 improvement. But afterwards downhill all over again. I even tried the Clarisonic, but my skin could not get along with it. Then after much research and last resort mentality I decided to go for the big guns. I had read and researched the results of microdermabrasion and face peels and asked myself, why not? I was scared to go for a full clinical procedure so I looked around for a milder alternative. 

I had found Dr. Dennis Gross's products on many skincare best seller lists. And the Alpha Beta Face Peels seemed like a good option. I read a whole lot of reviews and took the plunge and bought myself a a starter pack of 10 at my local Nordstroms. I went ahead and used the pack for 10 straight days and found that my skin improved 10 folds. My complexion became much more clear and glowing. The texture started to improve and soon much of the flesh colored bumps began to disappear. 

Although these results were exactly what I was looking for I didn't want to bring my hopes up because of the usual day 1 and day 2 improvements, and then downhill. So in order to see if this was the real deal, I decided to invest in the 30 day regimen the brand recommends.

And thank the stars this was not a fluke. My face really seems to have been improved by this product. I peeled for basically the whole month, but I could tell the texture was getting a lot better. I concluded that the problem with my skin was congestion. It was one of the scenarios that you've heard time and time again on how 'one day i just woke up and it was there'. Unfortunately, that isn't a urban myth and shit really goes down like that. My skin really needed a good exfoliation. I just needed to find the right type of exfoliation.
As far as the product's concerned, some of the active ingredients include glycolic acid, lactic acid, mandelic acid, salicylic acid, citric acid, and retinol. There are two pads that you use every session, Step 1 and Step 2. And the instructions tell you to wait 2 minutes between each Step(pad), which I completely agree with because somehow the product works so much better when you do. I won't say this product has cured my skin, but it has definitely helped maintain a happy medium until I find something better. Which is what I'm obsessively doing nowadays.
If you're at your wits end and have dry/sensitive skin I would say give this a try.