The Safest Procedures In Cosmetic Surgery

Most of us are understandably squeamish about have surgery to change the contours of our buttocks, breasts, or bellies, or to give a new nose, higher cheek bones, or a new chin. These painful and often cosmetically perilous procedures are also among the most the most expensive. The safest procedures in cosmetic surgery, however, also offer the biggest "bang for the buck." Here are two low-tech procedures that almost never go wrong.

Mole Removal

Moles can contain deadly melanoma, although in 98% of people who have white skin, 99.5% of people who have brown or Asian skin, and 99.9% of people who have black skin, moles will be non-cancerous. Even benign moles, however, can mar the symmetry and contour of the skin. And since a melanoma can mature into a form that is gray or white or that matches surrounding skin tone, it's always a good idea to have moles checked out by a dermatologist.

Mole removal is not a complicated process. Moles can be removed surgically, and the skin closed with stitches. Moles may also be burned away with an electric cauterizing needle. Laser surgery is not used to remove moles because laser light does not penetrate deep enough. Usually mole removal only requires the use of a topical anesthetic like Lidocaine.

Depending on the depth of the mole, the doctor may place soluble stitches under the skin (these don't have to be removed later) or use regular stitches on the skin (these have to be removed by the doctor). Any skin surgery can leave a scar, but if you follow your dermatologist's instructions exactly, scarring usually does not occur.

Chemical Skin Peels

Chemical skin peels strip away the topmost layer of skin to remove wrinkles, indented scars, and pigmentation to be replaced with smooth, unblemished skin. On a structural level, the problem with wrinkles and scars alike is that the layers of skin have become disorganized. Healthy skin has cells lined up a little like bricks in a wall. In skin that is wrinkled or scarred, the neat rows of cells have slipped and fail to hold together properly.

Chemical skin peels destroy the top-most layers of skin that aren't served by blood vessels. The peel reveals the base of pores and sebaceous (skin oil) glands that also generate new skin cells. These new skin cells form clear, smooth, unblemished skin that has a more pleasing appearance.


Fair skin usually takes peels well. Darker skin may not fare well with the procedure. While chemical skin peels can remove age spots and pigmentation left after acne heals, darker skins make new pigment to stop inflammation. Black skin should never be treated with skin peels, and brown and Asian skin types should be treated with chemical skin peels only with extreme caution.

You are unlikely to do serious damage to your skin with the 1 to 3% solutions of salicylic acid (used to peel oily skin) and the 5 to 10% solutions of glycolic acid (used to peel dry skin) that are available in over-the-counter skin care products. Stronger solutions of these chemical peels that are intended for professional use are available from Internet vendors but should be left to aestheticians and dermatologists. They can cause more harm than they correct.

Two Laser Procedures with Few Reported Side Effects

Skin surgery and skin peels are old and well-developed procedures that most dermatologists know well. Two laser procedures, however, are in high demand.

Laser Hair Removal

Most women and some men spend a great deal of time removing hair from places where it shouldn't pop up. Hair removal can be very low-tech. You can simply shave it off, over and over again.

Or you can use chemical depillatories. The problem with chemical hair removal products is that they sometimes remove skin as well as hair. That's also the problem with waxing and threading. There are home and professional electrolysis systems, but they don't guarantee removal of hair.

The easiest way to get rid of unwanted hair for good is laser hair removal. Laser treatment only kills hair that is actively growing, in its anagen stage. Rapidly growing hairs contain the maximum amount of pigment, and it's the pigment that is heated by laser light. Laser treatment of growing hairs heats the hair shaft much more than laser treatment of hairs that are dormant, in their telogen stage.

Laser treatment won't work on hairs in their telogen stage. Hair on the face may stay in its telogen stage for 1 to 3 months. Hair on the lower body may stay in its telogen stage for as long as a year. For this reason, it may take treatments spread out over 1 to 3 months to remove unwanted facial hair and treatments spread out over a year to remove unwanted hair on the lower body. Once all the growing hairs have been treated with laser, however, they are permanently gone.

New laser treatment techniques allow doctors to offer laser hair removal to patients who have dark brown or black skin, although it is important to use the products the doctor prescribes to limit inflammation. Dark skin fights inflammation with pigmentation, and ignoring the doctors orders can result in hairs being replaced with dark spots in the skin. Each laser treatment session costs $300 to $500 in the USA.

Laser Acne Scar Revision

Laser treatments for acne scars have been available since 1995. At first dermatologists used carbon dioxide (CO2) lasers to burn away scarred skin so new, smooth skin could emerge. The problem with treating acne scars with CO2 lasers was that the treatment usually left a red or pale patch of skin where the scar had been. And since CO2 lasers worked by heating up pigments in the skin, the technique could damage dark brown or black skin.

In recent years, more and more dermatologists have adopted a procedure known as the Plasma Portrait Laser. This instrument heats an entire layer of skin just below the surface rather than heating pigments in the skin. Destroying this sub-surface layer of skin can cause immediate improvement in a scar. The destruction of this layer of the skin also stimulates the production of collagen beneath the skin that makes the new skin smoother and stronger.


With this form of laser acne scar treatment, the topmost layers of skin are unaffected. They act as a natural bandage. There is complete healing of the skin in just 7 to 10 days, although the scar may continue to fill in for as long as six months.

The main drawback of the Plasma Portrait Laser is that there it cannot be used at minimal power. Low-power lasers destroy the top layer of skin and leave it vulnerable to infection and the formation of new scars. If there is a concern that this treatment (or any other treatment) might cause the formation of pigmentation in the skin, as is usually the case in treating black skin, then the doctor may schedule a series of appointments for small doses of laser treatment several weeks apart over the course of several months. Unlike most other methods of acne scar treatment, however, Plasma Portrait Laser is usually safe for brown and black skin.