What a Chemical Peel Actually Does
A chemical peel applies a controlled solution to the skin to loosen the bonds between dead surface cells, so that layer sheds in an orderly way and the skin beneath is prompted to renew faster than it otherwise would. Two things happen as a result. Pigment sitting in the upper layers is carried away as those cells shed, and the renewal response that follows improves texture, tone and clarity over the following weeks. That is the whole mechanism — which is also why the word covers such an enormous range. A peel can be light enough to leave no visible flaking at all, or strong enough to require a quiet week. What separates a good peel from a bad experience is almost never the solution itself; it is whether the strength, the contact time and the site were correctly matched to your skin. At Panache, peels are performed to protocols designed by Dr. Ankit Gupta and adjusted to your skin type rather than applied from a fixed recipe.
Understanding Peel Depth
Depth is the single most useful thing to understand before choosing a peel. It determines what the peel can achieve, how visible the shedding will be, and how much of your week it asks for.
Acts on the outermost layer only. Little or no visible flaking, no meaningful downtime, and safe to repeat regularly. This is the depth used for maintenance, for brightening before an event, for early acne and congestion, and for the most delicate sites. Most courses are built from these.
Reaches deeper into the epidermis and upper dermis to address more established pigmentation, acne marks and texture. Expect visible flaking for several days. Used less frequently and spaced further apart, usually as a corrective step within a longer plan.
For deep textural change such as pitted acne scarring, a peel is the wrong instrument and fractional CO2 laser resurfacing is the right one. Where that is what your skin needs, we will tell you rather than sell you a course of peels that cannot get there.
Deeper is not better. The correct depth is the shallowest one that will achieve your goal — particularly in Indian skin, where over-aggressive peeling can cause the very pigmentation you came in to treat.
Where We Peel
Most clinics peel the face and stop there. A great deal of the pigmentation that bothers people is not on the face at all — and several of the areas below need a lighter hand and a different protocol rather than simply a smaller quantity of the same solution.
The skin here is the thinnest on the body, and peeling it demands low strengths, short contact times and experienced hands. Done properly it addresses the pigmentary component of dark circles, crepey texture and fine crinkling, and it brightens the whole eye area. It is one of the most requested treatments we do, and one of the least commonly offered elsewhere.
Darkened, dull or uneven lips respond well to a gentle peel — pigmentation from sun, smoking, habits or certain medications lifts, and rough, chronically dry texture smooths. This treats the colour and quality of the lip, not its volume.
The familiar application — acne and acne marks, melasma and pigmentation, tanning, dullness, open pores, early fine lines and uneven tone. Built as a course and often combined with your medifacial programme.
These areas take as much sun as the face and are usually protected far less, so pigmentation and crepey texture show early. They are treated as an extension of any facial course rather than an afterthought.
Darkening here is extremely common and rarely discussed. It builds from friction, shaving, deodorants and hair removal habits rather than from anything you have done wrong, and it responds steadily to a course of appropriately gentle peels alongside a change in hair-removal routine.
Intimate lightening is offered discreetly, in private, and always as a personal choice rather than a correction of anything. The skin here is delicate and the protocol is correspondingly gentle and gradual — this is not an area where strength substitutes for patience.
Body acne, the marks it leaves behind, congestion and uneven tone across the back and chest — areas where the skin is thicker and tolerates a different approach from the face.
Hands show age and sun exposure as readily as the face and are almost always left out of a skincare routine. Elbows, knees and heels darken and thicken with friction. All respond to peels designed for tougher, thicker skin.
Body peels are frequently combined — a course of underarm peels alongside laser hair reduction, for example, since reducing the shaving that drives the darkening treats the cause while the peel treats what is already there.
What Peels Treat
Across all those sites, peels are used for a consistent set of concerns:
- Pigmentation, uneven tone and patchiness
- The pigmentary component of dark circles under the eyes
- Tanning and sun-induced darkening
- Active acne, congestion, blackheads and open pores
- Post-acne marks and discolouration left behind after breakouts
- Melasma, as part of a longer, carefully paced plan
- Dullness and lack of clarity — skin that looks tired rather than damaged
- Rough or crepey texture and early fine lines
- Darkening of the underarms, intimate areas, elbows, knees and heels
- Lip pigmentation and chronic lip dryness
For pigmentation caused principally by hollowing under the eye, a peel will not help — that is a volume problem and needs a different treatment. Assessment first is what prevents a course of peels being spent on the wrong cause.
What a Session Involves
A peel appointment is short and undramatic. The judgement happens before the solution is ever applied.
Your skin type, the site, your history of pigmentation and any current products are reviewed. Strength and contact time are set from that, not from a standard menu.
The area is thoroughly cleansed and degreased, and sensitive margins — the eyes, nostrils, lip border — are protected as appropriate to the site.
The solution is applied evenly and timed closely. You may feel warmth, tingling or a mild sting that builds and then plateaus. Cool air is used for comfort where needed.
The peel is neutralised or removed at the correct moment, then calming and hydrating products are applied along with sun protection before you leave.
You leave with written instructions specific to the area treated — aftercare for an eyelid peel is not the same as aftercare for a back peel.
What to Expect Afterwards
How visible the process is depends entirely on depth — and how quickly you see a result depends on it too. Superficial peels give an immediate visible lift with essentially no downtime, which is why they make up most of the courses we run. A medium peel works deeper and asks for a quieter few days in return.
With the gentler superficial peels — the lactic and mild glycolic strengths we use most — the change is visible before you get up. Skin looks brighter, clearer and more even the moment the solution is removed, and most patients can see it in the mirror at the end of the appointment. This is the peel most people are booked for.
Mild redness and a tight, warm feeling, similar to light sun exposure, settling within a few hours. Makeup can usually go on the next morning after a superficial peel.
Any flaking begins and finishes — typically light and powdery after a superficial peel, more obvious after a medium one. The urge to pick is strong and must be resisted.
Shedding completes and fresh skin comes through, clearer and more even in tone. For most superficial peels the whole visible process is done inside a working week.
Renewal continues beneath the surface and improvements in tone and texture keep accumulating between sessions rather than arriving all at once.
Each session builds on the last. Pigmentation lightens progressively and texture refines over a course rather than after any single appointment.
Aftercare
Peel aftercare is short but genuinely determines the outcome — most disappointing peel results trace back to what happened in the week afterwards.
- Broad-spectrum SPF 50 daily without exception, reapplied through the day
- Do not pick, peel, scrub or exfoliate — let the skin shed on its own
- Use only the gentle cleanser and moisturiser advised for your treated area
- Pause retinoids, acids, scrubs and hair removal on the site until cleared
- Avoid saunas, steam, swimming pools and heavy sweating while shedding
- Keep direct sun off the area, and cover body sites with clothing where possible
- Attend your review so the next session can be adjusted to how your skin responded
Sun exposure on freshly peeled skin is the fastest way to create new pigmentation. Protection is not an optional refinement here — it is part of the treatment.
Peels and Indian Skin
Skin that pigments readily needs peels chosen with real care. Deeper Indian and South Asian skin tones respond beautifully to peeling, but they also carry a genuine risk of post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation — darkening triggered by the inflammation of an overly aggressive treatment. The safeguard is not to avoid peels; it is to build the course conservatively, starting at lower strengths and shorter contact times and increasing only as your skin demonstrates it tolerates them well. Priming the skin beforehand where appropriate, spacing sessions sensibly and being uncompromising about sun protection matter far more than the strength of any individual peel. This is precisely why our protocols are physician-designed and adjusted per patient rather than applied from a single fixed menu — and why a clinic offering you the strongest peel available on your first visit is not doing you a favour.
Melasma Treatment in Delhi
Melasma is the most demanding pigmentation we treat, and the one most often made worse elsewhere. It appears as symmetrical patches across the cheeks, forehead, upper lip and bridge of the nose, and it is driven by hormones, ultraviolet light and heat together — which is why it darkens through every Delhi summer and lightens each winter. It is a chronic, relapsing condition rather than a one-off mark, so the honest goal is sustained control rather than a permanent cure, and anyone offering to clear melasma in a single session is describing something melasma does not do. Because melasma is heat-sensitive, aggressive peeling and hot laser settings can flare it and leave skin darker than it started. Our melasma protocols therefore run deliberately gentle and are built to be maintained: conservative superficial peels, a daily home routine that does most of the actual work, uncompromising sun protection, and a dedicated depigmenting programme where the pattern justifies it.
Left untreated, melasma does not fade — it follows the season and typically deepens year on year with continued sun exposure.
Dark Circle Treatment — and How to Remove Dark Circles Properly
How to remove dark circles is one of the most searched skin questions in India, and the honest answer begins with a question of our own: what is actually making them dark? There are four separate causes, they look similar in a mirror, and they need completely different treatments.
A genuine brown discolouration of the under-eye skin, often familial and worsened by sun and rubbing. This responds well to gentle under-eye and eyelid peels, and it is the cause peels genuinely correct.
The most commonly misdiagnosed cause. The skin itself is not dark — a groove is casting a shadow across it. No amount of peeling or lightening will change a shadow; this needs volume restoration instead.
Thin under-eye skin showing the blue and purple of the vessels beneath. This is a translucency problem rather than a pigment one, and it improves with treatments that thicken and strengthen the skin.
Roughened, finely lined skin scatters light and reads as dull and dark even where the pigment is normal. Careful resurfacing of the area improves it.
Most people have a combination, and the mix is what determines the plan. Assessment first is what stops a course of dark circle treatment being spent on the wrong cause — and if yours are mainly hollowing, we will tell you so rather than sell you peels.
Tan, Tan Lines and Sun Damage
Tanning responds faster to peels than almost anything else we treat, because the pigment sits high in the skin and is already on its way out. A single superficial peel usually produces a visible lift before you leave the room, with the rest following over the next two to three days as the treated layer sheds. Left alone, the same tan takes six to ten weeks to fade — and rarely fades evenly, which is why a tan that is halfway gone often looks patchier than it did at its darkest. Tan lines are the more stubborn problem, and the more common complaint before a wedding or a holiday. A hard line at a sleeve, strap or neckline is a boundary between two different degrees of pigmentation, so getting rid of tan lines is a matter of evening the whole field rather than lightening one side of it. That means treating across the line and slightly beyond it, usually over two to three sessions rather than one, so the transition is blended instead of merely moved. Body sites tan more evenly than the face but shed more slowly, so arms, back, neck and chest are generally worked as a short course.
Tan lines cannot be corrected in a single sitting before an event. Allow two to three weeks for a properly blended result.
How to Remove Body Pigmentation
A great deal of the pigmentation that bothers people is nowhere near the face. Dark underarms, darkened inner thighs and intimate area, a black neck, dark knees and elbows, pigmented hands and back acne marks are extremely common, rarely discussed, and treated far less often than they should be — largely because most clinics peel faces and stop there. Body skin is thicker, tougher and slower to shed than facial skin, so it needs its own protocols rather than a facial peel applied over a larger area, and it generally needs a slightly longer course. The results are among the most satisfying we see, precisely because these areas have usually been left alone for years.
See our full guide to body pigmentation treatment for area-by-area protocols, causes and pricing.
Pricing and Packages
Peels are among the most affordable treatments we offer, and pricing is by area rather than by a single headline rate. Delicate and small facial sites — under-eye and eyelids, lips, upper lip and chin — start at ₹1,000 a session. A full-face peel runs ₹3,000 to ₹5,000 depending on the depth and solution your skin needs. Body peels also start at ₹1,000 a session for the smaller sites such as knees and elbows, and rise from there with the size of the area and the solution used. We quote the exact figure at consultation rather than listing every area, because a headline body price would be one we then had to change. Every area is available as a 5 + 1 package: pay for five sessions and the sixth is free, which is how most patients book, since a course is what produces durable correction rather than a temporary lift.
- Under-eye and eyelids, lips, upper lip, chin — from ₹1,000 per session
- Full face — ₹3,000 to ₹5,000 per session by depth
- Body areas — from ₹1,000 for smaller sites such as knees and elbows
- Larger areas and face-and-neck together — quoted at consultation, since the price scales with the area and the solution used
- Every area: 5 + 1 package, sixth session free
- No-cost EMI available on longer courses
Prices are per session and confirmed at assessment before anything begins. Combining areas in one appointment is usually cheaper than booking them separately — ask when you call.
How Many Sessions, Honestly
You will see something after the first session — with superficial peels, before you leave the room. What a course adds is depth and durability. Most concerns settle in three to four sessions spaced two to three weeks apart, and our packages run 5 + 1, so a six-session course is charged as five. Left untreated, the same pigmentation generally does not resolve on its own: sun-driven marks deepen year on year, underarm and inner-thigh darkening built over a decade of shaving stays put indefinitely, and melasma follows the seasons rather than fading. Body areas such as underarms and intimate skin usually need a longer course than the face, simply because the darkening there has built up over years. It is also worth saying plainly that peels manage rather than permanently cure pigmentation. Melasma in particular is a chronic, relapsing condition influenced by sun, hormones and heat, and it can return; so can underarm darkening if the hair-removal habits that drove it continue unchanged. What a well-run course offers is a meaningful improvement plus a maintenance plan to hold it. Results vary from patient to patient and depend on your skin type, the depth and cause of the pigmentation, and how closely aftercare is followed.
