What is dermabrasion?

Welcome to the dermabrasion website. The aim of this website is to explain dermabrasion – what it is – why it is used and the pro’s and con’s about having it done.

Dermabrasion is a technique of damaging the skin in a particular way, to try and improve the skin surface and therefore the complexion.
The word dermabrasion comes from “derm” meaning skin, and “abrasion” which is a term for a sort of damage where the surface of the skin is scraped off. How much of the surface is affected depends on the method used and depth of the treatment.
Dermabrasion was first thought of when it had been noticed that, in certain injuries, the scarring of the skin gave improved skin texture over the original skin. These sorts of injuries were ones where the skin has been damaged by a friction burn – such as grazing on gravel or tarmac during a falling accident, cycle accident or motor accident.

In cases where the damage was not too deep and so only the very surface areas of the skin were affected, it was often found that the wound (when finally healed, of course) healed with a very good new layer of skin. Often, surface blemishes disappeared and wrinkles had also gone, showing the skin had tightened.
Medical dermabrasion therefore is aimed to cause a precise trauma to the surface layers of the skin, removing the outer “corny” layers of the skin – which are composed of dead skin cells - and try to replicate this sort of injury, but in a predictable and reproducible way. This exposes the dividing cells deeper in the skin which will then respond by producing new skin cells, giving a fresh complexion, tightening of the skin itself and therefore get rid of the surface skin blemishes and fine wrinkles. 

How is dermabrasion performed?

Dermabrasion is a physical damage to the skin and can be performed at different depths and with different degrees of both risk and also efficacy.

The basic types are:-

1. Micro-dermabrasion
2. Medical micro-dermabrasion
3. Surgical dermabrasion