Laser resurfacing.

Think of an old hardwood floor. Years of traffic leave it scuffed and uneven, and you do not fix that by painting over it — you sand off the damaged surface and let the fresh wood underneath become the new surface. Resurfacing is the sanding step.

Our laser is an erbium:YAG at 2,940 nm, which sits almost exactly on the peak of water’s absorption curve. Skin is mostly water, so the pulse is spent in a very thin slice: the surface layer is vaporized and very little heat is left in the tissue underneath. Less residual heat means faster healing and less provocation of pigment, which is the whole reason we chose it. The trade is that it tightens less per pass than a hotter laser does.

• Rough or uneven texture
• Fine lines, including etched lines around the mouth and eyes
• Photodamage — the accumulated surface damage of years of sun
• Shallow and moderate scarring
• Surface lesions, including actinic keratoses and benign lesions, treated with the same laser

Hands are treated too, and are priced on the hand rejuvenation page.

Depth is the entire decision, and it is the one thing a price list cannot make for you. A light peel stays superficial: less change per session, a shorter recovery, and the option to stage. Full-field resurfacing takes the whole surface and can go further for scars and etched-in lines, with a correspondingly longer recovery.

Our laser has no fractional lens and we will not describe a capability we do not have. What we offer is a light peel through full-field resurfacing, with the depth targeted to your goals and to what your skin will tolerate. If you are between the two, that is a conversation at the consultation rather than a guess at booking — which is why resurfacing is not bookable online.

This is a procedure with real downtime and we would rather you plan around it than be surprised by it. Most people re-epithelialize in about five days. The first two to three days involve swelling and weeping. After that the skin is closed but pink — a few weeks after a lighter treatment, longer after a deeper one — and makeup is usually fine once it has closed.

Sun protection during healing is not optional. New skin that is exposed to sun is how a good result turns into a pigment problem.

Erbium is the safer ablative choice in richly pigmented skin precisely because it leaves so little heat behind, and heat is what provokes pigment cells. That is a real advantage, not a marketing one.

It is not a guarantee. Depth matters more than the laser’s name, and a deep erbium treatment carries genuine darkening risk in any skin tone. We treat Fitzpatrick types IV–V with a conservative protocol, treat type VI with added caution, and test-spot and stage rather than chase a result in one session. We have written up which devices are safe in darker skin and which are not in more detail.

We own an erbium and we do not own a CO₂, and pretending erbium does everything would be the kind of thing this practice exists to not do. We will refer you out when you have deep, etched lines around the mouth or eyes in fair skin and want the maximum change in one session; when your main concern is laxity rather than texture; or when you have deep, rolling acne scars in fair skin, where fractional CO₂ has the stronger track record.

In those cases a good fractional CO₂ in experienced hands is the better tool, and we would rather you got the better tool. The full comparison, with sources, is in erbium vs CO₂ laser resurfacing, explained.

Consultations are free, and you will have the price of your plan before anything is booked.

Hand resurfacing is priced on the hand rejuvenation page and treatment of discrete actinic keratoses on the actinic keratosis page. Resurfacing is performed by the provider, not delegated.