Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare - mariahreviews review for Alpha Beta Universal Daily Peel - Step 2

I love this product because I really feel like it’s making a substantial difference in my skin over time. The skin tone on my chin has really evened out these past few weeks, and that’s an area I had been struggling with for awhile now. My pores are refined and my face is looking noticeably brighter and clearer. The very first time I used this peel, it caused a strong stinging sensation, and my face became noticeably more red. These effects happened at Step 1 but actually went away after I applied Step 2. Step 2 says it neutralizes the acid activity from the first step, and I can definitely confirm that seems to be the case with how it stopped the stinging and calmed down the redness immediately. I think the Glycolic Acid, Salicylic Acid, and Witch Hazel combination was on the verge of being too strong for my dry skin to handle for my first time use, however I am now able to use both pads without any irritating feeling or redness! You can get these pads in three different strength levels: Extra Strong, Universal Daily (regular strength), and Ultra Gentle. I switched to the Ultra Gentle, which was made for more sensitive skin and didn’t cause any stinging, for two weeks and then returned to the Universal strength. This time, my skin was a lot more prepared for all the AHAs and BHAs I was about to cover it in, and I did not experience any negative reactions at all. I think this is a great way to gently introduce this product to your skin if you’re approaching the sensitive end of resilient like me, but I think I also could have gotten similar results from just using this universal peel only once a week for a few weeks. I love that they have different strength levels to suit everyone’s different levels of sensitivity. Having already pretty dry skin, I was afraid that combining all of these powerful acids in Step 1 along with using retinol for the first time in Step 2 would leave my face painfully stripped dry. But my face actually feels really nice afterwords; it feels clean, but not tight or uncomfortable. I’m really enjoying the changes it’s created in my skin and I’m excited to see what else improves as I continue using this product.