A chemical peel at House of Glam HQ in Southsea costs between £50 and £200, depending on which of the two peels you have and how much skin is being treated. A Jessner on the face is £70. A BIEN TCA on the face is £80. Every other area has its own price and all ten of them are in the table below.
I am Natasha, the sole practitioner here, and I apply every peel myself. I have written this because “how much is a chemical peel” is one of those questions that gets answered online with a range wide enough to be useless. A range is not a price. So here are my actual numbers, and then an honest account of what moves them and what a peel will not do for you at any price.
How much does a chemical peel cost?
Here, by the peel and the area treated. No tier you have to be told you are in, and no quote at the end of an appointment you have already sat through.
| Peel and area | Price |
|---|---|
| Jessner — face | £70 |
| Jessner — neck | £50 |
| Jessner — chest and décolletage | £70 |
| BIEN TCA — face | £80 |
| BIEN TCA — neck | £60 |
| BIEN TCA — chest and décolletage | £80 |
| BIEN TCA — hands | £80 |
| BIEN TCA — tummy | £130 |
| BIEN TCA — half back | £130 |
| BIEN TCA — full back, about an hour | £200 |
| Standalone consultation, if you want to talk first — deducted from your treatment | £15 |
Every one of those books directly on Fresha from my chemical peels page, so you land on the exact treatment rather than a general menu. There is no patch test for a peel, and there is no separate assessment fee when you book the treatment itself. Your skin gets looked at properly at the start of the appointment, and if the peel you picked is the wrong one I will tell you before anything goes near your face.
Klarna spreads any treatment over three monthly payments if that helps.
Why the price you are quoted varies so much
Four things move the number, and only one of them is the clinic.
Which peel. A lighter acid blend costs less than a deeper one because it is doing less. Mine differ by ten pounds on the face. The further down a peel works, the more it asks of your skin and your diary, and that is what you are paying for.
How much skin. A neck is smaller than a back. My neck peels start at £50 and a full back is £200, and that is the same solution doing the same job over four times the area.
One peel or a course. This is the one that catches people out. A single peel is quoted, booked and paid for, and then somewhere in the appointment it becomes clear that the result you wanted needs three or six of them. If you are comparing prices, compare the course, not the session.
What is bundled in. Some prices include an assessment and some charge it separately. Ask which, because a low headline price with a consultation fee bolted on is not the low price it looked like.
Jessner or BIEN TCA: which one you are paying for
Two peels on the menu, and they are not a good-better ladder. They do different jobs.
The Jessner is salicylic acid, lactic acid and resorcinol in one solution. It is the lighter of the two and it is built for congestion, breakouts and the brown and red marks those leave behind. Light flaking for three to five days. Thirty minutes in the chair. £70 for the face.
The BIEN TCA is a 35% bi-phasic trichloroacetic acid, gentler than most TCA peels but the deeper of the two here. It is the one for pigmentation, scarring, uneven texture and early fine lines. Visible peeling for five to seven days. Also thirty minutes, except a full back. £80 for the face.
If you are unsure which you need, that is a ten pound decision, not a two hundred pound one, and I would rather choose it with you than sell you the deeper peel because it sounds more serious.
Are chemical peels worth the money?
For surface problems, yes, and at £70 a peel is one of the better-value things I do. Dullness, congestion, post-acne marking, rough texture and the general look of skin that has stopped turning over properly all respond well, and you see something after one.
For anything structural, no. A peel works on the top of the skin. It will not lift, it will not add volume, and it will not fill a scar that sits below the surface. If your concern is deep or ice-pick acne scarring, microneedling from £80 works below the surface and is usually the better spend. Paying for a course of peels to do a job peels cannot do is the most common way people waste money on skin treatments.
The honest test is whether what bothers you is a texture and tone problem or a shape and depth problem. Peels are excellent at the first and beside the point for the second.
How long does a chemical peel last?
I am not going to give you a number of months, because it would be a made-up one. What I can tell you is how it behaves.
A single peel brightens, and that brightening is the short-lived part. The change that holds comes from a course of three or six, four to six weeks apart, and from what you do afterwards. Daily SPF is not an upsell, it is the thing that stops pigmentation walking straight back in. Melasma in particular is a condition you manage rather than clear, so anyone promising you a permanent result on that is selling you something.
Skin also keeps ageing and keeps making oil, so a peel is maintenance, not a full stop.
What does your face look like 3 days after a chemical peel?
Day three is usually the middle of the flaking. After a Jessner you are two-thirds of the way through it, with light shedding around the nose, mouth and chin. After a TCA you are earlier in a longer process and the peeling is more obvious.
It is not dramatic and it is not painful, but it is visible in daylight and no amount of foundation hides flaking skin. Do not pick it. Pulling sheets of skin off early is how people end up with a mark that outlasts the thing they came in to fix.
The practical version: book two to three weeks before any day that matters. A peel the week of a wedding is a bad plan, and I will say so.
What’s the worst day after a chemical peel?
There is no single day I would promise you, because it depends which peel you had and how your skin behaves.
The shape of it is consistent enough to plan around, though. Day one is tight and a little pink. The flaking follows, and that is the part people mind, not the treatment itself. Three to five days of it after a Jessner and five to seven after a TCA. By the end of that week the new surface is there and the point of the whole thing becomes obvious.
What are the downsides of a chemical peel?
The peeling is the obvious one, and it is a social cost rather than a medical one. You will not want photographs taken in the middle of it.
The one that actually matters is post-inflammatory pigmentation. Deeper peels carry a real risk of it, and that risk is higher on Fitzpatrick IV to VI skin. Peels absolutely are done on darker skin, and I do them, but I assess your skin type before I choose an acid and I will start lighter, or decline, rather than take a chance with your pigment. That assessment is not a formality, and it is why the peel is chosen in the appointment rather than picked off a dropdown when you book.
After that: the discipline. SPF every day, no sunbeds, and no strong actives until the skin has settled. If that sounds like more admin than you want, a peel will underperform for you and it is fair to know that before you pay.
And the thing it will not do, said once more plainly, is change the structure of your face.
Will a chemical peel get rid of keratosis?
That is not a treatment I offer for it, and I would not want you booking a peel on the assumption that it will.
Raised, scaly or changing lesions belong with your GP or a dermatologist first, because the diagnosis matters more than the treatment. Once something has been properly looked at by the right person, come back and I will tell you honestly whether a peel has anything useful to offer the skin around it. I would rather send you to the right door than take a booking I am not the right person for.
What a course costs, and when you actually need one
Courses of three and six are available on every peel in the table. I do not publish a course price, because it depends on which peel and which area, and a single figure would be wrong for most people reading this. Message me on WhatsApp with what is bothering you and I will send you the number for yours before you book anything.
Whether you need a course at all is a fair question and the answer is not always yes. One peel is enough if you want brightness before an event or you are testing how your skin takes it. Pigmentation, stubborn congestion and scarring are the ones that genuinely need the repeat visits, four to six weeks apart, and I will tell you which camp you are in after I have seen how your skin reacted to the first one rather than before.
Who I would say no to
Anyone pregnant or breastfeeding. Anyone with an active cold sore or broken skin in the area. Anyone who has been on isotretinoin recently. Anyone with a fresh tan or sunburn, which includes fake tan sitting on the skin.
Peels here are for adults only, eighteen and over.
And anyone whose real problem is depth rather than surface. Sending you to the wrong treatment costs you eighty pounds and six weeks, and it costs me a client who was right to expect better advice.
Book a chemical peel in Portsmouth
House of Glam HQ is at 1A Auckland Road East, Southsea, Portsmouth, PO5 2HA, with free street parking nearby. Every peel and every price is on the chemical peels page, each one booking straight to that treatment on Fresha. You can also message me on WhatsApp or call 07831 846273.
If you are weighing a peel against something that works deeper, read my comparison of chemical peels and microneedling before you book, and the honest version of the downtime if the flaking is the part you are worried about.
