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glycolic acid

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What Is Glycolic Acid?

Two numbers decide whether a glycolic acid product works — the percentage and the pH. Most brands print one. Here is how to read both.

Start at 5%, twice a week, at night, on dry skin. Moisturiser after, sunscreen every morning. Most problems come from going too fast.

Tingling and light flaking are normal. Burning, lasting redness and stinging with other products are not. Plus the sun sensitivity people miss.

This post explains in detail what glycolic acid can do for our face.

What exactly can Glycolic acid Exfoliating Liquid at 8% concentration do for our skin - Explained in this post.

Knees take a higher strength than underarms. But much of the darkness is dry, built-up skin, so moisturising matters as much as the acid.

It can lighten dark underarms over 8 to 12 weeks. Twice a week, never after shaving, and why overdoing it makes the darkness worse.

It can reduce smell, and the mechanism is real. But daily acid on underarm skin causes the darkening people are usually also trying to fix.