A Jessner’s peel is superficial and you should recover quickly. Peeling usually takes about 3-5 days and you won’t be red for more than a week or two at most.  TCA’s, tricholoracetic acid, usually depend on what concentration the TCA you are using. A 10% TCA peeel is superficial and recovery is about the same or a little more that the Jessner’s. 20% is a little deeper and can reach the papillary dermis and will require 5-7 days to peel. 30-35% is a medium depth peel and can reach the deeper papillary dermis and will take 7-10 days to peel. But I wouldn’t worry about the Jessner’s taking too long to recover.  During the recovery phase you will basically have a sunburn in varying degrees depending on how deep of a peel you receive.

Essentially with peels and resurfacing, you are taking away the top layers of the skin to then allow deeper skin cells from within hair units or deep within the hair follicle to resurface or create a new skin surface.  This allows the resurfacing to remove scars, wrinkles, unwanted pigmentation and decrease the size of the pores.

If you do a chemical peel when you are on accutane you will greatly increase your chances for scarring. Your pilosebaceous units are greatly affected by accutane and this effects there ability to resurface your skin and hence can lead to an increase in scarring. Generally you should be off accutane for 1-2 years before you do any resurfacing type of procedure.