ow. ow. ow. …?
Morning before I get my first chemical peel: I am imagining pain will come. I have no idea really. But I’m beginning to wonder why I let Groupon’s promotion and a friend’s rave about chemical peels intrigue me enough to buy a session. I don’t really need it – although sure, anybody at my (incredibly wonderful) age secretly, or openly, wants smoother skin. But do I really want glycolic acid put on my face, despite being reassured that they’ll study my skin first to determine the right amount?
Sometimes I think I may be getting carried away with this New Year’s resolution: I also signed up for acupuncture in a couple of weeks.
Immediately after: Not too bad. There was tingling the first minute, followed by stinging for another couple of minutes. But the session came with all sorts of warnings. The main two were: 1) don’t use retinal-a for the next two weeks, otherwise it could cause scarring; and 2) keep my face moist for a week, otherwise you’ll peel a whole lot more and earlier and that will lead to discoloration of your skin. And yet stubborn me went through with it. The process itself seemed rather benign: she wiped on a gel of glycolic acid, it stung for a few minutes, she patted/wiped it off with what felt like water, then she put a ton of moisturizer and sunblock on. My face was a little blotchy for about 30 minutes, but now, an hour later, it looks normal, if a little greasy from the moisturizer.
Now to see how many days before it starts peeling, if it peels. I’ll update in several days. Right after I get my first kayaking roll and exit lesson from my friends Julie and Eric, weather permitting.
adventuresacross2014 
Reblogged this on adventuresacross2014 and commented:
Four days later. Well, I keep wondering when the peel part of this chemical peel will start. After some minor breakouts the first 24 hrs, my skin is back to normal, and it looks like it won’t peel. I am supposed to moisturize my face for two weeks, so maybe it will still happen. Otherwise, I don’t see the point in a chemical peel, versus, say, washing with a scrubbing mix (that has natural ingredients – plastic micro-beads are killing our wildlife.)
But also this week, I received my first sea kayaking lesson – in a lake in Virginia via my friends Julie and Eric. So I think I will rename this blog peel and roll. After a wobbly start, things went very well, and at the end, we started practicing my rolls. However, I lost my goggles (apparently not all plastic floats), and I didn’t want to risk my expensive contacts, so I didn’t practice a complete roll and exit under water. That will be in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, I’ll be going on another kayaking trip next week again – looking forward to it Arii!