chemical peel hag

earlier this week brooke was working on a story for a little school assignment. she decided to write about two hag queens. she had fun writing the story and decided to do a couple illustrations to go with it.

she pulled out a piece of paper to begin drawing, but then paused with a bewildered look on her face. "mommy, i've never drawn anything ugly before. i don't know how. will you sit across from me so i can look at you?"

me, "are you saying i'm an ugly hag?"

brooke, "no. but i only usually draw cute things."

sigh.

here are the story and drawings if you want to see them. she decided they were good enough that they should make it onto her blog.

this happened the day before my chemical peel. now would be a better time, i think, for looking at my face while drawing an ugly hag.

i had no idea what to expect with this chemical peel business. i've seen the sex and the city episode where samantha gets a peel and her face looks all burned and disgusting, but the dermatologist assured me that what i was getting was a different type. i got the vitalize peel.

i got it tuesday morning. it didn't hurt to have it done. but the chemicals that were rubbed all over my face were so strong they took my breath away. three different things were rubbed into my face and the first was just like nail polish remover. it was used to remove any oil so that toxic liquids that were rubbed on next would absorb better. i don't know what the next two things were, but each time, as the substance got close to my nose, i literally could not take a breath for a few seconds and i thought i would choke, but she quickly put a fan up and made that crap dry quickly and as it dried, the choking sensation went away. it was a bit distressing though to be trying to gasp for air, but have my airways were blocked by the fumes.

my face turned a little yellowish when i left the doctor's office, like i had jaundice again, but then it looked mostly normal for the rest of that day and the next.

yesterday though, the third day, i woke up looking like a lizard in a full shed. i put on moisturizer like my paperwork said i could, but that burned like heck for a couple minutes and then all the top layers of skin looked kind of grayish and the new skin underneath that was starting to peek through looked bright pink. twasn't a pretty look.

today it's getting better. more has peeled away so that a lot of my new pink skin is showing now. i feel like a bug that is cracking out of its old shell and shimmying out into the world with my tender new skin showing. i think i should sit tight for a couple days until i firm up again and am less susceptible to predators.

and then when i'm whole again, i'll change my pillow case. because i suspect that it's starting to look like this. but less snake shaped. more face shaped.

day before peel

when the peeling first started. this was right after i moisturized.

all red and tender, but not fully peeled around the outer edges.

three weeks later -
UPDATE/CONCLUSION: it took about two weeks for my face to stop peeling and then feeling rather scaly. it definitely looks better than it did before the peel, but i can still see some of the old acne scars and melasma that it's supposed to be removing. i guess that's why you're supposed to get at least 3 peels to see the full results.