OK I have sun damage, of course some lines from the years and a generous amount of scars from the acne I suffered through in high school. I’ve seen enough of these makeover shoes to know that a chem peel might actually help reduce some of the scars and sun damage. After years of thinking about it, I took the plunge or went for the burn…

First I tried a glycolic peel (I had no idea what was what at first). These can be bought at a drug store and are very basic. It didn’t burn much, and in five minutes you rinse and put a moisturizer on. That’s it! My skin looked smoother but…not necessarily better.

After trying a few of these, I decided they are just a tease and I needed something more painful-I mean effective. I looked on the net, where all the good chemicals are, and found one that had different percentages of the acid called TCA. There were warnings all over the page about not going up to the full concentration at first, which goes as hgh as 18%. They even suggested I try one around the 8% level. Perfect, this stuff sounds amazingly dangerous and effective, just what I want.

OK, even my friends say things like, “Dude, aren’t you afriad of screwing your face up?” And I always so no. Of course…I figure it is so messed up already it can’t get worse! But I’m being a bit sarcastic. Oddly, all I heard, in my head, were my friends when I put the nuclear waste, I mean TCA on my face.

Yes, I ordered it, 12.5% just to be in the middle. It arrived, I read all the instructions, got the ointments and stuff they recommend then went to town. Apply it with Q-tips only!…hmm ok thats gonna take a while. I guess I can’t splash it on like after shave?

About 3 seconds after the swab passed over my forehead, I knew it was going to be hard to finish this. Are you kidding me?! It felt like my skin was on fire, seriously! I tried the usual things, fanning it with my hand…no dice. Still too hot. Just gotta tough it out for 5-8 minutes then rinse.

OK, I get it all on, wait my time then rush to rinse it off. The second the water touched my face, there was a chemical reaction, bam it felt even hotter! More water, quick, more! It finally diluted and I was done.

So what did I expect? Well I’m thinking maybe everything peels off within a few minutes or something? Hey-they don’t explain that on TV! Nope! You’re just left with your face looking like it has saran wrap covering it. Shiney! And I mean shiney! Smoother? Well yeah…in a polished chrome kinda way….?

I put the antibiotic ointment on, and noted the enhanced glossy finish where my face used to be. A bit red by now and very sensitive. For the next 3 days I had the ultra shine going on. People looked at me weird but couldn’t quite say…um..hey why is your face so uh….glossy? You using vaseline as sunblock or what?

A few days after that, I started to peel a bit. Sort of like after a sunburn. Nothing major just flakes…lot of em. I felt like an iguana for a while but kept moisturizers on as recommended. THey said not to but…I ended up using a peel mask to get the dead skin off as it was just takin too long! That helped a lot. I did that after one week.

So, all in all, my skin is improved but I think I need several of these things to really get a good result. I am thinking of doing like 3 or over a period of months to see if I actually remove the freckled and dimples areas where my acne used to be. If it works great, if not I may consider something stronger like the 18% level stuff.

Loosing weight is a good thing when you have a few extra pounds but why stop there? I think the idea should be to sort of get back to your best in all things. For this reason I also started several other things with the diet to enhance the overall (end) results. Like what? Well whiter teeth, that’s always a plus. A little hair color to touch up those grey sideburns of mine and a chemical peel to help my complexion. Yeah, sounds like a lot but over a month it actually isnt much effort at all. Details on each item and progress will follow.