First Peel

So today was the day of my first peel. Per the instructions, I did not apply any Retinol this morning.For the peel you need isopropyl alcohol, gauze a small plastic cup (one came with the pre-post kit) and a watch or timer. I also applied petroleum jelly to my lips and eyelids to protect them.

First you clean the skin and use the alcohol as a toner. This will remove any oil from the skin. Next you are to drop 25 drops of the TCA 12.5% solution onto one half of the gauze. I put the gauze in the plastic cup and tried to drip onto it. The TCA bottle did not come with a dropper. I may have to invest in one.

Then you hold the dry half of the gauze and swipe the wet half on your face in a horizontal direction. I As soon as I did this I could smell the solution. A very chemical like smell. Not horrid, but not pleasant either. Then you go over your face with the gauze in a vertical direction. I tried to cover my entire face with the solution. My skin began to feel hot right away. I went back over spots that I thought were not covered until the gauze felt dry. I could see frosting (skin turning white) almost immediately.

My face began to feel very hot, almost burning. It was as if I was standing in front of one of those fan shaped space heaters and got too close. I took the page of directions and fanned my face. That helped. As I told my husband, my reaction was 'Holy Mother of Bleep! This is intense'.

After 5 minutes I began splashing my face with cold water to cool it (per the directions you can start at 3 minutes, but I gutted it out). I began to see frosting in more spots. This is good. Frosting means that the acid has penetrated the skin and is eating away at the glue that holds the outermost 'dead' layer of skin together. This is necessary to get to the newer and fresher and better looking skin underneath. The TCA peels are self neutralizing. Nothing you can do will stop the action. After 8-10 minutes the acid stops working. Then you rinse your face, wait for it to dry and apply Emu-oil.

It's been about 30 minutes since I finished the peel. My skin feels tight and in spots it's as if I have a mild scrape or irritation, mostly on my cheeks. The whiteness of the frosting has abated (thankfully because it was weird, as if someone erased the color off my skin). If I smile, I can see my skin crinkling up. It felt very similar to when I would spend the day out in the sun and have a sunburn that night.

I'm a bit apprehensive. I was hoping to build up to more layers of peel, but this was hard to take. I'll have to wait and see how my skin responds and how it looks afterwards. And let's just say I wont be using that 30% TCA anytime soon.