Keep us posted!

I've now done two applications--one on Sunday, one on Thursday night.  
I'm peeling.  Not badly, but peeling all over my face.  The one thing that is noticeable though is some sun damage I have on my right cheek is lighter already.
I'm having to use heavy moisturizer at night and SPF 46 during the day.  I've never had to slather it on like this.
I've also had to switch from LHA cleanser to something very mild like CeraVe.

Are you supposed to exfoliate?

You can but it has to be gentle.  I'm using a clarisonic.

I'm sad to report that I don't really wear much makeup. At all. Eyeshadow, mascara, and a really light amount of eyeliner.

I have no clue what to do with the rest of that stuff, and only the most basic knowledge of what to do with what I do use. My mama never wore makeup because of skin allergies, and I never really had any close female friends to teach me how to use it either. For heaven's sake, I was on the wrestling team in high school!. So here I am, 33 years old, and still pretty clueless about makeup.

I have a similar past with makeup. My mom never wore much and never tried to teach me. I just recently got more into it. I just got online and did a lot of research about top rated brands. Then I made a few really big purchases at Sephora and tried a little this and a little that. I looked to Pinterest and YouTube for ideas and application lessons. It's never too late.

My mom is big on inner beauty. She has never worn a stitch of makeup in all the years I've been alive.


I grew up wearing my brother's hand me down jeans and shirts. I never had more than two pairs of shoes. No dresses, no nice shoes.


I hit 12 and realized how different and alone I was. And I had no idea what to do about makeup. I didn't have any money to get any anyway. So for that first year I used pastels on my eyes - as in the kind artists use. And I had terrible acne. I was a giant sore thumb in school.


I moved away from there, and life got a little better. I kind of figured out makeup, and hair.. but all through high school I was a jeans, tee shirt, and tennis shoes person. I didn't wear pretty things or care about shoes. But I had friends, and I wasn't a geeky loner anymore, so.. there was that.


After high school, when I struck out on my own, I decided I wanted to have all the things I'd never had growing up. I wanted makeup. I wanted pretty hair. I wanted nice clothes and more than two pairs of shoes.


I like having nice things. Maybe it's overcompensation for having so little as a kid. Who knows. I enjoy my life, my glittery things, my makeup, my pretty clothes, all my shoes. I love that I can have all this stuff.

All I can say (since I'm older) is that the best thing you can do if you don't want to wear it is at least put on sunscreen if you're going outdoors.
I literally have photos in my HS yearbook where I'm not wearing a stitch of makeup at all.  Nothing sticks to greasy oily skin when you're in an environment with no A/C for 8 hours a day.  

Sunscreen is mandatory for me. I burn really easily, so even my moisturizer has sunscreen, and any time I'll be out in the sun a decent bit, I'm sporting 110 SPF.

I never wore it for years and now I wish I had.

Why be sad about it? Unless there are times you want to wear more than you do? There is nothing at all wrong with letting your natural beauty shine through!! But 2^nd - 3^rd - 4^th? the people who said use sunscreen!!! And moisturizer!



 

Update:  it's been about four weeks and I'm still not on an "every other night" regimen.  I'm peeling very slightly but it isn't bothersome.  My skin is softer and smoother, and areas where I had dark splotches or spots (sun damage) are coming off.  My pores appear smaller too, and the lines around my mouth are diminished.

I'm slathering on both moisturizer and SPF daily.  I'm washing with Cerave, as it is very mild--I was using a wash with LHA but it was setting my skin on fire.  I'm applying retinol every two days, and also to areas of my neck.  The dark splotches under both my ears are disappearing.  Eight more weeks to maximum results!

Thanks for the update. I wonder if I could use that under my eyes. I am told quite a bit that I look tired or that I have 2 black eyes.

They don't recommend using it too near the eye area due to peeling.
But I can tell you a Fraxel laser CAN be used near the eye with no issues whatsoever.  It will do much the same thing as this retinol is doing--it causes rapid cell turnover and a filling in of small lines and wrinkles.

Use a nightly eye cream.  It makes a difference.  I had an ex with those huge dark circles so bad he looked like Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins.  He used to bitch at me for rubbing my eye cream on his eyes to reduce the dark circles.  Then his brother got married and he saw what those same circles looked like on someone else.  His brother looked like shit.  He never bitched about the eye cream after that.

Good advice. Thank-you!

As much as I like Billy's music, I don't want to look like him.

This is how I feel like I am at makeup

100% yes.

I'm making XCR do my make up for my wedding, even had her pick stuff out for me when I saw her recently.

And then there's this:

Ditto.  The tools seem neat, but I'd rather have a medicine cabinet full of medicine.  Eye-shadow and lipstick--that's about as crazy as I get; my eyeliner attempts have ended in self-injury.  The eye-shadow, however, is usually MAC and the lipstick from Sephora, which is conveniently right down the road.  

It's been over a week now that I've been using the Retinol every other night (I finally worked my way up).  I'm no longer peeling, but still slathering on the Cerave moisturizer every single evening over it.

I tempered it at first (mixing Cerave & retinol for application) but now don't have to.  I put it on, wait about 45 minutes to an hour, then slather on a coating of moisturizer and go to bed.  I'm putting an SPF 50 on my face every day.

My skin is VERY soft and smooth, old bumps on my face have gone away, some of my dark sun spots are fading, and the lines around my mouth are almost gone.  I'm very satisfied, and my skin hasn't looked like this EVER.  Very even, smooth, and I'm using very little makeup now since I don't have anything to "cover".

When this tube is gone, I may try stepping up to a 1% retinol, although the very idea scares me since I know it will likely make me peel all over again.

I didn't dabble in makeup much at all until after high school.  My mom was never big on cosmetics or curling irons, so a lot of it was trial and error.  I felt really inept in the beauty department.  One of my college friends worked part time at a Clinique counter and helped me figure things out.  So I have pretty much stuck with that line of products, unless I run out of something and can't get by the mall.  At 41, I'm thankful to feel more confident about it.

My mom wasn't into make-up.  And none of my female friends are Asian.  And I'm too lazy to watch make-up tutorials and such on youtube