My Starting Point

Right, yesterday was my second at home glycolic acid peel.  I have been trawling the beauty blogs online and haven’t found quite what I’m looking for.  I want a week-by-week transformation of how at home peels progress.

I’m at the start of my skincare journey, so to speak.  For the longest time, I just used Dove Beauty Bars and a flannel/washcloth (depending on what side of the pond you’re on).  As a teenager, I was blessed with spotless skin.  I occasionally used Oil of Olay foaming cleanser, but mostly stuck with plain soap.  When I went to university, I started getting spots.  Post university, they gradually became more and more regular and in the past couple of years it became bad enough that I was self-conscious.  I’m a teacher and teenagers are really good at picking up on insecurities.  So now, at age 32, I’m actually starting to put a lot of thought into my skincare.

My current routine is Clearasil 5 in 1 cleansing wipes, My Skin Matters Anti-Age from Sainsbury’s, Bio Oil, E-45 lotion, and Oil of Olay sunscreen, in that order.  It’s working.  I also take a Zinc and Vitamin C supplement in the evening.  My skin is smoother and breakouts are less and less frequent.  The issue is all of the redness left over from old breakouts.  I’ve been using fullers earth masks with crushed aspirin a couple of times a week with the hope of reducing redness, and I think it’s helping, but I wanted something with a bit more oomph.

Enter glycolic acid peels.  They’re meant to remove just the very top layer of dead skin and encourage your own skin to start healing itself and regenerating skin cells.  I’m probably messing up the science of it all, but that’s easily found elsewhere on the internet.  I’m here to be the amateur skincare experience lady.

I got a 30% glycolic acid peel kit on Amazon.  It came with the acid, a neutralising gel, and a fan brush.  I don’t wear makeup (told you I was an amateur!), so the fan brush was definitely a good inclusion.

The day of the first peel, I didn’t use the cleansing wipes as they have salicylic acid in them and I didn’t want to mix chemical exfoliators.  Instead, I used a sulphur bar soap and followed it with Thayer’s Witch Hazel Toner.  I did this in the morning and right before the peel.  For the first peel, I poured a bit of the acid in a little glass food-prep bowl (the sort of tiny bowl that makes me feel like I’m a television chef when I use it!), set the timer on my phone for two minutes (but didn’t press start!) and started brushing the acid on my face.  It didn’t tingle straight away, but it definitely started to quickly!  It wasn’t anything too intense, but it was most assuredly felt. 

Once I was done brushing the acid on my face, I grabbed my phone to press start and, of course, this was one of the times that the touch ID failed me.  I had to faff about for a bit to get my phone to actually respond to me and pull up the timer app again.  Normally, this wouldn’t be a big deal, but when you’re doing your first acid peel, a few seconds feels much longer!

Once the timer had 15 seconds left on it, I started to apply the neutralising gel and it did the trick straight away.  The tingle was upped for a moment, but then my face was just a bit gloopy from having the gel on.  I washed it again with the sulphur soap, used my toner, and slathered it with copious amounts of lotion.

My face was a bit red the day afterwards (no more red than my face can get when I’m having a bad breakout though), but by the next evening it had calmed down significantly.  I didn’t have any immediate breakouts and on Monday night, I made a mistake.

I had done the peel on Friday and by Monday I was getting antsy for a clay mask. I love a mask.  I love the luxury and relaxation of it.  My partner knows that picking me up a mask (and/or a bath bomb) from Lush on the way home from work is a guaranteed way to put a smile on my face.

So, I had been reading about the benefits of both Vitamin C and Zinc for treating acne and brightening the skin and I happen to have uncoated tablets containing both of these sitting on my bedside table.  I’ve had success in the past with mixing crushed aspirin into my mud masks, so I decided to have a go with the vitamins.  I pulverised four tablets in one of those tiny glass bowls, added a couple of spoonfuls of fullers earth, and then mixed in some apple cider vinegar, just like I normally do with aspirin.  I brushed it on my face (the silicone basting brush from Ikea has been usurped for masking purposes and now permanently lives in our bathroom).  It was a little tingly, but nothing compared to the peel.  I let it dry and wiped it off with a warm, wet flannel.  My face was a little pink, but nothing out of the ordinary.

The next morning, my forehead was dotted with tiny little spots.  I’ve got acne issues, but they’re normally large, painful spots on my cheeks and jaws.  My forehead is rarely a problem area.  I blame the vitamin mask.  I’ve since read about the dangers of making your own Vitamin C face products and will not be doing it again.

This Friday I did another peel.  It was almost identical to the first with two differences.  As recommended, I upped the time from two minutes to three.  Also, after the issues with the timer function last week, I just started the stopwatch function this week.  I pressed start before I started brushing the acid on and looked at it when I was finished.  Because my phone was actually doing something, the screen didn’t fall asleep and I was able to get a more accurate timing by looking at what the time was when I was finished and mentally adding on three more minutes.  The results today look very much like they did after the first one.  I’m currently also incredibly shiny because of all of the lotion and using a regular body sunscreen with SPF 30 on my face post peel.

The recommendation is to increase the time one minute each week up to 7 minutes and to take a month off after 6 weeks.  At that point, I should start seeing a fading off redness.  What I wanted, but couldn’t find, was a week-by-week progression of pictures, so that’s what I’ll be doing.

I’m happy with the rest of my skincare routine for the moment with the exception of my sunscreen.  I’ve got the Oil of Olay sunscreen, but it’s only SPF 15.  I’ve got some regular sunscreen that’s SPF 30, but it leaves my face feeling very shiny and greasy.  I’m looking for a not-to-dear SPF 30 to use on my face and neck everyday.

ETA-I'm also looking at micellar water.  It's been over a decade since I've worn makeup though and most of the reviews are aimed at makeup removing ability.