Intense Pulsed Light (IPL) Treatment

In September I underwent a dermatological procedure called Intense Pulsed Light therapy.  Specific wavelengths of light are at targeted at various chromophores in the skin.  A chromophore is the part of a molecule responsible for its color. The color comes about when a molecule absorbs certain wavelengths of visible light and reflects or transmits others. The treatment is done over the entire surface of the face if there are a lot of brown spots, which was the case for me.

Here is a picture of how my face looked before the treatment.

I am 41 and have had great skin all my life.  I have not been a sun worshiper. My mother and aunt also have dark spots so a large part of the issue is genetic.  On the day of the appointment I sat for 30 minutes with numbing cream on my face and then a specialist performed the IPL therapy, which took 15 minutes.  From what i had read on the internet I expected the sensation during the therapy to feel like an elastic snapping onto my face.  It felt to me more like splatters of hot oil.  Afterwards my face was on fire.  What helped tremendously was applying aloe gel all over my face then sitting where the ceiling fan could blow on my face.  The pain lasted about 2 hours. This is a picture taken as soon as I got home from the therapy.

The next day my face was a mess of brown spots and the day after that even more. After 4 days I was thinking I would be living with dark brown spots on my face but then around day 6 my face started looking clearer.

Day after therapy this is what I looked like. There is absolutely no pain, however not looking so pretty.

Two days after there is a little bit of improvement. 

4 days afterwards I'm starting to get excited about the results.

6 days afterwards I am very pleased with how my skin looks.

12 days.  These are the results that I am left with (or so I think) and I can't be happier.

Great results, right?  My skin is smooth, bright, young looking.  However less than a month later I started seeing brown spots popping up again. Obviously it's not as bad as it was to begin with and I did expect some spots to return since the dermatologist advised me that they would, however they should not have started appearing until at least 9-12 months from the treatment.  I returned to the dermatologist and was told that the spots were actually tumors called keratoses that go deep down into many many layers of my skin.  There is a different treatment for these. It targets the spots individually with an intense light just like IPL,  however it pulses rapidly about three times on the one spot.  The results for this treatment are supposed to last much much longer with this treatment. I wondered why the dermatologist didn't just do this treatment instead of the IPL. She said that the IPL gets rid of the sunspots and then if there are brown spots left behind then they know those aren't caused by the sun and they are then targeted with this other treatment.  I think I may just wait a year and do the treatment at that time because I expected to have an IPL treatment completed again at that time.  In the meantime I am using retinol creams (skin tightener, skin brightener) Neutrogena 30 spf sunscreen aging cream, a 27% vitamin C serum plus CC cream and foundation.  If you have had skin treatments, what have your results been? What products do you swear by?  

Nothing Worked for Dark Spots

It's been over a month since I started using the moisturizer Aveeno Positively Radiant.  I use morning and night.  It has not made my face positively radiant, it has positively done nothing to improve my uneven skin tone.  Another disappointment. I guess I will have to just accept my face as it is.  I am thankful that I do not have face blemishes that cannot be at least partially covered with makeup. There are worse things in life than a few dark spots on my face.  The Estee Lauder Camouflage makeup that I purchased for $36 doesn't do what people say it does either.  Sure, it will cover the discoloration if you want to put on several layers of it and look like you have skin made of brown flour.  You won't look like you have smooth flawless skin, you'll look like you have layered on a whole container of foundation to cover something up.

I've started working out again and I've heard that's good for your skin, hair and nails so perhaps I'll see some results.  Groupon had a deal posted for Jazzercise and I like to dance (when no one is watching) and I saw the Jazzercise place just around the corner from my house so I bought the deal. Yesterday morning I got my workout gear on and had to keep telling myself that I had to go, it was going to be a hard workout but I would survive and I had to go.  So, I got my lazy self there and I was right...it WAS hard, very hard.  I pleaded in my mind, at one point, for the instructor to please start the cool down but she continued to keep our heart rates up.  Oh dear Lord help me.  Finally the agony was over and I had survived.  The instructor and the woman who worked at the front desk were super nice and a mature woman who was working out introduced herself to me.  She was so sweet. She was my inspiration. I'll go back tomorrow for another session and hopefully in a couple weeks I won't feel like crying in the middle of the workout because I'm just not strong enough to keep going.  Can we please just march in place for a few minutes while I catch my breath?

You know how unfair it is that you work out and get yourself in decent shape and then you stop working out and overnight you fall out of shape again.  Working out is not something you can do for a few months to get yourself looking and feeling good.  It's something you have to keep doing for the rest of your life if you want to be in shape.  It takes time and pain and motivation but it has to be a change you are willing to make for the long run.  How many times have you or someone you know gotten into great shape or lost some weight and then a couple years later they are back to where they started.  It's like giving birth to a child, we forget the pain we endured to get in shape and lose the weight.  Slowly the weight packs back on and the muscle we built up goes away and we have to start all over again.  I vow today that I will not let that happen to me again.  I am going to get my butt in shape (literally) and I will not let it sag again!!  Who's with me?

Frankincense and Castor Oil Didn't Help Me

I'm on this frustrating road to fix the sun spots, age spots, whatever their called spots on my face.  I wasn't a sun worshiper, I used sunscreen, I rarely burned and I've never been to a tanning salon. Since I've been married, 15 years, I think there was one vacation where I sat out and tanned.  My husband loves to sit and bake in the sun, I prefer to find some shade and read a book without having the sun glaring in my eyes. So, that is why these spots on my face are ticking me off.  I think that it's also genetic since my mom and aunt have uneven skin tone. I should have started using spot correctors earlier then I would have possibly been able to prevent the spots from appearing.

I used the castor oil and frankincense oil mixture for almost two weeks and then I switched over to just using the frankincense on my spots. Despite the awful smell of the stuff they did nothing for my spots or the pigment above my lip.  I am quite sure that the darkness above my lip is due to the Nair I used in my early 20s.  I seriously think that it destroyed some skin cells while it was burning the hair of my face! It's like burning the skin on a chicken, you can't just make it go back to golden brown once it's gone to black.  It's skin damage and the only way to fix it permanently is to go to a dermatologist. My quick fix solution is to buy makeup to cover it up.  So far none of the make up I have purchased at the drug stores have covered it up so I'm going to Belk to buy Estee Lauder Double Wear Maximum Cover Camouflage Makeup.  (with a name that long it's got to be good!).  It has excellent reviews by people who are over 40 which makes the reviews more relevant to me.  I see these reviews of products that say a product work great, it made their skin look so wonderful..ya da ya da ya da.  these reviewers are in their 20's!  Tell me how good the product works when you get past 40 please.  When you're in your 20's everything works.

So, I'll let you know how the Estee Lauder Camouflage makeup works and if it doesn't then my last resort is to go the dermatologist route.

I did purchase one more product in one last ditch effort to find something to fix the damage. Jennifer Aniston advertises this product, Aveeno positively radiant moisturizer.  I don't have high hopes for it but I just can't seem to stop buying products.  I also purchased some products from The Body Shop that I've been using for at least a week. These products had great reviews.  People said they saw a difference in their skin almost immediately!  The one product is Vitamin C Skin Boost.  It is supposed to give you a silky smooth finish and it really does.  If your goal is to have skin that feels silky then this is a product for you, however I don't stroke my face all day and no one else does either. Essentially this product is a primer with vitamin C in it.  If you purchase a primer to put on under your makeup you'll get pretty much the same thing as this.  The other product is a Vitamin C Facial Radiance Powder.  It's a powder that you mix in with a serum and that mixture is what you put on your face. You use it for 10 days and within that time the results you should see are improved skin tone and texture.  The reviews were so phenomenal that I bought a few of these.  My results?  No difference in skin!  Zip, Zero, Nada!!! Perhaps it'll take longer to see a difference.  I'll keep you posted.

Keep your chin up (but wear sunscreen).

Small Town Living

I grew up in a small town in Ontario (Canada) and enjoyed it. I could walk to the store, although it was probably a 20 minute walk but it was safe and there were sidewalks. I could ride my bike without care or concern.  I played in the woods down the road from my house and in winter skated on a small patch of ice there, running home to get hot chocolate when my feet felt like ice blocks.  The school I attended wasn't overpopulated like the schools I see here in the USA. We had 2 grade 8 classes, so a total of maybe 60 kids in our graduating class. We all knew each other.  It was a great small town life. That's one of the reasons my husband and I chose a small town to raise our kids. He grew up in a small town too.

Being kids in a small town, not adults,  meant we didn't hear about the gossip that went around town or in church.  I'm sure it was there but we were too busy being kids to notice.  Now we're adults and our eyes were rudely opened when we moved to a small town down South.  We thought the South was supposed to about hospitality and friendliness.  Apparently not everyone got the memo.

When we moved here a neighbor brought over a fern to welcome us and I thought that was so nice, even though I just have to hold a plant and it will wilt in my hands because it knows it's going to die soon so it might as well kill itself before I have a chance to kill it.  Anyways, that friendship with those neighbors lasted a few months before we saw the claws come out on the grandma, the head of that household, and we steered clear of anything to do with her and her grand kids from that day forward.  It was a bit tense in the cul-de-sac for a while.

I won't go into the gory details but suffice it to say that rumors spread fast in a small town.  If something happens at school then the kids bring home the details, not usually accurately, and then the parents talk to their friends about it and the details get even more skewed. Then there are the police who have nothing better to do than stop kids for just walking around town or riding their skateboards.  Kids can't just be kids and hang out?  As soon as the police in town knew a kid's name they were sure to let other people they were in contact with know that kid's 'reputation' and let the parents know they should stay clear of them.  Do you know that a kid will do what you expect them to do? So if they figure you don't have any confidence in them to do right then they'll think there's no use in doing right because you expect them to do wrong anyways.  They will be as good as your expectations about them are.  This plays out in schools, at home, in society.
The principal, I think, found it fun to interrogate kids.  He should have gone into police work instead.  His philosophy, as far as I can tell, was that it's better to get them out of 'his' school than to have them there contaminating the hallways and classrooms with their 'bad selves'.  Whether getting them out meant juvenile detention or alternative school, either one would work for him. And don't expect him to keep things confidential. He would call parents and tell them that the friend their kid was choosing to hang out with was bad news and they should do something to stop the friendship. There was no attempt to help the troubled kids at school. There were too many kids to do that. It's just easier to get them out of that school.

So, in the end I've come to the conclusion that small town living isn't for me (not here anyways).  Perhaps things are different in the town we moved from in Canada.  Before we moved I didn't see anything like what I saw in the small town down here.  Kids could ride their bikes and walk around without being stopped by police, parents stood outside school waiting to pick their kids up after school and we talked, principals cared and had time for students. There weren't arrests and suspensions like I've seen here.  We've since moved out of that small town of drama and gossip and are living much more peacefully. Praise God.

Castor Oil and Frankincense

I'm on the fence about the Hydroquinone.  The fact that a country banned the use of it is a huge factor in whether I should use it for 30 days or not.  If we consider the fact that the food we consume probably has cancer causing agents in it why would using a beauty product with a 'potentially' harmful ingredient in it concern me.  If I researched everything that is in my meat alone I'm sure I would find something the animals were given to increase their desirability to producers that is harmful to me. I breathe toxic air from pollution every day.  So why worry about using a beauty product that has an ingredient in it that dermatologists prescribe to their customers?

There's a natural route I am going to try for the next 2 weeks.  The internet said that within 2 weeks of using this mixture I should see results.  The spots won't be gone but I should see something happening.  It's Frankincense (the essential oil not a cheap oil you find at a department store.  it's from Young Living but you can get it another brand at health stores I'm sure) mixed with castor oil.  Mix 10 drops of frankincense with 1 tablespoon of castor oil in a container that doesn't let in light and can be sealed air tight.  Put the mixture on your dark spots or if you have a cluster of spots then use it over that area.  You can use this on your body as well.  Do NOT get it near your eyes.  It is reported that you should see fading of spots in 2 weeks and up to 2 months to see them disappear.  I'm not expecting disappearing of spots but faded enough to cover with makeup would be great.

The picture above was taken last September before I started using a cream with alpha hydroxy in it.  The picture below is today.  It's worse.  If you notice there's at the top left that's reddish.  After using two products from Selma Hayek's line of products one of the brown spots turned into a red scab and this is what the final result of that is.  I'm going to try the castor oil / frankincense mixture and post picture in a couple weeks.  In the meantime I'll be posting comments about products I've used over the last couple years, obviously all a waste of money although my face is hydrated and there's sunscreen in the moisturizer.  

Until next time....be an inspiration to someone.  

Update: I mixed the castor oil and frankincense.  I put it in a tupperware container that seals airtight then wrapped the bottom and top with tin foil.  I hope that keeps the light out.  I put the first application on with q-tips. It feels greasy on my face, doesn't absorb as it said on the internet. I'll use my daily moisturizer and see if that helps get rid of the sticky greasy feel.  

I hit the 40 mark last June and feel like since then I've aged 5 years. Have you ever looked at pictures of yourself from days gone by and wondered what beauty flaws you had to complain about back then?  I know that I never appreciated my unblemished skin, my naturally curly hair, my full lips.  Dang I should have appreciated what I had in my 20's and 30's.  In 10 years from now will I look at pictures of myself from right now and say the same thing?  Yes, probably.  It's not like I'm getting any younger and I can say in 10 years that I look better than I did 10 years ago (unless of course I get plastic surgery and that's not on the wish list unless they come up with a more user friendly version of face lifts).

When I look in the mirror I see skin that used to be firm and flawless but is now dull and scattered with dark spots of different shades.  It seems like just a short time ago I was able to go out without wearing any makeup.  Where did the time go? It seriously feels like I just woke up one day and my face had changed. What next? I didn't even get time to adjust.  Aging just hit me without warning.

So, what can I do about it?  Well, ladies, if you're in the same boat as me you've probably been online or to the stores searching high and low for a miracle in a bottle.   Since we're all aging there has to be something out there to help us slow down the process without having to get laser treatments or having all the dead cells scraped off our faces.  I've tried many products and I'll share the names of the products in another post but for now I want to tell you about an ingredient I discovered in a product I just purchased but have not yet used.

The ingredient is HYDROQUINONE.   You may also see an impure form of hydroquinone found in the ingredients TOCOPHERAL ACETATE and other ingredients that start with the root TOCO.  It is used in products that reduce dark spots because of it's ability to decrease melanin production in the skin.  Products sold as non-prescription can have up to 2% of hydroquinone and prescription strength up to 4%.   This ingredient has been banned in Europe because of its side effects and the USA FDA has proposed banning it and labeling it as a carcinogen.  The Campaign of Safe Cosmetics website (safecosmetics.org) stated that it is one of the most toxic ingredients being used in cosmetics.  In lab tests on rats it has caused leukemia. Some people who used products with this ingredient long term (it doesn't say how long the term was) and in high dosages (it doesn't mention what  a large dose is) developed ochronosis, a bluish discoloring of the skin.  This was mainly found to occur in persons of color.  The ingredient has also been found to thin the skin, leaving irreversible stretch marks. One other thing I read was that it causes a degeneration of collagen and elasticity fibers.  Well that's great.  We won't have the age spots but we'll have saggy skin.  I can sort of cover up age spots but I can't pin up saggy skin.  Here is an article I found helpful
http://www.jernehbysheilamajid.com/hydroquinone-dangers.asp.  A differing viewpoint can be found on Paula's Choice website where she disagrees with the research findings (or rather puts them in a different light. http://www.paulaschoice.com/cosmetic-ingredient-dictionary/definition/hydroquinone.

Personally I would rather be safe than sorry.  I don't want to take the chance that in the future the researchers will discover more evidence linking beauty products with the ingredient hydroquinone in it to cancer. What is the alternative to products with hydroquinone? Is there anything that's just as good that isn't super expensive?  I'll do some searching and get back here to report tomorrow.  I can tell you that there are some natural remedies that may work.  Lemon juice (didn't work for me though), castor oil (I bought a bottle last month but only used for a short time, not long enough to see if it makes a difference), buttermilk, yogurt, aloe vera, sandlewood, horseradish, papaya, red currants, onion juice.  I'll read up on these , as well as frankincense and let you know what I find.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder....and the only beholder we need to be concerned about is God.

Keep smiling because today is a blessed day.