Only me .....

You know - there is a reason I am just not a total girly girl.  I do try .... I mean I have an unhealthy obsession with purses at least (of course I don't often purchase them because the tightwad in me is stronger than the girls who loves her purses.... but I do like to look ...)

I'm not that in to or very good at hair and makeup
My wardrobe leans towards the comfy and casual side
My fingernails and toenails rarely see polish ....

but I keep trying ....
remember this story from last year?

Well - here's another one for the books (or...well...the blog anyway)

So - our October was crazy.  We were traveling here there and everywhere and squeezing in every sort of celebration you can imagine.  I'd recap it all but I'm too lazy.  If you're curious - you can take a look at the pictures here.

Knowing that my October would be insane and knowing that I would be just a little more stressed than usual, I decide to book a facial for myself when I saw that a nearby salon/spa had a %40 off going.  So I hemmed and hawed over which one and finally settled on the botanical skin resurfacing facial.

The day of my facial came and I was so looking forward to it.  A whole hour of just laying in a dark quiet room - heaven!  Seriously - she could have dimmed the lights, played the music and slathered mayo on my face and I would have been just as happy.  After it was done my skin looked and felt great.  No more dark circles under my eyes, no more tired and drawn look.

BUT THEN

I have had one facial before and I know that sometimes they bring impurities to the surface and you can break out a little afterwards.  So when I noticed a few bumps around my hairline the next day I decided to use my face scrub to keep them at bay.  This is a face scrub I have used forever - just a cheap St. Ives scrub I buy at the grocery store.  So my facial was Wednesday and by Friday I had used the scrub twice and my face was now on FIRE.  It was red - it was bumpy and if I could have, I would have clawed my own flesh off to relieve the itching and burning.  Saturday I went back to the salon/spa  to ask them if they had seen this happen before and if they could give me some sort of cooling gel to relieve the pain.  The girl at the desk had no idea - she called up the manager of the salon/spa - she had no idea.  I am looking at ingredient lists on the products used in my facial, they are telling me to go see a pharmacist or call my doctor.  But then - the token gay, male, hairdresser comes up front for his client that is checking in and he joins in the conversation.  He starts asking me what is in the scrub I use and tosses out a few suggestions.  I was fairly certain of the ingredients in my scrub since I have used it forever so we dialogued back and forth and hit on a few ingredients that could have been the source of my reaction.  He then tells me that these are known to react horribly with the products used in my facial (yeah - would have been nice to know that BEFORE I went home from the facial) 

So basically - I had my skin resurfaced during my facial and then proceeded to give myself a home version of a chemical peel on that fresh layer of skin.  Yeah - OUCH. For about 2 weeks I looked like I had a massive sunburn on just my face.  I couldn't put anything on to cover it up either because that only made it look and feel worse. As I write this it is November 27 and I have yet to use anything but water and occasionally an Oil of Olay wipe to clean my face. I cannot use soap or any other kind of cleanser and it will  be a long time before I try any kind of scrub again. I finally down to applying moisturizer only 2 times a day but I am still applying eye creme about 3-4 times a day to keep the deep lines and flakes at bay.... But on the plus side - my skin is really, really smooth and any discoloration from sun damage and hormone shifts is pretty much gone.

This, my friends, THIS is exactly why I need to always have a girly friend nearby .....