It’s that time again! The time where I put makeup-free photos of myself on the internet for the world to see. I’ll be honest, I don’t wear a lot of makeup, but I’m pretty attached to the makeup that makes my skin look smooth and even and covers up any imperfections. Putting makeup-free photos up is not my favorite thing. The things I do for you all!
So, a little Retin A update for you guys:
I’ve been using Retin A for close to two months now. I think that it’s enough time to check in and share what I think thus far, though not enough time to be conclusive about my opinions on Retin A. I’ll be back in a couple months with another update sharing more of my thoughts.
To those of you who weighed in at the beginning and on Instagram telling me to stick it out through the horrible dry, scaly, flaky skin phase: Thank you! I wouldn’t have been able to stick with it if it wasn’t for your encouragement telling me it was totally normal to have my skin react horribly at first. I started off using Retin A every other day at night before bed. To this day, I still am only using it every other day because my skin gets too dry if I use it every day, despite my best efforts at moisturizing to combat the dryness.
People weren’t joking when they said that their skin got miserably dry and raw. I had severe dryness around my mouth which resulted in peeling skin, raw skin and even some scabs later on. Totally horrible. At one point when my skin looked particularly bad, Joe asked me, “Are you going to take a picture of that for you blog readers?” Ha! Gotta love my husband for keeping me honest. But I couldn’t bring myself to take a photo. I also noticed a lot of additional small breakouts during this time, which I’ve been told is part of the “purging” process while on Retin A.
However, after the initial month and a half of dry skin and flakiness, things really started to turn around! My skin started to soften and become smoother, my complexion started to clear up and I became really pleased with Retin A. I don’t think my skin has ever felt this smooth, which I’m totally crediting to it. You may notice that I still have some uneveness in the photo above. Those are not new acne marks, but spots that have started to fade and go away. I would guess that within the next couple weeks, things should be completely clear, which is exciting!
Right now, I am very pleased with the progress my skin is making. I can’t really speak to the impact that Retin A has on fine lines yet. I have a few fine lines on my face, but I think that Retin A takes a while to show results on those areas, from what I’ve been told.
So I think that is it! And since we are talking beauty products, does anyone want to share what products they have been loving lately? I’m in need of a new mascara, eye shaddow and lipstick in the near future!
Madison
Related: Retin A: My first post