Maybe You Too Recently Needed a Product Breakup

This is the run on sentence of my life that also is, in a way, my actual face:

I had a skin reaction to Trying Too Hard not long ago and took a one month experiment (in drama math, that’s like a year) to pause whatever the hell was offending my delicate sensibilities, and slowly rebuild my wholly neurotic mug one mug of moisturizer at a time. Time, as my tincture.

I am not a patient person.

I’m so impatient that I can’t be bothered to read the run-on sentence of my face that’s about to happen. “Can’t we just skim?”

But I pretended to be patient against all odds (honestly, I’m sort of inspiring), and pulled back to just cold creams like Ponds and the thick Jergens “pink cream” that is its own animal (the crème de la drugstore) and began to add and adjust painstakingly slowly until a month later, I found things that surprised even me (someone who writes about her damn face and then has the lack of shame to post it).

But what is working, you didn’t ask?

Here is the run-on resolution:

Right now, I am hunkering down on the metaphoric skincare bunker stocked with the following:

Cold cream or Albolene for dry cleansing by day and layers of moisture at all times…

A Buf Puf gently with a baby oil gel (Vaseline or Albolene with micellar for makeup removal) at night…

A zombie mask once a week as my “facial”…

“Tret on wet” at night as the priority (but I even read about someone who swears by it twice per day! Can you imagine? I’ll collect fringe data out of curiosity but so far I’m not convinced it’s the bees knees even once a day. Time shall tell on the merely daily investment)… creams over serums, always (not literally. I just like them more than serums most of the time)…

And a new cheap-*ss red light thing from Amazon whenever I can because of SAD (feeling affected on my fainting couch but also… winter doesn’t want a dalliance with me).

The red light isn’t really part of the resolution yet - it was the classic creams and one careful Buff Puff a day that really got things looking brighter, despite how swollen it had become - but it still feels relevant because maybe one day it will be. It’s not the fancy kind that fits around your face (insert money bag emojis) but I’m still using it vaguely near my face in the seasonal disorder sense after YEARS of researching it’s therapeutic usage, not being able to afford and assuming it’s like knock-off salt lamps (placebos that glow?) but zero clues if it works for face in any way yet.

Maybe you too recently needed a product breakup and breakdown to figure out what works. Maybe you too found that breaking a rule actually helped you (please share in the comments: I beg, I beg!)

And though only a person with no shame would dare to write a Part Two to a paragraphs about her face…

I’m not patient enough to edit this down to one.

Stay tuned for more of “The Side Effects Set”, a recurring feature on Catching Breaths… with the second part tomorrow! (I write every weekday here and haven’t broken that promise since beginning this working memoir and magazine of sorts, even with two hospital stays in one month!)

I know your support is precious… time is fleeting… and none of the above should be taken for granted.

If you believe more “Beauty Secrets” and “Days in the Life” SHOULD include people with chronic illness, please feel free to share share share.