“Gave Myself my First TCA Peel Today - Bay Area, CA”

I got the 30% TCA solution from Amazon and read the instructions carefully. I did a test yesterday on my neck, diluting it a little with water first. It barely stung and never frosted so I figured I'd go ahead and use the full strength on my face. Well, I had a lot of anxiety about doing this to myself but, wow, there was nothing to it! I Q-tipped it on, one side first, then waited about 90 seconds, rinsed, then did the other half. That was a good plan because my face started frosting right away. I should mention that I've been using retinol for 8 months leading up to this, so perhaps that's why I could take the 30% strength.

Anyway, how easy! It hardly hurt at all, and after I rinsed it off with cold water I just felt a little warm, and no pain at all. I don't like ointments so I opted to just dab on some Noxema skin cream and my face feels good, just a tad stiff. Can't wait to see what happens next. What's interesting to me is I've done alph-hydroxy peels and I hate them -- they hurt and they don't make any noticable difference. I'm hoping a TCA peel will actually do something! Anyway, I'll post again in a couple of days.

Updated on 26 Sep 2011:

Okay, it's been 24 hours and my face looks and feels almost completely normal. I'm thinking I probably didn't leave the solution on long enough. Anyway, we'll see...maybe my face will fall off tomorrow and I'll change my mind about that ;)

Also, I said I'd done alpha-hydroxy peels before and didn't like them. I meant to say "glycolic" peels. I really think the glycolic acid peels are a total waste of time.

Updated on 27 Sep 2011:
Okay, two days later, not much happening. My face looks and feels pretty normal, but for a bit of tightness, dryness and slight bit of redness. I don't think it's going to peel much, but I'll see what happens tomorrow.

Updated on 28 Sep 2011:
Three days out, I'm peeling a little, not much. One interesting thing, I did my neck and put it on in a low area that I wasn't using the retinol on. It turned that area brown almost immediately. All the rest of my face and neck looks normal but for a bit of peeling.

Updated on 30 Sep 2011:
Five days out now. My face has been peeling off in flakes. It's revealing skin underneath that looks better though nothing dramatic. But this is good for a first go. My neck, however, is having a bit of trouble. I obviously overdid it there because unfortunately I didn't read anything about how ultra-sensitive the neck is to chemical peel until AFTER I did it. I'm sure it'll be alright, but for now it's really itching. I'm using aloe vera on it. Still just dabbing Noxema skin cream on my face, which is working out well. I don't have dry skin and I also can't stand greasy creams or ointments.

Updated on 1 Oct 2011:
Six days out-- My face is looking good and there are just a few residual flakes here and there. My skin has a better, silkier texture now. I would say this went perfectly on my face. Unfortunately, my neck is still itching and crusty (not infected though). I'm still surprised at how differently my neck reacted to this peel.

Updated on 2 Oct 2011:
Seven days out -- still some skin shedding going on with my face, but it's going well. Neck is coming along but I really am surprised at how differently my neck reacted to the 30% percent TCA solutioin. If I ever do my neck again I think I'll delute it down to 10%. The neck is not only much more sensitive, it's much slower to heal.

Updated on 3 Oct 2011:
Seven days out-- Still a little bit of flaking going on toward the edges of my face. The new skin on my face looks very nice. My neck is doing fine. The crusty stuff started coming off last night and there appears to be nice skin underneath, though a few spots are reddish. I'm feeling good about all of this, at this point.

Updated on 3 Oct 2011:
Sorry, that previous post I just made was actually at "eight days out".

I guess there is no "edit" capacity for these postings or updates...

Updated on 4 Oct 2011:
Nine days out -- Well I would call this a success with the caveat that I should have used a milder concentration of TCA on my neck. But that said, my neck is looking very good except for a few pink spots which I figure will fade in a few weeks. The improvement in my face is slight, so I intend to do two to three more peels on my face, spaced two weeks apart. When it's all over, I'll probably post before and after pictures.

Updated on 29 Jan 2012:
It's been 4 months now and I've done 4 30% TCA peels on my face. Not a huge difference in my face for the most part. My skin looks nice, and I do think the wrinkles under my eyes have been lessened, but the TCA peel doesn't make an enormous difference, or at least it didn't for me. I'll probably do this occasionally from this point on though because it does seem to help the eye area, and does rejuvenate the face to some degree.

Updated on 28 Feb 2012:
Conclusion: So about six months have passed now, and I'm assessing the results of my four 30% TCA peels again. I still see very little difference, except for my eyes, where I used the solution in the under-eye area. It did improve that area, but the peels did very little for my forehead, absolutely nothing for my chin, and nothing in the way of overall tightening. I'm probably not going to do TCA peels again for any area other than my eyes. I'm using the derma stamp now, and so I'll be posting about that as I go, in the derma rolling section.