TCA Peel! - Dark Skin, Hyperpigmentation, Frosting - Grand Rapids, MI

So now its 2 weeks later. I did eventually peel day 3 and on. I did a very good job of keeping my face moisturized for the first 2 days like I had read. Started peeling noticeably by day 3 and day 4 I was taking showers to help the peel progress because it had started to get itchy and uncomfortable. Daily I use the lotion concoction I made. My skin tone/complexion did improve noticeably as well as texture. Then by a week down started getting a little acne, a few hair bumps but nothing major, or unexpected for my skin type. So now, or yesterday rather, I painted myself once again in Trichloroacetic acid, with my paint brush, in a quick fashion, for now I see that time is of the essence with this process. Once I had an even layer on my face I waited until I seen a frosting a little more dramatic than last time. Areas around healing pimples frosted first but by 2 minutes I had developed a pretty even frosting. Frosting is a word I purposely put into the title of this blog because I feel if one understands what frosting is and the different levels of frosting they will be more confident and wise about using TCA peel. You can google sources that will show and explain the several levels of frosting. The most important thing about frosting other than it will tell you where you will have the most peeling, it tells you when its time to neutralize the peel. I made it to about 2 and a half minutes with one layer, this time, regardless of the fact that this is a supposed self neutralizing peel I felt I had enough tingly going on, on my face, and that the frosting was adequate for a nice peel. I once again spot treated the area on my cheek with the most hyperpigmentation, I did so by not concentrating on time but rather the amount of frosting. The thing about frosting is if you can gauge the level of frosting on your face you can anticipate your downtime. The more frosting you have, the more possibility of dramatic results but only at the cost of higher downtime and higher level of medical care to your face post peel. I feel that unless you can afford to stay inside your house for 1wk plus, a lighter peel is preferable. After my first peel the peeling started on day 3 and lasted for several days afterwards. But more importantly the duration of time that my face spent being in its most vulnerable stages post peel was shorten to 1-2.5 days. Trust me, you want this, this means your face can pretty much fend for itself by day 3-4 and that everything else you apply is just a bonus versus a complete necessity. Now after you have successfully completed several peels if you still want to try longer tca application times or stronger concentrations, you will already know what to expect, and how to deal with it. I will update once again after I have gone through the motions of this peel. Goodnight.

Ok, I am a 31 year old African American male, with some White and Native American in my genetic history. I had acne really bad in school and now that it has subsided, have set out to gain perfect skin tone.

I have done Glycolic Acid Peels in the past with no substantial results. I felt that I had really tough skin and started with a 70% GA peel. They hurt sooooooooooooo bad, barely could make the 2 minute mark! Skin, afterwards, was more fresh in the way of rawness, but never did I peel or improve noticeably in the concerns of overall skin tone. I did 70% GA treatments about 1/wk until the bottle was gone. Towards the end of the bottle I had to back off on frequency of treatment and duration because it just hurt so bad and I could tell it was starting to irritate my skin. So much time has passed (1 year), no improvement or worsening of skin tone and when I discovered TCA, immediately bought a bottle of 100% strength. Ok now stop, even before the GA treatments there was a time I used an unknown product (weak) from a plastic surgery place. I, like always, was not satisfied with results and began to overly use the product until it penetrated deep enough to produce peeling. There were some areas where pink skin was underneath the flaking skin, but thank God I somehow was smart enough to keep my face moisturized during that time, all the skin turned back to its normal cooler and as well did I see improvement of some really bad hyperpigmentation spots that I still have not completely removed.

So now, now I have done a TCA peel at 16% first layer, then 12.5% 3 more layers. The procedure went like this. I diluted the 100% TCA to 16.6 percent and applied. I noticed very light frosting on one cheek and freaked and jumped in the already running shower and neutralized with baking soda water. The TCA could not of been on my face 60 seconds.... I felt as if the frosting was light enough to go at it again, but I diluted my mix to 12.5 percent for obvious reasons. So I apply another layer, and as soon as I felt any tingling/burning like sensation, I would freak out and jump into the shower and neutralize. I did this about 3 times and eventually end with a slightly even, very light frosting. And I do mean very light. Afterwards I applied my already self prepared concoction, containing - small amount of honey (for anti bacterial properties), generous amounts of Shea butter, Aquaphor, Bio-Oil, and 100 SPF sun screen, all melted together. My skin is already littered with hyper-pigmentation spots from each pimple that I have ever gotten....ever....so its hard to tell but for the most part nothing really got "darker". I did spot treat my worst area on my cheek to make sure to produce a very light frost, and I did notice it did get slightly darker. I did the procedure at about 6 this morning so I'm still day 1 I guess.....=/.... I am tempted to do another layer, right now, because I feel like I should have just let it sit on my face for a full 5 minutes, instead of doing several back to back sessions that lasted maybe 45 seconds each with neutralization's in between each. But with that being said, I did do something like 3 minutes if you add it up.....and it is still day 1 so as usual, I am just really anxious for some results! Pictures Soon!