Tuna's Face Peel

Tuna is my beautician.  She has been a lifesaver in the grooming department and I have started to visit her routinely once a week.  This woman is not Tuna, but she looks a lot like her.  

During one visit I told Tuna about doing chemical peels on myself, and made the remark, "I could have you looking like a spring chicken."  She was very enthusiastic about this idea, and said, "Well, do it."  

I was already planning to do some peels myself, and so I ordered all the peels, and whatnot.  On the next visit, which was a month ago now, I arrived for my appointment ready to do a Jessner's peel on Tuna after my hair was fluffed.

Tuna had had gastric bypass surgery and lost over 100 pounds, which can cause sagging skin.  Honestly, I don't think it has too, but it had in Tuna's case, since she had lost volume in the face.  

But on that day, around December 27th, Tuna decided that she wanted to wait until after New Year's for a peel.  OK.  

In my mind I planned the course of action for Tuna.  I planned to give her a Jessner's peel because it is a very light, superficial peel.  It's about the level of a sunburn in intensity and it is self neutralizing and almost impossible to screw up.  It's available over the counter.  Really, Tuna is perfectly capable of doing this herself.  

And then?  Then I hoped to assess Tuna's level of pain tolerance, and how her skin reacted.  Some people, and I'm one of them, just don't feel much pain from superficial chemical peels.  Their skin gets brown, a layer peels off, and they look refreshed.  But then some people are much more sensitive.  Therefore one needs to test the waters and find their level.  

Tuna doesn't use the internet, and unlike me, hasn't watched a million hours of Youtube videos on all things about chemical peels.  I'm not that interested in seeing a doctor's office do a peel.  I like to see what people do at home.  Over and over.  Any missteps, any bits of advice, which none of the doctors will give you.  Doctors will  just say, "Don't do this at home."  

Am I licensed?  No.  I am a watcher of Youtube.  Should I start giving other people chemical peels?  Well, I don't think I should set up shop somewhere as an esthetician.  But I think, at least I thought until yesterday, that it would be OK to give Tuna instruction on the techniques of a superficial peel.  

Anyway, since Tuna is uninformed about chemical peels, and even most doctors are, even the ones that do chemical peels, there were a lot of gaps in her knowledge about what ideally should happen to make her into a spring chicken.  But I did think it was perfectly possible, for not much money.  It would take some time though.  One peel wouldn't do it unless it was a deep peel that you can only get medically for a whole lot of money.  Did Tuna need surgery?  

Surgery for anti aging  and wrinkles is an interesting question.  Did you know that cosmetic surgery doesn't get rid of wrinkles?  What gets rid of wrinkles?  Chemical peel or laser.  Which is better?  I think there is equal benefit.  It costs a fortune to have laser, hundreds or thousands of dollars, but one can do a chemical peel for about $25.  Why are lasers so expensive?  Mostly to pay for the laser machine.  Who told me this?  A cosmetic surgeon.  Or they could offer a chemical peel, charge a fortune for it too, and their own cost was $25.  Well, not to say there's no value in a doctor doing a peel, but I think there's not much point in seeing a doctor for a superficial peel. 

I tried my best to explain to Tuna what I saw as a good plan for her.  Start with a Jessner's peel.  Possibly even several Jessner's peels, maybe every other week.  Then one day assess where you're at, and go on to TCA peels, probably starting at about 15%.  Then hopefully go up to 25 - 35% TCA.  A 35% TCA peel is what will usually be done at a doctor's office, but an experienced person can do it at home.  However, there isn't much hand holding when you do that.  

Tuna probably would benefit from a neck lift, but if it were me, I think I would try something like threading.  

Tuna wasn't absorbing much of what I told her.  She seemed to imagine I was about to do something MAJOR.  She wasn't at all sure about this, even though I had tried to explain that this is one step above putting aspirin in a glass, crushing it, and putting that on your face.  And how many peels would it take?  How many had I done?  I have done lots of peels, all starting last winter.  How often?  About once a month until around June, when it's time for one's face to rest, and the sunlight is too much.  But since it's winter now, it's time to start again.  "You don't need a peel!" Tuna exclaimed.  "I need maintenance," I said.  In reality, I still have lots of hyper pigmentation and little growths that I wish would go away.  Most of the peels I had done had been very superficial and the actual downtime when I was uncomfortable about looking odd was a couple of days each.  I suppose she thought every chemical peel was burning your face off with downtime of about two weeks each, intense pain, and fraught with danger.  

Well, I haven't even gotten to the story.  I came to the beauty shop yesterday with all the items to do a Jessner's peel, including Lidocaine cream if she wanted it.  I hate Lidocaine and don't feel it does much good.  No she didn't want any Lidocaine.  

Tuna did my hair and I chatted about post peel care, mostly being sure to apply moisturizer and sunscreen, take vitamin C, and splash your face with water and pat it, rather than scrub, since you could easily scrub a layer of skin off that wasn't ready.  

She hurried a bit on the hairstyling, and asked how long it took to do a peel.  "Well, on Youtube it seems to take about two minutes, but it seems to take me 10 or 15."  "Well, I only have five minutes," she said.  ?????????????????????????  How so?  If she only had five minutes, why were we doing this now, instead of on her off time?  

"If you see someone come in here with a clipboard, tell them you're me," she said.  Huh?  "Are you expecting someone to come it with a clipboard?" I asked.  I suppose it's not kosher for me to bend over someone who is a beautician while they are lying with their head in the shampoo sink, but that was only a convenience.  No ladies were shampooed in this story.  I usually even shampoo my own hair before I come.  Truth be known, I do a better job.  

"OK, Miss Tuna, we'll be doing a five minute peel.  Now the peel is supposed to sit on your face for five minutes."  I was going to ask her to put in the gel artificial tear eyedrops I use, just as a precaution.  It protects if a drop should get in the eye.  Not interested.  OK.  

"Anyway," she started, "I only want the bottom half of the left side of my face done."  "Why is that?" I asked.  "That's where I have wrinkles."  "But Tuna, this isn't going to have much effect on your wrinkles anyway."  So she gave in to both sides of her face.  BUT, don't do her neck, her forehead, around her mouth, her nose....  "Huh?"  This was getting weird.  She wanted a face peel that didn't involve her face?  

So she laid back with her head in the shampoo sink, and I got out the gauze pads, acetone (nail polish remover), and Jessner's peel.  I looked over her face, and realized I had never scrutinized her face before.  She truly had a lovely face, but weight loss, age, and sun damage had taken a toll.  The sun damage was more than I had realized, and she had numerous little brown spots, freckles and blotchy places.  "Tuna are you wearing makeup?"  "Just a little blush."  I was amazed that she hadn't even thought to wash her face. She seemed to be resisting washing her face.  Not only that, she wouldn't even remove her glasses, I suppose feeling they would somehow protect her. It too seemed weird.  

Finally I decided to use the acetone to wipe off her face.  If I thought things were weird before, I hadn't seen nothing.  I swiped her face with a gauze pad soaked in fingernail polish remover, to get the oils off her face so the peel could work on the skin.  I held up the gauze with all the grime on it in the hopes that she would see she really needed to wash her face and that even then there would be stuff that needed cleaned off with the nail polish remover.  My gaze went from the gauze to Tuna's face, to check her reaction.  She had a crazed look in her eye, and she began to speak in a weird, high pitched, spooky voice.  This was one swipe with a piece of gauze with nail polish remover on it, not burning at the stake.  She probably thought nail polish remover is chemical peel acid.  It does smell bad.  The other option was rubbing alcohol.  She claimed that she couldn't breathe, she was choking, smothering, etc.  "So you want to go wash your face?" I asked.  She flew to the bathroom and splashed some water on and patted it off.  "Just like you told me," she said.  Hmmm.   OoooooooK.  

"Didn't you do a patch test behind my ear with the Jessner's peel to see if I was allergic to it?" she asked, to my horror may I say.  I suppose I should have said yes, but I couldn't think of what she was talking about.  "You remember," she insisted.  I finally claimed to remember.  Well, what is Jessner's peel?  Mostly salicylic acid, the same as what's in aspirin.  Yes, allergy is possible.  It had not occurred to me.  

Since by the time Tuna had finished with eliminating nearly everywhere on her face as needing a peel, there were only two small areas, about 3" x 3" of face left.  I foolishly poured some Jessner's peel in a dish.  I wish I had just poured water in, because I have no doubt her reaction would have been just the same as the chaos that ensued after those two areas were dabbed slightly with Jessner's peel.  

Tuna began to protest extremely loudly and vigorously and screamed that she was choking and could not breathe.  ??????  She leapt up from the shampoo sink and sat down in a chair, and panted in a dramatic and dare I say, theatrical way.  Her end was near.  But but.  I hadn't even done anything.  She hadn't even had a peel.  I touched her with gauze and she was running around clutching her throat and gasping.  "The smell! The smell! It's choking me!! I'm smothering!!" she shrieked.  I had never noticed that Jessner's had any smell. 

Hélène go sit down.  I sat in the styling chair and wondered what to do.  Tuna sat and panted, looking terrified.  I sat and puzzled.  Was Tuna asthmatic?  Did she have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease? She had never told me about breathing problems, or seemed to have any.  Besides that, she was a beautician, constantly spraying hairspray, putting dyes and permanents on people's hair, and all manner of stuff that gags me.  

All eyes in the beauty shop were on me.  

"I can't do any more of this," Tuna stated, in a manner that suggested that I had been twisting her arm to do this and she was rearing up on her hind legs and refusing to put up with more of my abuse.  But why would I?  There was no money involved, not even reimbursement for the peel.  I had thought Tuna would be happy.  Tuna was not happy, not happy at all.  In fact, I had the feeling the friendship might be coming to an end.  

"There are lots of other ways of going about improving your skin," I said.  "One is derma rolling, or if you could use a micro needling pen. Then also, Retin A will do everything a peel would do, but it takes longer.  Lasers..."  I'm pretty sure Tuna wouldn't like derma rolling or micro needling either.  Or lasers.  There's no explaining about stimulating collagen and elastin growth beneath the surface of the epidermis to Tuna. So, just do Retin A.  That's enough.  

Finally I said, "Tuna, what about facial exercises?" "I do facial exercises."  "You do?"  She showed me her one facial exercise.  "Yes," I said. "Did you know that facial exercises can prevent to lose of muscle tone under the eye that causes the lid to sag under the eye like George Soros?"  "How do you do that?"  I put my fingers around my eyes to anchor the skin, then turned my eyes up to the ceiling and squinted.  As I did this I was uncomfortable to notice that again I was the center of attention in the beauty shop.  

Time to go.  As I drove away I felt like I was escaping.  That didn't go well.