Monday, January 9, 2012

Part 2: More on New Years Resolutions




Skin

My skin has been (what I consider to be) terrible since August. I have no idea what caused it (though I suspect a mix of sunscreen and stopping the nuvaring temporarily), but it's been driving me insane. I've been to see the dermatologist twice (once so she could give me a regime and once so she could tweak it). She's put me on two prescription medications (duac which is a topical antibiotic and atralin which is a retin-A) and wanted to put me on a third (oral antibiotics) which I refused to take. Anyway, it's still not looking great.

Originally I had lots of little white bumps under my skin, and those do seem to be clearing. (I think the basic idea is to get all the junk under my skin out so that my skin looks healthier, but it makes it look terrible in the meantime). I also now have scars that aren't actually scars on one side of my chin and they look terrible (they're actually just spots of damaged pigmentation which should go away in, according to the internet, 6-12 months). I also purchased a new coverstick today, so at least I can cover it up fairly effectively now if I want to!

I'm going to be seeing her again at the end of January/beginning of Feb, so I'll see what she has to say. I'm going to do whatever I can to make my skin look great by graduation though.


It's a bit hard to see in the photos, but parts of my skin have a pink-y purple-y tinge to them, which looks like scar tissue (it's not though, luckily!). Can't wait for the skin to fully heal so I don't have those patches!

My new cover stick! I haven't had one for ages (I just used foundation), but this one works really well to cover up the pigmentation strangeness on my chin!

Hair (not the kind on my head)

I have this weird itchy leg problem, which I think is caused by stubble (from shaving) irritating my legs. Putting on lotion after shaving helps, but it doesn't solve the problem completely. My UK best friend recommended that I try epilating, so I've bought one of them online and I'm going to try it as soon as it arrives! (Does anyone have any tips for that by the way?). If I don't like epilating I might try laser, although I'm still up in the air about that one (see below).

My mum also purchased (at my sister's request) a series of bikini line laser treatments last year. It's a series of six and I think I've had three or four of them, but I'd like to finish them off this year. So far, I don't think I've had great results - I have reddish hair naturally, at least on my head, not really down there, but apparently it doesn't always work so well on hair with any red pigment in it. Also, the treatments are in the UK and I'm not back here to do them every 4 weeks like they recommend. I'd like to finish up that set of treatments this year (if possible) and also to consider alternative options if I'm still not happy with the results.

Because I know that everyone wants to hear about my adventures in permanent hair removal I have one more, that occured yesterday and that I'm particularly pleased with. I currently have more hair on my upper lip than I'd like. (Urgh, I hate admitting that). It's by no means terrible and the hair is fairly fine and blonde, but the boyfriend commented on it once and I've been self-conscious about it ever since. I've tried a bunch of different things (creams, bleaching, plucking), but I'd be quite happy with almost no hair there forever. So...today I tried (proper) electrolysis. I have a small self-electrolysis machine (sounds weird) at school, which I barely ever use (it's so time consuming), but I'd never try it on my face because I'm too worried about scarring and it's too difficult to get the right angle etc. Proper electrolysis hurt, but not nearly as much as I thought it would. Margaret (the electrologist) seemed to think that even with just one treatment I might see an improvement, and that with a few more I'd pretty much get to where I want to be, which is great. I'm definitely going to try to see her a few more times this year and get rid of some of that hair. I'm also feeling more enthused about the self electrolysis machine, so might try that out again when I get back to school on my ankles/bikini line. (I'm really really bad at shaving my ankles).

Teeth

This one's a bit of a cheat because I already did it, but I have slightly mottled teeth (probably from too much fluoride as a child). It's always annoyed me a bit, so when I went for my yearly checkup at the dentist (in December) I discussed tooth whitening with him. I ended up using gentle whitening strips, and I'm really pleased with the result!

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