She put her plate down.
Her cheeks were even. Not covered. Even.
"Which ones did you try?"
Two soaps. A scrub. Three serums, one that cost eighty-nine dollars.
She nodded like she'd heard it before.
"How long was any of it on your face?"
I didn't have an answer.
"Ninety seconds for the soap. Ten minutes for the serum before it's on your pillowcase."
"None of it was ever on long enough to do anything."
"They hit your face at full strength, then they're gone. A flood, then nothing."
"If your skin's reactive, that flood burns you. If it isn't, it still never reaches anything."
I asked what she meant by reach.
"Your spots form underneath, in the cells making the pigment. Ninety seconds doesn't get down there."
Then the part that stopped me cold.
"And in our skin, irritation makes more pigment."
"So when it burns you, your skin makes more of what you're trying to fade."
That flaking week. Seven days I told myself it was working.
"So I was making it worse."
"You were making it worse and calling it progress."
I asked why nobody says this.
She looked at me like I was being naive.
"A soap costs pennies. A mask that seals on for eight hours is a formulation problem somebody has to solve."
"They put the right ingredient in the cheapest thing that would hold it."
"And when it didn't work, you decided the problem was your face."
→ This is what derms are actually recommending
