In November I was invited to attend a blogger event at Miracle 10 in Yorkville, Toronto. I was surprised as I’m really a blogging nobody. My site is barely a year old and I can’t imagine my traffic is that high enough to warrant any kind of attention… But I was thrilled and confirmed that I’d love to attend.

Now, I’m not much of a skincare person. Oh sure, I remove my makeup, wash my face and moisturize. Every now and again I’ll use a Biore pore strip or a facial mask. But fundamentally? Skin doesn’t interest me that much. Without trying to sound too narcissistic, I think it’s because I’ve been blessed with fairly healthy skin. I very rarely get breakouts – frankly I can’t even remember the last time I even had one. Additionally, the tone and texture of my face has never bothered me as it’s predominantly smooth. Oh sure I’ve got some darkish undereye circles, but we all have those. I’ve got some redness, but whatever, so do we all. I’ve got some burgeoning wrinkles, but those also don’t perturb me. What I’m trying to say is I’ve never really cared about my skin, or had to take care of it, because it’s never needed any kind of attention outside of the ordinary.

HOWEVER, despite my apathy towards my skin and skincare, I was interested in connecting with other bloggers and perhaps learning something new. Plus there was the ever appealing offer for a rather large swag bag and the incentive of a free chemical peel.

So I went. I was nervous, and I knew no one, but I went. Thankfully, I ran into the lovely Jenn of Scarlet Beauty and we got to talking. She was so easy to speak to and it really eased up my anxiety over knowing NO ONE. I don’t suffer from social anxiety, but dear god do I hate walking into a room knowing no one where I’m expected to network my way to success. I haven’t the faintest ideas what the fuck I’m doing!

The event was short, but sweet. I met a few Toronto-area bloggers I already knew of, but had never met in person before (man, that was strenuous; trying to remember who owned what blog), listened to a session on fashion trends (really, REALLY not up my alley), but learned a few cute things about how to stay interesting as a blogger.

After the session, I met with one of Miracle 10’s skincare experts to held decipher what kind of skincare program I needed to be on. The rep was clearly slightly disturbed that I only washed my face once a day… Ooops. In the end, they determined my “type” and gave me a hand picked swag bag full of products geared towards Normal/Maturing skin (mmmm maturing, just what I wanted to hear).

On my way out the door, I was handed my expensive bag of goodies and instructed to book my free chemical peel.

The holidays came and went, and finally it was time for my peel. So at the beginning of January, in middle of a dumping of snow, I headed back to Miracle 10 on Scollard Street.

Before I left, I snagged some shots of my clean face so you could see what my skin looked like prior to appointment.

So as you can see… freckles and moles, no breakouts, slight redness (if I’m REALLY looking) around the chin and some undereye circles.

The procedure was essentially flawless. They took me into a backroom and had me lay down on doctor’s table. The technician explained the procedure and asked me a few questions about my skin. As this was my first time having a peel done, she decided to use the mildest acid they have; lactic.

After prepping the skin, she then shaved my entire face. It’s called dermaplanning; they use a small razor to remove all the fine hairs and any excess dead skin off your face. My technician indicated to me that I had quite dry skin (no surprise there, it’s the dead of winter and I feel dry as a bone!) since she was sloughing off a lot of dry, dead cells. It’s worth noting that the razor felt like nothing. It’s barely even a tickle! She was slow and methodical about it and I never felt like I was in danger of having my face sliced open.

The lactic acid was then applied to my skin for two minutes. This *did* tingle and sting slightly, but it wasn’t painful and it’s certainly something anyone can withstand for two straight minutes. The acid was then removed gently and she asked me if there was anywhere that was still stinging. My nose was, so she gently rubbed around my nose to remove any excess.

After that, it’s basically nap time. A cooling mask was applied to my face and it was lights out for 10 minutes. Except… she left me in there way longer than 10 minutes. It was closer to 25, verging on 30. I was a little surprised, half wondering if I’d been forgotten about. But, like a true Canadian, when she came back, I didn’t say a word. 😉

The mask was washed off and a thick moisturizer was applied to my face and eye area. I was then free to go on my merry way.

One thing that struck me immediately is how naked my skin felt. Without my little baby hairs on my face, I felt like my skin was truly sensitive to exposure. What a weirdass feeling that was let me tell you!

How did it turn out? Let’s take a look.

There’s really no redness on my face (out of the ordinary that is). My nose is definitely pinker, but that’s because I walked home in the blistering cold. I was surprised with how much my skin did not react to the acid – I was half expecting full on Samantha Jones laser treatment hideousness.

But instead my skin looks… relatively the same. It’s perhaps slightly brighter, I mean, they did essentially take an entire layer of skin off my face between the acid and the shaving. And I noticed my moles were definitely darker (makes sense right? There’s less skin on top of the pigmentation) but that’s neither here nor there for me.

My skin remained tacky to the touch for several hours after the treatment. She had applied some intense moisture therapy cream and I never really felt like it sank in completely. More like… I still had some kind of protective barrier on my face.

At $125 a pop, this isn’t a cheap treatment. Having used the softest acid they had, I don’t feel like there’s much difference to my skin. I do wonder if  any noticeable difference would’ve been more apparent if a stronger acid had been used, or more frequent sessions. However, I’m such a rookie at these things that I didn’t really want to dive in head first with something really abrasive on my face.

I am super thankful to Miracle 10 for giving me the opportunity to check out their location, test out their products and meet tons of new people. It’s an experience that I’m very lucky to have had.

It’s almost a week later now and my skin hasn’t reacted poorly at all. It never turned red or peeled, but I never noticed a striking difference in it either.

So how about you? Have you had chemicals peels done? What kind of acid did you opt for? What was your experience?