My Thoughts After 6 Months of DIY Beauty

 Wow 6 months of doing my own procedures. Time flies when you're having fun, right? Ok, so I wouldn't necessarily call it fun, but I do enjoy having access to these products that I couldn't justify spending the dollars needed to have done in office.

I have so much to learn but from my limited experience these are some things that I have discovered.

*Most importantly, get to know your facial anatomy. Facial muscles when it come to toxin is important so you can be better informed on the best places to inject. Of course everyone is different so you have to learn your own anatomy which can only be accomplished over time and practice. The worst that can happen when doing more common areas is a dropped brow or a crooked smile. Not ideal but thankfully not permanent. Obviously bruising can (and will occur) which brings me to my next lesson learnt.

*Expect bruising. You can do things to minimise the occurance of a bruise, however they are unavoidable. Even the professionals cause bruising on clients. Using an ice-roller or similar before and after a procedure certainly helps along with arnica cream or Bentpla. Also keeping record of where you are mostl likely to bruise can help to prevent bruising, but it's never guaranteed. 

*Slow and steady. It's not a race, if a procedure doesn't feel right, it's ok to stop and assess. It's even ok to abort altogether. This goes hand in hand with patience being a virtue. Apart from toxin, these procedures take time to show results. Most need to be done a handful of times before a noticeable change happens. For some of us. it's taken years of aging to occur so it's going to take time to turn back the clock. 

*Plan ahead. You need to know what products need time between procedures. For instance, liquid PCL doesn't play well with other hyaluronic acid based injectables, at least 10 days need to be in between these treatments. Still using liquid PCL as an example, first time users need a regime of around 4 or 5 rounds each done monthly before major improvements are achieved, so planning needds to be done to schedule other procedures in the same time frame.

*You need to have realistic expectations. These procedures might make improvements but at the end of the day, they're not equivalent to a face lift, well not yet anyway. Also some people respond better to others with these treatments.

Onto some before and afters

I tried to get similar lighting conditions, but I have moved house since the before pics and I just couldn't replicate, plus I have a different phone so it's difficult to get good comparison photos. What I notice the most is the firmness of my skin and just how hydrated and glowy it looks. I have had recent compliments about my skin looking smooth. Even hubby commented how nice my skin looks despite not being a fan of my extreme beauty DIY practices. Obviously there's more inprovements I would like to make, like my under eye area and the nasolabial folds as well as the marionette lines, but overall I am happy with the journey so far.

All pics taken with no makeup and no filter (obviously! lol)

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