Obagi Update Part II

So I went home after I got my Obagi Nu-Derm kit from the Belo dermatologist and was psyched about trying out the whole routine. The only hesitation I had was that, as I was traveling (my mom's house is a three-hour-bus ride-one-hour-ferry-ride-and-two-hour-jeep-ride-over-dirt roads away from Makati, the financial district of Manila where the clinic was located. Also, as her beach house had been having water problems of late and the quality of the water had been questioned, I wasn't that it was the right time to even begin such a complicated system.

Oh what the hell.

So when I finally got to the house that night, I carefully laid out the bottles and tubes on the edges of my mom's wee sink and went to work. First, the cleanser. Then toner. Then acne astringent. Then the Clear. Then the blender mixed with the Age-Defying Cream. Then, the finale: the eye-cream.

The blender/Age-Defying Cream combo was a mess. It took forever to absorb, and I wondered if perhaps I was putting on too much. It left a decidedly white sheen on my face that took me awhile to absorb. The dermatologist had told me that a gram was about a dab from the tip of my pinky finger to the first joint, but it seemed like an awful lot. Also, when I checked the ingredients of the Acne Astringent, I found that the active ingredient is Clindamyacin, a prescription-only antibiotic that can either cause colitis or induce complications in patients already with the disease.

Uhhhhh. I did tell the doctor that I had colitis. It's listed in the form that I filled out when I first came to the clinic, and I mentioned it again when I actually had the consultation. In fact, the doctor even laughed and said that it wouldn't really influence her recommendations for me.

I was super-irritated that the doctor was so irresponsible that she prescribed a medication (and yes, despite the fact that it's a skincare program, this particular product is a medication because of the presence of an prescription-grade antibiotic) with an ingredient known to be contraindicated with a disease I had told her I had. I stopped using the astringent after that first night.

The next morning, I skipped the A.M. routine because I knew that we would be traveling quite a bit around the island. My skin was already sensitive from the evening routine, and I was concerned about the possible sun exposure. Instead, I slapped on a thick layer of the Healthy Skin SPF 35 sunblock and went on my way.

I did the P.M. routine again that night, omitting the astringent. Again, the blender/Age-Defying cream combo was awfully thick and took awhile to absorb.

By the next morning (3rd day), I noticed that my skin had taken a ruddy hue and was partially peeling around my chin. I wasn't too worried, but as the day wore on, my facial skin only got redder, and the peeling had worsened. I decided that, with the traveling and all my outdoor activities, it probably wasn't the best time for me to really do the Obagi program justice. I stopped it altogether after that morning and resolved to restart it once I returned to the U.S.

The redness took only a day or so to fade, while the peeling calmed down after a couple of days. My skin was back to normal within 2 days.

Part III will conclude the Obagi update. I'll tell you more about what happened once I started doing the whole routine (AM and PM) on a regular basis, and more importantly, why I stopped it.