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That moment I realized my old mentor was right about glycolic acid concentrations

Last Tuesday I mixed up a 20% glycolic peel for a client and it hit me how much has changed since I started 3 years ago. Back then my first boss insisted on keeping everything under 10% for most skin types and I thought she was being too careful. Last month I bumped a client's peel up to 15% and got a nasty reaction that took 2 weeks to calm down. She was right all along about respecting the lower percentages for building tolerance. I guess experience really does teach you things no textbook can. Has anyone else gone back to basics after getting too confident with stronger stuff?
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3 Comments
josephbailey
Abby, I did patch test but it was clean for 48 hours. That's the thing, sometimes the reaction shows up later after multiple applications. It's like how people push their car's oil change interval too far because it seems fine for a while, then boom, engine trouble. This whole lesson reminds me of that old saying about how the most expensive tool is the one you break. We all get cocky with something eventually, whether it's acids or engine repairs, and then have to swallow our pride and go back to the manual.
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charles_coleman
My oil change analogy finally clicked for me reading that.
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abby_morgan18
Did you patch test before bumping it up?
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