I Don't Ask Them To Promise They Won't Laugh Anymore
Im not perfect. I'm 52, and I have no interest in pretending otherwise.
But that flat, papery quality I'd been watching creep in for years — it was retreating.
My face looked like it had something supporting it from underneath again.
That cushiony quality I'd felt on Carol's face under my lamp.
I could see it on my own face in a photo.
I went back to work the following week and looked at Linda differently.
She deserved to know what I knew now.
She'd been sitting in my chair for four years spending money on treatments I believed in — treatments I still believe in — but treatments that were only ever going to maintain what she had, not rebuild what she'd lost.
I showed her Carol's before and after photos with permission.
She looked at them for a long time.
Is this real? she asked.
I told her it was.
And you're telling me this even though it means I might stop coming in as often?
I looked at her and told her the truth.
" Yes — it probably means some of my clients come in less. I'd rather lose the appointment than keep sending women back to the surface when I now know there's something that works underneath.
I spent 22 years building a reputation on telling women what actually works. I was wrong about this one. You deserve to know that."
She ordered them before she left my clinic that day.
It's been seven months since that Tuesday morning with Carol.
My skin doesn't look like a 52-year-old esthetician who does everything right and still watches her skin slowly change.
It looks alive. Dewy. Like something is working from the inside that no treatment I've ever offered could reach.
People ask me what I'm doing differently.
I tell them the same thing Carol told me.
And unlike Carol —
I don't ask them to promise they won't laugh.
Because I already know what they're going to see when they look in the mirror in three months.