Inadvertently enhanced

The stress of the recent assignment had taken its toll on my skin. Desperate for a quick fix, I'd read up about chemical peels.

To my utter surprise, the procedure was classified under Plastic Surgery.

I had spent most of my teenage years fantasizing about having my then enormous nose shaved off. In fact, a friend once offered to sell off his violin to finance this endeavour. It's a good thing he didn't. Now the rest of my face has caught up and thankfully, my nose no longer looks out of place.

(I privately thought -and still think- that if you remove a part of yourself, when you go to Heaven, it'll be missing too.Exampli gratia, if you get a nose job, the part cut off will be gone, but so will the implant, leaving you hideously disfigured. Illogically, this theory is not applicable to people who lose their bits involuntarily)

Anyhow, I delved a little deeper into the topic, and realised that cosmetic surgery actually comprised several other procedures. Procedures I had already performed, namely:

1. Laser treatment
My skin was really bothering me; I'd heard of miracles performed by the dermatologist nearby, so I popped over for an assessment. He declared that skin was full of sebaceous cysts hidden deep within the dermis, hence the unevenness of skin tone. The only way would be to laser off the local epidermis, to evacuate the gunk. I sat around with dollops of anaesthetic cream on my face for an hour, before getting my skin fried off. I looked so crappy the next day (think scabs all over my face), everyone thought I'd been through a severe allergy attack. It was however, extremely satisfying to see years of accumulated yellow goo spurt out with minimal effort. Nonetheless, I didn't return for a follow up, as it cost a whopping MYR600.

2. Mole removal
When I was 14, I got contact lenses. And also asked out on a blind date. The mole in between my eyes which had never bothered me before, now was a prominent eyesore. Embarrassed by this inadvertent third eye, I went to my hairdresser's (who doubled as a beautician). Rina happily stabbed it a couple of times with a needle and applied a painfully stinging acidic cream on it. My eyes began to water as the tiny spot inflamed and blossomed. The cream dried into a dollop of white, and eventually the mole fell off. It's still sort of inconspicuously there though, if you look hard enough.

3.Chemical peel
My bestie Pei had gotten some miracle solution from her doctor, if I wanted some, she could get some for me, okay? Okay. Having no clue what the little glass bottle held, I applied it liberally in blind faith. Damn, it stung! Oh well. Then over the next entire week, my skin turned an unnatural shade of lobster red and proceeded to peel. In strips. My hands would roam to my cheeks and I'd pull a long piece of epidermis off. Diiiiiiigusting. It didn't help that I had a loudmouth classmate who would regularly (and loudly) remind me how I looked like a lizard. When I did eventually complete my moulting, the skin looked really fresh indeed. No pain, no gain.

Sadly, I can now no longer feel more superior than people who have had work done, because it'd be like the pot calling the kettle black. I might as well go all the way now right?