Aylmer is a scientist who is revered throughout the scientific community for his genius. He is married to Georgina, who is praised for her beauty. However, Georgina has one glaring imperfection: her left cheek contains a birthmark or blemish, a small crimson mark in the shape of a hand.
Aylmer proposes to remove the birthmark so as to make his nearly-perfect wife completely perfect in every physical aspect. Georgina eventually agrees, trusting her husband’s talents, although she is initially hurt that he finds her birthmark so shocking to look at. She comes to the conclusion that she may as well risk the experiment, since she would rather die than continue to live with such a blemish, since it generates such horror in her husband.
Aylmer creates a potion which he demonstrates on a plant, bringing its leaves back to life. Satisfied that the potion will work, Georgina then drinks it down. She falls into a slumber, and Aylmer notices that, sure enough, the hand-shaped birthmark on his wife’s cheek is fading.
When she wakes up, Aylmer shows her that the birthmark has disappeared and he has been successful. However, his wife reveals that she is dying, and shortly after this she dies in front of him.
— The Birthmark, Nathaniel Hawthorne (1843) 1
Blotches, Age Spots, Pigment Blobs, Sunspots, Liver Spots and Catfish
Incidentally, Hawthorne’s choice of character names was never his strong point, we can all agree. Hester Prynne of The Scarlet Letter seems a name more appropriate for an alcoholic spinster with a tchotchke shop than a banished heroine.
Not that they couldn’t be the same. However….and Aylmer? Never marry a man named Aylmer is my key tip of the day, a man whose name cannot be pronounced without scissors. His parents clearly intended to task him like Hercules, or as Johnny Cash said, like a boy named Sue. Gad.
Anyway. So, where were we?
We have these blotchy spots and ridding ourselves of them has challenged the minds of any number of Aylmers: optical physicists, biochemists, laser engineers, organic chemists, committees of physicians and so on down a long list most of whom are now muttering in technical graveyards.
The source of these “uneven things” as one patient recently complained is part of the problem. That is, the thinking goes, if we knew what caused them, we could fix it – or, banish them – or, clear them out – or, like that be gone.
For a while the idea that a laser, if well thought out, could remove these carte blanche. This had a certain cachet among enthusiasts. Poor Georgina could have been redeemed by the laser technology now available to remove birthmarks.
However, willfully applied skin stains exhibited in tattoos have had less certain success in being removed by Aylmer’s laser, but still, encouraging.
Less delightful has been the removal of “pigment spots, blotches, sunspots and age spots” by his lasers. The difficulties are not with the latest brand of lasers that do an admirable job (I am thinking of Cutera®), it is rather the persistence of Ma Nature in restoring her unwanted handiwork.
So, let’s consider the sources.
Number one on the list and most common is Cell Waste. Also referred to as lipofuscin in the obscure journals, a weird sort of name for a blob of goo that is excreted from the cell out into the synovial fluid (hyaluronic acid). It is then set upon by ‘somes – as in exosomes, and other ‘somes. Another blob of cell waste is made up of elastin/pigment cells that went into a black wad and wound up ho-humming away in the basement (the dermis).
These ‘somes by the way resemble giant ticks that gather up the blobs like Waste Management and then walk along a tightrope (really) to a landfill and there the waste is housed, and gradually, if not door slammed by over crosslinking reticular fibers, removed by lymph toward an eventual rendezvous with kidneys and sayonara!
Now all of this goes on at the epidermal/dermal border except for the part about where the waste ends up. Because a lot of it gets shoved down deep into the dermis. Where you would think it would be like invisible, but isn’t.
What is shoving it down deep is exfoliating acids and excess crosslinking. The first is willful. The second is a function of age – the skin is turning into gristle – thin but tough as nails gristle. Environmental influences, like soaking your hands in bad things for years on end can also have a big say in forming gristle (gristle: an excess crosslinking of a reduced population of collagen cells).
You can usually tell the true age by the hands is the old saying. Often, too, it is surprising what they say.
Sunlight will have its way in making gristle and spots, more for some than others. Also called ‘photo-aging’ that binds that cell waste into a kind of cocoon. Lasers it was thought could break up that cocoon and then Waste Management could do its thing.
But it doesn’t.
Waste Management has a labor problem with age. Difficult to find employees and those that show up are lazy like ol’ catfish. But, for the time being (maybe even up to a year) after that pricey laser treatment, the spots, the blotches, the goo is gone! Yay!
And thens those slickn catfish, those ol’ fudds stirrin up the ooze, starts bringin that junk wagon of goo back to the same landfill area! Yep, jus starts fillin up the place agin for slow and one fine day you looks down and there it all is again, like it’s never left! Horrors!
There are those of us, desperate and bug eyed, who now reach for acids. Skin bulldozing acids. Dissolve you wretched mess! These distressed souls succeed only in driving it all deeper where the catfish just smiles and pushes his cart along to the landfill.
The next scheme is to try something sly. Wylie Coyote sly. From Ace Products (or 302 Skincare) there is obtained Vitamin C. From 302 that is either in C 25 DROPS | C 25 SERUM or C 12.5 DROPS | C 12.5 SERUM strength.
But first, B-BOOST – a niacinamide (B3) that will radically increase circulation in the target zone. Circulation is often at a low ebb in these landfill areas. After this B-BOOST bomb, a few days later, the C 25.0 DROPS are applied and descend to the dermis. This is one of the very few topically applied metabolites capable of such deep diving.
This combination will begin a process of landfill clearing. Once a month the treatment combination will make visible gains. But don’t try to hurry the catfish. Slow but steady.
Now, to put the chase on, introduce 302 DROPS or 302 SERUM. Apply this from 2x-3x per week. Now you are unwinding all that gristle, taking out the cocoons, allowing that catfish to sweep up the lipofuscin and send it down to kidneyville.
If the skin is also sun damaged, a taste of retinol is needed. In this case from 302 Skincare choose, A 1.0 DROPS | A 1.0 SERUM or A 0.5 DROPS | A 0.5 SERUM. 1x-2x per week.
Alternate weeks between 302 and retinol. Now you have set in motion a real program that will gradually clear and keep clear the blotches. You must however abide by the rules: if you over frequently apply these powerful metabolites you will just be feeding that ol’ catfish to be dropping things off at his landfill.
Lady MacBeth gots nothing on you. Go for it.
If you need hand holding during the ordeal, contact the abiding angels at the Guidance post at 302 Skincare. They will keep you between the white lines.
1 interestingliterature.com; Dr. Oliver Tearle, Loughborough University
