POV: My sister is a dermatologist

Dr. O’Connor is my sister. And, sometimes I think she wants to go back to whatever the year of med school is where you get to pick your “major” and choose something weird and esoteric, the practice or research of which would not result in phone calls and (photographic) texts from friends and family (me) asking “what is this?” Or “why did this super cool product I read about on a hip beauty blog burn my face off?” 

But she picked dermatology and so here I am, the sister of a dermatologist reaping incredible benefits like the ability to diagnose my early 30s case of shingles via (again, graphic) text and get into fights over my inability to regularly remember (intentionally - I don’t like it - more on that in the future) sunscreen and my hatred of face washing and skincare routines.

I’ve been lucky to always have had fairly easy, if sensitive, skin. No big bouts with acne, pretty decent results from mostly drug store and moderately priced beauty/skincare specific brands - and very little deviation from what I think works for me. But now I am 40 and like all of us, I’m two years into a pandemic and it’s starting to… show. Sidebar Confession: two things I love that don’t help include sitting in the sun and turning the heat on in my car full blast and just baking in the dry hot air. 

So, when Patricia asked if I would consider writing a blog, I said “ok and it can be from the point of view of a historical skin maintenance slacker.” Why not? It’s dry January and I’m not going to be reading in bed with wine so I guess i can just redirect this time to washing my face.

With that, I am introducing myself a (middle aged?) sister of a dermatologist who is going to try to implement some kind of routine and try new products to see if they burn my face off again all so that YOU DON’T HAVE TO. I’m going to track progress, things that work – and more importantly things that don’t – and share my experiences back. Patricia will dip in and save us from any terrible recommendations I’m going to make and hopefully this will be fun AND educational…

Looking forward to getting started by washing my face… maybe with something other than Dove bar soap. Stay tuned…

Author

Elizabeth Grimes, sister