Recovery Progress

11:56 PM

It's been around 2-3 days since I last used any Minoxidil, and I think my appearance is slowly improving. To keep things consistent, I'm only going to be comparing the face that I have after waking up, with past photos and memories I have of my face after waking up.

This is the first time in my life where I would wake up in the morning, and my face would look like total garbage. It's not until I wash my face and dry it that it becomes somewhat normal looking again. This selfie is after washing my face, and in the afternoon. This morning my face was basically just as bad as it was yesterday morning, though it was at least much better than the last day I used Minoxidil. I would use minox every morning and night, it was basically on my face 24/7. I would wake up looking the worst I've ever looked and I can't believe that I didn't quit earlier, but I wanted a thicker beard and thicker eyebrows.

So I looked at some more before/after photos from the minobeards subreddit, and I noticed there were some people who had the same side-effects as me, getting baggier eyes and a deeper nasolabial fold (smile lines), and they weren't even noticing it, posting after photos with the pride of their new beards. Just last month I had no bags under my eyes, it was barely darkened beneath my eyes, and although I did have visible nasolabial folds, they weren't that bad. Now, the dark area beneath my eyes not only got darker, but they spread to a wider area. My nasolabial fold also became more prominent. I hate these side effects.

It depends on the lighting, but sometimes these smile lines aren't visible at all, other times they're extremely prominent.

I still have hope that my appearance will improve and even surpass how I looked just a month ago. I ordered some skincare face creams from Temu and Amazon. I pretty much currently some basic men's skincare kit with a cleanser, moisturizer, and toner, but I ordered heavier stuff with hyaluronic acid and retinol. I spelled hyaluronic acid correctly on my first try, without looking it up, awesome. I also ordered some stuff that specifically targets the dark circles and nasolabial folds.

Back then, last month prior to Minoxidil, I could squint without wrinkling anything near my eye. Now when I squint, I notice these tiny wrinkles crinkling on my lower eyelid, it was not there before, and I'm disturbed by it. The area under my eyes also got darker. I hate it. I really don't know if I will be able to recover fully from this, and I can only hope.

Oh yeah, since I'm more aware of my face now too, it's been a while, but I haven't been able to detect any white hairs anymore. There used to be one white beard hair that I had. I knew exactly where it was, and I still do, so I know where to look I think there was only a day or two where I could see it, and I even wrote an entry that mentioned it, but after like a week or so after writing that entry, I stopped seeing it. I never mentioned it again, thinking it was just tucked away behind some other hair and would appear again, but I haven't seen it since.

Anyway, I'm pretty tired now. Very sleepy. I'll keep updating on my progress.