I Burned My Face Off on Purpose: The (High) Price of Being a Former Tanoholic
Reflective aluminum foil panels were once a tanning necessity (Photo: Getty)
I blame this cautionary tale on Bain de Soleil. Growing up in the ’80s, there was almost no one more glamorous than the Bain de Soleil woman with her beyond-perfect body and mahogany skin. Everyone wanted to emulate her, including me. In the summer, my friends and I would lie out at our swim club with baby oil, iodine, and reflective aluminum foil panels to bake ourselves to a crisp.
“Stop that!” my mother would say. “You’re gonna look like a piece of leather!”
“Whatever,” I’d say, rolling my eyes. I mean — who didn’t tan? Even the Coppertone kid tanned, and she was three!
At 18, I finally stopped using baby oil on my face after a spring break trip to Miami resulted in severe sun poisoning. I broke out in awful red bumps that looked like chickenpox, not exactly what I was going for. Despite the experience, I continued not wearing SPF well into my 30s. I was convinced that I looked healthier with a tan, and — added bonus — it dried up zits.
It took losing both a friend of mine’s mother and a coworker to skin cancer six years ago before I started regularly using SPF. Wearing 60 SPF and big floppy hats in the sun, I thought I was in the clear. But three years later, I woke up to dark brown spots all over my face. I was diagnosed with melasma, a skin condition that causes brown patches on your forehead, cheeks, and nose — the direct result of sun exposure. Despite my complaining, I know how lucky I am that it was superficial and not melanoma. But I’m not a fan of how it looks.
Paula Froelich’s many selfies throughout the entire painful process (Photo: Paula Froelich)
Over the years I tried everything to get rid of the dark patches — bleaching cream, peels, you name it — but nothing ever worked. Then I saw my pal Christine, a woman of a certain age who looks like she’s 40. Her skin is clear and enviable … and I know for a fact that she spends time in the sun. I found out her secret —dermatologist Dr. Howard Sobel. His solution for me was Fraxel, an expensive laser treatment that basically burns the outer layer of your face off.
“It will hurt,” he warned, noting that the day of the treatment, I’d have to take a Valium as well as numbing cream just to get through the 20-minute procedure.
“Fine. Let’s just do it,” I said.
“There’s a three-day downtime,” he warned.
“No problem,” I said.
So I did it.
But despite the Valium and numbing cream, it hurt like hell. The laser rolls over your face lengthwise and widthwise, twice over. It feels like fire, like you can actually feel your face burning. Frankly, there’s not much to do but grimace and bear it, whimpering along the way. I thought about asking the technician to stop, but I figured the quicker I got it over with, the quicker I could stop feeling like a human fireball. Afterward I looked like a burn victim, and I had to keep ice packs on my face for two hours.
On the subway home, a few people stared, but the worst was yet to come. The next day the brown spots started to turn black. Two days later it looked like I had a five-o’clock shadow all over my face. On my way out to walk the dog, I ran into my neighbor, who stage-whispered, “Hey … um … can I ask? What happened to your face?” Yes, it was that weird looking.
I powered through, and five days later the spots had all magically sloughed off. Now my skin actually looks brighter and better than it has in years. The brown spots have almost faded completely away. I think I look 10 years younger, so it was worth it.
Despite the physical and financial pain. The bill for one laser treatment was (wait for it) a whopping $1,500.
“I’ll be paying this off for the rest of year,” I grumbled, silently cursing.
“It’s worth it,” Dr. Sobel said.
I have one more treatment under the laser gun, which I will try to suck up and pay for, but there is a side of me that wishes I could legally send Bain de Soleil my bill.
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