By week four, people started noticing before I mentioned it. My daughter asked if I'd been sleeping better. A friend said I looked rested. Nobody said "you look younger." They said I looked like myself again.
By week six the texture around my mouth was gone. Not improved. Gone. The fine lines under my eyes that had been there for three years, softer by week two, gone by six. My skin had a smoothness to it I hadn't seen since my early 40s. Not from a filter. Not from lighting. Just my face, looking the way I remembered it.
My daughter pulled up a photo from two years ago and held it next to my face. She didn't say anything. She just looked at me.
That is the before and after. Same woman. That is what getting the actives past the barrier actually looks like.