^Wow, that is the exact same place where the skin-texture changes started for me. (The backs of my hands and wrists.) That's kind of cool that everyone seems to get that first.
I began noticing the very infancy of the physical changes after about 2 weeks on full-dose HRT. lt started with the skin texture on the backs of my hands. All of a sudden, I brushed my hand across my face, and I was like "OMG, that's smooth!" And in the not-quite-a-month since then, this softer skin texture has spread across my entire body. It's now EVERYWHERE. When I shaved my legs last night, I just about died with pleasure from feeling how smooth they were. At about the same time as I first noticed the soft skin on my hands, I noticed that my nipples were getting a more conical shape to them, and that there was a little bulge forming on both sides. Those are the two physical changes that you will notice first. If you're on t-blockers also, you'll notice a decrease in sex-drive around the 3 or 4 week mark also. Facial changes (albeit subtle) may also start. I really don't know why my face started looking a lot more feminine after about 3 weeks, but it really did, and continues to now. When I first started, my face looked muscular and defined and tough, and looked about accurate to what my real age is. While starting at about the 2-3 week mark, my face just randomly started to look younger. I started looking more starry-eyed, my skin softened, the muscular appearance declined, and there must have been some sort of change in my cheeks or something, because I really can't describe it, but suddenly my face just started reading as younger. People used to always guess my age almost spot-on, while when I asked random people at the point where I started to notice the change, suddenly they were all under-guessing it, guessing that I was 23 or 24 instead of 27. (And honestly, now that I'm past the 5-week mark, I'm starting to look closer to 19 or 20.)
Anyway, that's my experience. Low-dose probably would have been different, probably a bit of a stretched time frame, but these changes do still come. The big difference between low dose and high dose, though, is that you don't get the same roller-coaster ride of emotions when you're on low dose. Your T levels slowly drop and your E levels slowly rise, versus constantly catapulting up and down as they fight for dominance like mine did. (I regrettably started my HRT on DIY, which yes, was VERY stupid. And it really made my first few weeks an absolute roller-coaster ride of emotions. Yeah... don't do it. Doctors are paid big bucks for a reason.)
