It’s been a long struggle, but I made it out the other side.
Many of the people I meet now assume I’m being dramatic when I tell them about my past troubles with my skin. Little do they know, it took a hell of a lot of commitment and persistence to get my skin to the way it is now.
As a child, I had very sensitive skin. This meant no perfumed products – even Simple would make my skin react. This introduced me to looking after my skin and cleansing it properly – at least, cleansing, toning and moisturising – from a very young age. I did suffer from eczema, always having had dry skin, although this has ceased with age. When I was about 11 or 12, I had little warts appear on my face – the fact that I was just starting secondary school made this significantly harder and more upsetting for me – that I eventually had to see a dermatologist about to get them frozen off. They did come back once or twice but luckily stayed gone in the end.
It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I faced the worst. I had awful, awful acne. Various visits to the doctors and numerous prescribed products were never enough to reduce it. My skin was red, irritated, full of acne (which most definitely did not help my self esteem), and worst of all – because my skin is dry, any product I used to target acne-prone skin would just dry it out even more, and would rarely even have a positive effect on reducing my spots. I tried anything and everything that was said to be good for acne, going through tons of skincare brands and ranges, serums that my Dad had researched on the internet, sonic cleansing brushes – you name it, nothing worked. I’d try to cover it up with make up for school and then immediately wash my face as soon as I got home to try to stop it getting worse. I have barely any pictures of me from my teenage years, because I was just so embarrassed and ashamed of my skin. The picture at the top of this post was a polaroid I took one night, determined that one day I’d look back on it and be amazed at how much my skin has improved – and it’s a pretty incredible feeling to have reached that day.
When these didn’t work, I scoured YouTube for advice, and ended up trying exercise, adopting a healthier diet, and tracking and increasing my water consumption. While I have come to know that my acne was not influenced or particularly affected depending on what foods I ate, I did find that exercise and making sure I was drinking enough water helped massively, and this did mark a minor turning point for my skin in 2015.
Having said that, it never completely went away. In my first year of university (2016), my acne was still a persisting problem. It was then that I first saw LED light therapy masks being released in stores, so that was my next port of call. In my second year of university, I switched to the 10-step Korean skin care routine. It’s since using both of these that my skin has seen a massive improvement and transformation. While I have always taken good care of my skin because of the struggles I’ve faced, following the Korean skin care routine introduced me to double cleansing and doing biweekly face masks. For reference, I started using the light therapy mask in late 2016, and stopped using it in late 2018. I started following the Korean skin care routine in January 2018. Although I kept using the mask until towards the end of 2018 (it was a momentous occasion when I realised I didn’t need it anymore), I really did see a difference in the first few months of the year.
Now, I don’t follow a 10-step routine, but through trial and error across many years, I have finally found what works for me and my skin. I never see anyone talking about or recommending products and solutions for dry, acne-prone skin, and so would love to make a few posts on these topics, even if it helps just one person.
If I could go back in time I’d love to tell myself not to be embarrassed about having acne. However, it’s very easy to say that. I know I wouldn’t have believed (and probably didn’t believe) anyone telling me “not to worry about it” or that it doesn’t matter, because it was an incredibly big deal to me. It definitely shouldn’t matter, and doesn’t to the people around you, but the reality is that of course it’s going to have an effect on your own self esteem. Acne is nothing to be ashamed of, but it’s so hard to see that when you’re the one suffering from it. That’s why I wanted to share my experiences, and why I want to recommend as many solutions as I can think of that I didn’t see when I needed it.
Thank you for reading this far! Any questions or advice, please don’t be afraid to ask!
Catch you in the next post,
Frankie.
frankie's journal 