Let me be honest and say I’ve never had great skin. There was a time when I was so unhappy with my skin that I didn’t want to leave the house, and it really impacted my self-esteem. The thing is when I was a teenager my skin was okay, but when I became an adult I started to get a lot of cystic and hormonal acne, particularly on my chin, cheeks, and forehead; they were big and painful and I could just never get rid of them.
Over the last ten years, I’ve literally dedicated my life to learning about beauty and skincare, and now I’m in such a good place with my skin. Everything I’ve learned, from interviewing some of the best skincare experts in the world to trying thousands of products and experimenting with everything, has given me a ton of knowledge, and I’ve discovered so much about how to treat skin for it to feel happy and healthy.
For the first time in my life, I actually feel proud of my skin, and that feels so empowering. That’s why we’ve been working so hard on our skincare line, WISHFUL, and I feel so confident that this is really going to change so many people’s lives – I know it will!
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My Skincare Journey
When I was younger I didn’t really think too much about my skin, it was maybe just a little uneven and rough, but nothing that really bothered me. When I was 19, I switched up my skincare and I went from doing basically nothing to doing too much. I started using a 3-step drugstore skincare kit and at the time it really aggravated my skin – it was just too abrasive for me – and this is when my skin started to turn. I got cystic acne that was particularly bad when I was hormonal; and what do you do when you break out? You put loads of products on your skin to try and make it go away – but this is the biggest mistake.
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The thing is, sometimes when you try a new product, you break out, and some people say that it’s just everything coming out, but this really isn’t the case – it’s not lurking down there dormant, waiting to come out – your skin could actually be purging (although this wasn’t the case for me). What happened to me was that I was over-drying my skin, so my sebaceous glands went into overdrive producing tons of oil and making me break out in cystic acne, which was aggravated further by hormones. Testosterone levels increase during ovulation which stimulates oil glands resulting in increased oil production – just one more thing you can thank your hormones for!
I decided I had to try something else, so I tried the Clinique 3-Step Skincare program, and that also didn’t help my skin at the time (I actually do love the Clinique Clarifying Lotion 2). Then in my late 20s, when I started my blog, I realized that skin is an organ – it might not breathe, but it’s sensitive and it needs balance and consistency, and lots of water!
After a lot of trial and error with testing products and learning more about ingredients and how they affect the skin, I finally found what worked for my skin (check out my curent skincare routine here). So now, whenever I have a breakout, I don’t pick it or load up on products, I let it work itself out and it goes away. The only thing I like to do when I have a pimple is put a hot compress on it, which softens the oil inside and helps it to ‘drain’ more quickly. Or, if I need fast results, I use an ice cube to reduce swelling and inflammation!
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