How I've Beaten Bad Skin Once & For All (&You Can Too!) (1)

 

Back in July of last year, I made the somewhat catastrophic mistake of swapping to a new form of birth control, and long story short, it lead to my skin breaking out in a way that it never had before.

 

I gave it a couple of months to see if my skin would settle down but sadly it never did, so I came off of that form of birth control and went back onto my old one expecting my skin to go back to it’s normal, spot-free self, but it didn’t. I stopped developing new breakouts – thank God, but the ones that had already occurred never really went away. They would go up and down, but they would never really disappear.

 

I can honestly say as someone who had never had bad skin before, I was devastated. I know that sounds a little dramatic but it’s true. I thought my risk of acne was behind me when I hit my twenties, but apparently not!

 

So, what did I do?

 

Like anyone experiencing acne for the first time, I bought every cream, gel, and face wash that I could get my hands on. Some of them helped for a week or two and then my skin reverted back to being dotted with spots. I was in a state of total despair and was becoming increasingly self-conscious of how my skin looked.

 

When I realised the what I was doing – constantly trying out different products, I stopped and took the time to do some research into the type of acne I had and what I could do about it. The spots I was getting weren’t poppable, they were simply hard and sore, but not mila, as I first thought. It turns out I was suffering from whiteheads – firm, pink bumps under the skin caused by clogged pores.

 

Once I knew what type of acne I had, I felt better about it, as I thought that it would be easier to treat. However, it turns out the key is simply taking care of your skin and being wary of what you put into your body, so that’s what I started to do.

 

I went natural with my beauty products

 

After doing some reading up online, I found out that products containing chemicals and other nasty ingredients can make acne worse, so I decided to go natural when it came to my daily skin care routine.

 

I started using a deep sea mud mask that I had in the cupboard and made sure to only use shea butter-based face creams, to ensure that my skin wasn’t irritated. I also applied lavender oil to the areas worst affected and found that, that seemed to help. (Lavender oil is known for its skin benefits and is meant to be good for treating acne as it’s got antibacterial properties.)

 

clear skin 1

 

I stopped wearing makeup

 

I also decided that I would start wearing less makeup, as I had noticed that my skin always seemed worse after wearing makeup. So I resigned myself to only wearing makeup on special occasions and sometimes on the weekends too, and you know what, it really seemed to help. (Seeing as I work from home, giving up makeup on weekdays wasn’t really an issue for me, but I feel like it would have been if I didn’t work from home.)

 

As well as wearing makeup less frequently, I also made sure to wash my brushes on a more regular basis with antibacterial washing up liquid. This also seemed to help. In case you are wondering, yes washing up liquid is safe for using to wash makeup brushes with and works incredibly well.

 

What’s my skin like now?

 

Today, my skin is so much better than it was. Sure, I get the odd spot or two every now and then, especially if I end up eating too much junk, but it’s much better than it was six months ago. I still have to be careful of what products I use and how often I wear makeup, but it is practically back to what it was before I swapped to a new form of birth control, so I’m happy.