My Skin Journey After Coming Off Acne Meds.

Hi my loves! I hope you’ve had a great week so far. This week I’ve been busy with work and I’ve caught up with family which has been lovely; and because I’ve been so busy this past week I’ve been making sure that I’m making a few minutes each day (minimum) to practice some self care so I don’t feel too overwhelmed and exhausted.

One thing I’ve been doing for my selfcare is my skincare routine, which I’ve recently switched up a bit after binge watching Skincare with Hyram on YouTube! In switching up my skincare routine and products I started reflecting on how my skin has changed over the last few years, and let me tell you, it’s been a ride.

So, today I’m going to be telling, and mostly showing you, my skin journey to how I got to where I am now!

And with that said, let’s jump into it!

Let me take you back to this time last year, where I decided after much deliberation that I wanted to come off the medication I was on for my acne and for contraception. The reasoning behind this was purely for the fact that the pill I was on (an extremely high dose of co-cyprindiol) made me feel low, tired and started giving me migranes.

When I was taking this medication my skin was clear and felt great. (You can see another skin history post from that time here).

I was hoping that my body would be able to cope and wouldn’t erupt when I came off of the pill, but boy oh boy was I wrong.

For reference, here’s my skin whilst I was on the pill:

Here’s my skin on the day I decided to finally give up the medication:

I had the odd pimple now and again but I was extremely happy with how my skin looked without makeup on; but I just couldn’t justify taking a pill that made my mood low that came with loads of other side effects just for clear skin. So, I stopped taking it.

After a few months, my skin seemed fine still, which I now realise must’ve been due to my body having so many hormones etc in it from the taking the pill for over 4 years! Here’s my skin in October and November:

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Not bad at all right!

Well, Christmas went by and here we are in January, and as you can see, my skin has started to get a few more spots:

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Here’s February:

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Then in March, I had my worst skin I have ever had in my life. So bad in fact, that I did not want to go out, and refused to leave the house without makeup on other than for work. The first photo is on the 15th March, and then the other two are literally from 2 days later!

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My face was painful to touch, and nothing I did was helping it, and I was beginning to think that I should just bite the bullet and go back on the pill again. But, nevertheless, I persevered! I started using an Adapalene Retinol cream nightly, which got my skin to this point:

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If you’ve read my review of the Carbon Theory Soap Bar then you’ll have seen the above and below photos before!

Here’s after using the soap bar after a few weeks/months:

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And as you can see, the soap bar seemed to work a bit of magic! It was at this point that I’ve really delved into my skincare routine and am beginning to make my skincare routine a real habit that I actually remember to do every morning and night.

Here’s my skin in April:

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And then May:

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And the we get to June:

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And finally, here we are today:

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As you can see, my skin is still far from perfect. However, I’m feeling a lot more comfortable in it and I’m not afraid to do photoshoots without covering my discolouration, roseacea, spots and scars up!

Since switching up my skincare routine and makeup products, I now no longer wear foundation or bb cream because I’m trying to love my skin as it is, and I often forget that my skin without makeup isn’t that bad anymore! It’s been a learning curve and shaving my head has also helped with this because there’s no hair to hide behind!

Also, side note: I’ve decided to grow my hair back out long and curly (like the previous photos!)! I loved it that length, and I can’t wait for my hair to be the healthiest it’s ever been! After a few months my hair is already beginning to curl like it did when it was longer so I’m looking forward to seeing how curl it’ll get since there’s no heat damage this time round!

And that my friends, is my skin journey from the past year. It’s certainly had some pretty bad moments, but I feel like I’m in a place now where my skin will only get better over more time. I also read somewhere that after being on the pill for such a long time, it can take around 2 years for you hormone levels to go back to normal and your skin to regulate itself again. So I guess I’ll be doing an update and where my skin is at in a 2021!!

Well, that’s all from me today my lovelies! What’s a skincare product you can’t live without? For me it’s definitely my cleanser and SPF! Let me know in the comments!

Have a great weekend my loves!

Love,

I Tried Carbon Theory’s Soap Bar!

Hello my lovelies! I hope you’ve had a great week and you’re settling into a new routine. Over at my house I think I’ve finally settled into a steady routine and everything is beginning to feel normal now, which feels weird to say. One thing I’ve noticed from staying home a lot is that my skin has started clearing up a little, and i think that could be down to three different things; less pollution in the air and staying indoors, using my adapalene cream and from trying out Carbon Theory’s acne soap bar!

*little disclaimer – this post is by no means sponsored by Carbon Theory and I am not affiliated with them in any way, I just saw the ad for the soap bar with the claims of clearing up acne so thought I’d buy and try it so you don’t have to! Also, this review is simply my opinion on the product and what may or may not work for me could be completely different for someone else.

So, before I get started with this review, I thought I’d give you some background info about me and my skin journey so far; if you’ve been with me for a while then you may have read my last post about my acne journey and how I managed to clear my skin of adult acne.

And, well.. a lot has happened since then.

For example, I have come off of what I was using as birth control and my acne treatment in one go. Why might you ask? Well because I was on something called co-cyprindol which is essentially 2000mg of oestrogen where women are supposed to have 20mg (at least that’s what my doctor told me) and like many medications, there were some pretty annoying side effects. For me, the acne pill I was on not only gave me migraines every now and again, but it also made me feel extremely low. And so, in August last year, I decided to stop taking it and pray that my skin would magically be fine and the acne would stay away.

Unfortunately for me, that did not happen. My mood was so much better, in fact I’m happier than I’ve ever been, but my skin decided to get angry with me straight away and just got worse and worse, until it was the worst it had ever been.

And that has led me just over a month or two ago, when I’d tried all sorts of skincare routines that were supposed to help and I was at the point of giving up or going back to the doctors to find some form of other treatments that wouldn’t effect my mood.. and then a certain pain in the butt called corona hit and I didn’t want to take up the nhs’ time with something like my skin when they’ve got bigger problems to deal with.

It was then that I was sent a link to Carbon Theory’s acne soap bar by my sister. I was a bit dubious at first because I didn’t think a bar of soap would do much for my skin, but for £6, what did I have to lose!

Here’s the day that I came off of my acne medication, the 10th August 2019.

Then months later, we were here with my skin – 18th March 2020. Please excuse the facial expressions, it was very early that morning!

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Once my soap bar arrived it’s safe to safe I was willing to try anything if there was a chance it would clear up my skin. Even if it entailed having slugs on my face. I would have done anything! So, here’s day one of trying out the soap bar along with my acne cream:

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As you can see, we’re not in very good place skin-wise. You can also see that this was when I was slowly starting to shave my head! I started using the soap bar every morning and evening by lathering it up in my hands and leaving the suds on my face for thirty seconds before washing it off, like it was recommended on the packaging. It made my face feel tight and moisturised and clean which I liked (and still do).

So, onto where we were at at the end of week one:

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So, as you can see, me face was pretty angry with me for trying something new, but that is to be expected when trying any new products on your skin. Especially for me, because I suffer with psoriasis and can sometimes get it on my face, so naturally any new products could trigger it if I’m not careful!

Here’s where we were at after two weeks:

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As you can see, it looks like the soap bar with my adapalene cream appears to be doing something! It definitely seems to have taken down the redness on my cheeks and reduce the spots on my forehead.

Onto week three:

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This week my skin didn’t like me that much and had another flare up again, with my skin being a bit red and a few old spots popping up that I thought were gone!

But nevertheless we persevered, and got to week four:

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Week four and my skin started to clear up a bit more again, and the redness was once again starting to go down which was great! Another thing that I think has helped is that my hair is no longer all over my face, something I completely forgot about!

Onto week five:

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It was this week that I was starting to finally see a difference on my right cheek which was one of the worst places my acne was. I also noticed that my skintone had started to even out a bit too!

Here’s where my skin was at just a few days ago!

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So, here’s where we’re currently at, it’s safe to say my skin is loads better than it was when I started using Carbon Theory’s soap bar and my acne cream; and I think it’s been the combination of the two that has really helped. What’s left of my acne actually appears to be acne scars, with the odd new spot coming up every now and again, and when that happens I use some acne stickers from Starface which are brilliant at stopping you from popping, picking and scarring your face. Plus, they look cute too because you get little stars on your face!

Just for comparison, here’s before using the soap bar and after:

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In conclusion, would I recommend Carbon Theory to someone wanting to reduce their acne? For sure. Even if it only helps a little bit, you can’t really go wrong for £6! Plus, it comes in a great resealable pocket which makes it great for travel and it keeps the soap from getting anything on it whilst it’s not being used. If I’m being honest, I really didn’t think that this would work, especially because it’s so cheap, but I’m certainly glad I tried it out because it’s going to be a permanent featured in my skincare routine!

Next up for my skin journey is a whole host of new products that I intent to slowly implement with the soap bar in order to help with my scarring, so be sure to stay tuned ready for that in a few more weeks or months! Have you got any staple skincare products you can’t live without? And have you tried this soap bar out for yourself? Let me know in the comments!!

Have a great weekend my lovelies, and stay safe!!

Lots of love,

My Skincare Routine.

Happy Saturday my lovelies! I can’t believe we’re already half way through September! Everyone keeps saying how they can’t believe shops are already putting out Christmas decorations and presents but for me, I love it! Plus, the seasons are changing so you can’t blame shops for prepping early.

And speaking of seasons changing, two things that I change with the seasons are my hair routine and my skin routine. As for today, I’m going to be taking you through my skincare routine!

Here’s the products in my routine:

My morning routine:

Step 1: Face wash. First up I wash my face with my face wash and warm water, rinsing it off with cold water.

Step 2: Cleanser. I put cleanser on a cotton pad and use circular motions all over my face.

Step 3: Toner. I put toner on a cotton pad and swipe it all over my face, and let it absorb for a few minutes before my next step!

Step 4: Eye gel. I dab a small blob of eye gel under each eye and eye lid to help with puffiness and dry eyes.

Step 5: Serum. After letting my toner sit and applying my eye gel, I apply two pumps of my serum onto my face and gently rub it in.

Step 6 : Moisturiser. I then add moisturiser to my entire face, especially because I tend to get dry skin.

Step 7: Suncream. Finally I add a little sunscream to top it all off because you can never be too careful with those uv rays.

So that’s my AM routine! And as for my PM routine, it’s very similar but it goes like this:

(Potential Step 0: Micellar water. I only use this to take off my makeup at the end of the day if I’ve been wearing it, it’s much gentler than makeup wipes and is a quick way to take off makeup.)

Step 1: Cleanser. I first cleanser my face of everything my skin has been in touch with during the day.

Step 2: Toner. Next up I tone my face and let it sit for a minute of two like in the morning.

Step 3: Eye Gel. I then refresh my eyes with my eye gel, after staring at screens all day this is a must.

Step 4: Serum. Two pumps of serum is then swiped over my face and left to sink in for a minute.

Step 5: Retinol. After my serum has sunk in I use a small amount of my retinol cream (the retinol cream I use is my Adapaline acne cream) on the zones of my face that need it, and with retinol less is more rather than more is more trust me.

Step 6: Moisturiser. After I’ve let my retinol cream sink into my skin I add my moisturiser. And that’s it! All done and ready for bed.

So that is my entire skincare routine from waking up – to going to bed to get my beauty sleep haha.

Whenever I try anything new for skin I always get a bit worried because I’ve suffered with adult acne for a few years and I get worried that new things will set it off again. Medication seemed to be the only thing that helped my skin clear up for the last two years, and I’ve recently tried to come off of all of my medications except my retinol cream.

Since starting this new routine my skin hasn’t yet exploded with spots other than the first week adjusting to it so so far so good! I like to use any time that I spend on my hair and skin and just general appearance as some selfcare/me-time.

All of the products I use for my skin are from Superdrug’s own brand and Wake Skincare; I like trying to use products from the same brand and line because I find they always work better together, but it takes time to see what works out for you.

What’s your favourite skincare staple? Have you got a specific skincare routine or are you more of a wash and go kinda person? Let me know in the comments if there’s any skincare brands you’d like me to try!

Have a great weekend lovelies!

Love,

Wake Skincare Eye Gel Honest Review. [AD-Gifted]

Hello my lovelies! I hope you’re having a great Saturday in the sun, we’re in the middle of a heat wave here! So a few weeks ago I was contacted by some of the lovely people at Wake Skincare, and they asked if they could send me their eye gel for an honest review. Not wanting to pass up an opportunity, of course I said yes! Who doesn’t love getting to try new things out!

*I was given the eye gel in exchange for an honest review so this it technically an AD-Gifted but I will always be honest with all of you and not endorse anything that doesn’t work for me or go against my values!

So, to start off, why not hear from Wake Skincare on how/why it was created:

Our generation are always switched on. Glued to phones, Surrounded by screens and always connected to work, our friends and family were forever complaining about dark circles, bags and lacklustre skin. Then our friends started having children and the tiredness really kicked in.

When we opened our eyes to the tiredness around us, Wake was born.

And now that you’ve heard a little about how Wake came about, here’s the what they eye gel looks like!

What the eye gel claims:

• Smooths and brightens
• Anti-aging
• Lightweight
• Hydrating
• Combats puffy eyes and dark circles

How much does it cost?

The gel can be bought on the Wake website or on Amazon for £16.95 for a 30ml bottle which you may or may not think could be a bit pricey for an eye gel. As an apprentice my funds are limited, so initially I thought this would be pretty expensive for an eye gel, but upon receiving the bottle, I think it’d last me a pretty long time, especially since it comes in a bottle with a pump, so you don’t accidentally squeeze out too much!

My review:

Well, without any further ado, here are my first thoughts when I received the gel; for a start, the packaging is so pretty and I love that it is minimal and what’s even better is that it’s a glass bottle! Which means it’s a bit more eco-friendly and it feels a lot more expensive than the plastic tubes you normally get.

Something I love about this gel is that it is all natural ingredients, and as someone who has very sensitive skin and psoriasis, this was great to hear. And my skin loved it.

Another thing that’s great about Wake is that they don’t test any of their products on animals! So no worrying about animals being harmed!

So… does it work??

Here I am before using the gel and a week after using it in the morning and in the evening.

You be the judge, but I personally think it’s had a big impact on the bags under my eyes and how puffy they get. For reference, here’s how puffy my eyes can be when I wake up in the morning:

You only need a small amount on the gel, I’d say half the size of a pea? It depends on you and how much you want to use! But a little goes a long way. I then smoothed it under my eyes and over my eyelids and then used circular motions to rub it in. Then over the next 5-10 minutes my eye’s started feeling more awake, looked brighter and less puffy. Plus, over time the bags under my eyes seem to have faded a bit too!

My take away?

If you have never used an eye gel before, I recommend trying this out as you won’t be disappointed! And it’s great knowing that it’s made from natural ingredients, and lasts an entire year after opening. Trust me, with the bottle being pretty big and it going a long way, this will probably last you 6 months to that entire year.

I honestly don’t think I’ve got anything bad to say about this gel or Wake, they’re a small British company, and not only are their products are aimed at everyone regardless of age, gender or race, they also make a donation to Women’s Aid from every purchase!

If I had to say one thing that isn’t great about the Wake skincare products is that they sometimes run out of stock because it’s so good and people can’t get enough!

I will certainly be keeping this in my skincare routine and I can’t wait to get my hands on their face cream next! What you should take away from this is that you really should believe the hype!

I’ve never reviewed any skincare or beauty products before, so please let me know if this is helpful and if you want me to do more reviews! Have a great weekend everyone, and make sure you’re wearing sun cream!

Love,

My Hair & Skin routine

We all love having silky hair and smooth skin. And for me that’s been a bit of a journey; over there last year I’ve managed to put together my own extremely simple routine that does everything I want it to whilst still being pretty cheap.

I’d definitely recommend trying these quick and simple routines out for yourself as all of the products I use are less than the price of a fancy coffee.

I can’t guarantee everything will work for you, but it’s always nice to try something out!

So, my skin care routine. Well as some of you know, I have suffered with adult acne for a long time and also suffer with psoriasis, so finding skin products that work for me is sometimes a challenge. (Check out my Acne Journey here!)

I use acne medication prescribed to me along with a few other things to keep my skin in tip top form. (If you think you’re suffering with any form of acne then I highly suggest going to your GP where you can find something that works for you.)

My skin routine goes as follows:

1. First thing in the morning I take my first lot of acne medication, ‘Doxycycline’ with breakfast.
2. Then after breakfast I wash my face with just cold water and put some ‘Simple Kind to Skin Protecting Light Moisturiser SPF 15‘. That’s it for the morning, nice and quick!
3. Lunchtime is when I take my next acne medication, ‘Co-Cyprindiol’ (you have to have frequent check ups when you’re on this one as it doubles up as contraception.
4. At the end of the day (this bit is typically once a week) I use a microdermabrasion skin care machine to exfoliate, promote blood flow and just generally get any nasty stuff out of my pores.
5. Before I go to bed I then apply my ‘Adapalene’ topical acne cream medication.

Some things I also do to help my skin stay clear and healthy are:

• Drinking mostly water. I know I know, we hear this one all of the time, but water helps keep us hydrated and out skin looking moisturised.

 

• I try to not touch my face as much as possible, (don’t want to spread any oils or any traces of stuff that could be transferred onto my face!).

• Wash/Change my pillow case often. (dead skin cells, sweat and all sorts get on these and can cause breakouts after build up!)

 

• I ALWAYS take my makeup off before bed. – I cannot stress this one enough!!

• A balanced diet; this doesn’t mean eating super healthy all of the time, it’s about not eating mountains of sugary, oily, fatty food all of the time, you can still have your favourite guilty pleasures, but just in moderation.

 

• Speaking of food: I always wash my face after eating any form of takeaway; I always feel super greasy after eating foods like Chinese or Fish & Chips, so washing my face after stops me from developing mountains of spots around my chin.

 

• Sun cream. Wear sun cream no matter what weather it is, you skin is always vulnerable to the sun even when it’s cold outside. And if you’re not great at remembering to put it on, get a moisturiser with SPF already in it!

 

Now, onto hair care!

A bit of background on my hair journey:

My hair has been through it. Like really through the ringer. It’s been blonde, brown, auburn (so jealous of all you natural red heads out there!), orange, red, pink, green, strawberry blonde and several other colours. There was once a week where I decided I wanted to go from bright red to blonde.. my mum and I decided to do it in the space of two days; it involved 4 lots of bleaching and a lot of laughing. I’m incredibly lucky to still have hair on my head to be honest.

I have cut my hair off numerous amounts of times in order to salvage what was left of it after copious amounts of bleach and box dyes. One time I decided to go red again after bleaching my hair and putting blonde box dye on it and my hair was so damaged that after one wash my hair had millions of blonde and pink patches where the dye could no longer stick to my hair.

That leads me to now, I cut nearly all of my hair off in September last year in order to finally give up what had become a hair dye addiction (fellow hair enthusiasts know the struggle haha). And from January this year I have been growing out my natural hair in order to get it as healthy as possible again and not felling like straw. I am also slowly getting my naturally wavy and curly hair back!

Here’s just a few images of my hair journey over the years:

Here I am as a baby next to my older sister, that’s me on the right, and as you can see my hair is pretty curly and mad naturally.

As you’ll see in these photos, my hair goes from nice and healthy to getting more like straw and shorter as it kept snapping off!

Here’s me at 12 years old, my hair was still completely natural here!

Here I am at 14 years old, I think my hair might have been bleached slightly at this point?

Here is where my hair escapade starts to go downhill.. I had dyed it a few times by here so it’s big, frizzy and very straw like hair!

I dyed my hair red when I was starting sixth form and you can see how damaged my hair had become by the ends of my hair!

About 2 months into sixth form I decided to bleach all of the life out of my hair and fry it constantly by making it wavy every damn day.

After sixth form I decided to cut my hair into a pixie to try and salvage it, I then dyed it brown and then as it was getting healthier and growing out I decided I wanted blonde hair again.

A year later came around and I couldn’t stop myself from going auburn again, and here you can really see the damage!

My hair survived for a little while longer by going brown for a few months and it grew to a good length, then I wanted to go blonde so bleached it to bits, then I decided I wanted red hair again..

As you can see here, when my 21st birthday came around I decided to try and get my hair healthier again by cutting it into a pixie, and it was bleached blonde during the summer.

I actually have healthy hair in this photo! Here is my hair a few months after I turned 22, I’m starting to grow out my pixie here!

So that is what my hair went through, I’m sure there are more photos all over the place of even more hair colours but that’s something for another day, you’d be here for hours!

Here’s my hair now! It’s finally healthy and all my natural colour; I’m working on styling my natural air dried hair as it’s a big crazy at the moment!

So now you know a bit about my hair past, on to my routine!

1. I brush my hair to get rid of any knots or tangles before I wash it in the evening.
2. I then wash my hair with warm water, using ‘Tesco’s Pro-Vitamin B5 shampoo damaged hair’; I stumbled across this when looking for a new shampoo to try, and for 90p it’s a bargain! This shampoo is absolutely amazing on my hair and I definitely recommend it; it lathers nicely and is super cheap!
3. I then use ‘Tesco’s Pro-Vitamin B5 conditioner for damaged hair'(it is nowhere on the website at the moment but you can find it in store!) on the ends of my hair and work my way up avoiding my roots, like the shampoo, the conditioner is also 90p and makes my hair feel so silky and less frizzy.
4. I then rinse the conditioner out with cold water (it takes a bit of strength to not jump out of the shower at this point haha!).
5. When I get out of the shower I wrap my hair in a micro-fibre hair turban (you can get them from wilko for £1.15!).
6. Then, if my hair is feeling a bit dry I put some spray in conditioner onto the ends of my hair. I use one I picked up by chance at Aldi (it was on their special buys) which is a dupe of the ‘Aussie Miracle Hair Detangler Conditioner Spray’!
7. If I have time I’ll let my hair dry naturally and if I’ve got to be somewhere then I’ll dry my hair on the cool setting with my hair dryer.
8. I usually leave my hair overnight and style my hair with my straighteners in the morning, this is usually straight, but if I do style my hair in the evening it will be curly ready to be clipped half up the next day.

And that’s my hair routine!

Some things I do to help with my hair growth and health:

• Brush my hair before washing it so it isn’t too knotting when I wash it and there’s less damage when I wash it as your hair is a lot weaker when it’s wet.

 

• Rinsing my hair with cold water is something I found makes my hair less frizzy, shinier and it helps promote blood circulation to your scalp, which helps with hair growth!

• Use heat protection sprays even when just using the hair dryer. I recommend putting heat protection spray on your hair when it’s wet, as you avoid potentially making your hair feel greasy when applying it to dry hair.

• I avoid washing my hair everyday as this can strip my hair of it’s natural oils and prevents any oils from penetrating into the hair.

So that’s my skin and hair routines! What’s your hair journey? And what is your skincare routine? Let me know in the comments, I love reading and responding to them all! I hope you all have a great weekend my lovelies!

Oh, and don’t forget, there’s still time to enter my giveaway! Check out how to enter here!

Love,

 

 

My Acne Journey

Happy Saturday lovelies! So this week I’ve finally managed to sit down and write a post you’ve asked for a few times, my acne journey. Just putting this out there now, this is my journey with my skin and what has worked for me, this may work for you, this may not work for you; so please don’t assume all of the products I talk about in this post will or will not work for you. Also, I’m definitely not saying my skin is the worst ever or best, I’m just sharing my story.

Skin is such a personal thing because everyone’s skin is different and needs to be taken care of a certain way to suit that person. After all, skin care is very important since the skin is the largest organ in the body and protects us from so much. So why wouldn’t you want it looking it’s best!

Let’s get into this; so, my journey with my skin has been a long, stressful emotional journey and is by no means over yet. When I was younger I had little to no problems with my skin, being a carefree kid I never did anything to it and lucky for me, that was what worked. Then puberty hit, and again I was lucky enough to only suffer with a spot every now and again, nothing major.

I wish I had appreciated those day more now that I’m a bit older. Especially because as soon as I hit my 20s I developed adult acne, rosacea and my psoriasis began flaring up. Not great for someone who was already a little insecure because she wasn’t happy in her own skin anyway.

I’m now 22 and I’m happy to say that my skin (touch wood) is at a point where I’m reasonably happy with it, I still get the odd angry spot (or mountain/volcano/crater, you decide haha) ever so often but it’s ok.

For my skin to get where it is today, it took a lot of trial and error. To begin with a tried doing face masks about 3 times a week because I thought that maybe something was clogging up my pores and that they might make my skin less red and calm down a bit. For me, this didn’t work. That was when I bought the ‘La Roche-Posay Effaclar 3-Step Anti-Blemish Kit’ in the hopes that this would clear my skin up..long story short is that it made my skin a million times worse.

Which led to me deciding in February this year to finally decided to go to my doctors to get some medical help with my acne. So, here’s what my skin looked like before I did anything and after starting the ‘La Roche-Posay Effaclar 3-Step Anti-Blemish Kit’; also, please excuse my facial expressions in these photos as you can imagine how having acne makes you feel as also, I took these before bed over several weeks to document my skin journey! (It took around 6 months from starting my acne journey to where I am now)

Also, just thought I’d mention that it was at this point that I decided to drink pretty much only water from then on; that was hard at first but after about 2 weeks of making myself do it, I didn’t need to force myself to drink water anymore! It just became routine.

Here’s my skin before trying any treatment.

My skin after using ‘La Roche-Posay’ treatment for a week.

As you can imagine, after trying this acne skincare treatment for a week and my skin only getting worse and really irritated, I decided to stop it. Also, side note; I’m not saying that the ‘La Roche-Posay Effaclar 3-Step Anti-Blemish Kit‘ is a bad product, it just didn’t work for me, you never know, it might work for you!

So, After this I decided that I was finished blindly trying to clear my skin up without really any knowledge on what was causing it. So off to the doctors I went! To begin with, I was prescribed a different contraceptive pill called Cerelle, because at the time I was taking the progesterone only pill which has no oestrogen. I was also prescribed an antibiotic topical treatment called ‘Zineryt (erythromycin, zinc acetate)’. I took this for about 2 1/2 months and here’s what happened!

So, after using the ‘Zineryt‘ topical cream for 2 1/2 months my skin was looking a lot better! And I was feeling a little better about my skin and appearance, which was when it stopped working. Which was a huge bummer!!

So back I went to the doctors again in the hopes that they can give me something really powerful to stop my skin re-erupting!! Which is when I was prescribed ‘Co-Cyprindiol’, ‘Adapalene’ and ‘Doxycycline’. I was lucky that I was prescribed this amount of stuff to tackle my skin at once, I will say that I was a little apprehensive about having to use ‘Co-Cyprindiol’ as this had to replace the pill that I was on because it’s so much oestrogen!! 2000mg to be exact and the doctor told me that you usually have about 20mg..

Also, this pill isn’t classed as a contraceptive pill as you can’t take it for long periods of time so all I was thinking is what happens if it works and they stop me taking it and my skin reverts??! The other medication I was prescribed was the topical cream – ‘Adapalene’ to apply every night before bed, the other medication I was prescribed was ‘Doxycycline’ which is another antibiotic that I have to take every morning with breakfast!

If any of you suffer or have suffered with acne then you know how anxious switching up your skincare and medication can be. Which is why when I switched to these new medications and my skin started reacting badly, I freaked out and called the doctor asking to be taken off them.

Lucky for me, the doctor told me I had to give the medication longer to work and to give it 3 months to see any effect on my skin; because after about 3/4 months of taking all these meds my skin started to clear up!!

I’m so so so glad I stuck with the medication, because after taking everything for a few months, the doctors allows me to continue all of these meds for longer than typically recommended because I wasn’t having any side effects and my body was reacting well.

Now, I’m on a lower dose of ‘Co-Cyprindiol’ in order to continue the treatment safely alongside the other meds. An important note with this is that I do have to go for regular check ups with these pills in order to stay on them. But this is just so the doctors know how my body is coping with the hormone levels.

I also use a microdermabrasion skin care machine once a week to exfoliate and remove any blackheads. I got my machine from amazon for £20 when it was on offer and it’s rechargeable so I haven’t got to worry about paying out for batteries. Here’s the link to the machine I use!

And here is my skin now!

As you can see from my face here, I’m a lot happier with my skin now than ever before!

I’m so much happier with my skin now then ever before, it’s something that I had struggled with for a while and it really got me down to the point where I didn’t feel comfortable going outside at times! And if you’ve ever suffered with acne or currently do, you know what it can feel like and what it can do to your mental health.

I know that with my acne journey I have been pretty lucky in being able to find a treatment that works for me and that not all people are as lucky as I have been. Moral of the story is that if you are struggling with acne or any skin issue, go see your GP because they will be able to help you; and if something isn’t working for you, keep going back and eventually you’ll find something that works. It just takes some trial and error.

Hope this helps any of you suffering with acne or skin issues!! Have a great weekend lovelies! Love,

What It’s Like Being Super Pale In Summer

This is going to be a bit bizarre of a post for some of you, but if you’re super pale like me, or a Winter person.. then you’re going to understand where I’m coming from with this.

To start, you may or may not notice the fact that the UK at the moment is in the midst of the longest heatwave EVER. Which for the majority of people is amazing, but for me, not so much. I’m a self-proclaimed Winter lover. Not because I hate the sunshine, BBQs, Summer fun or anything like that (I love that stuff), but because I love bundling up in layers, wearing my Autumn/Winter boots, the gorgeous food and hot drinks that come with Winter, everything it so prettily decorated and of course, I can’t leave Christmas out of that list. Oh I forgot Christmas movies.. nevermind, the list could go on forever.

What can I say, I’m a bit of a romantic when it comes to Winter! Why I prefer the colder seasons is not only because of the above list, but also because of one other thing. I’m as pale as a sheet of paper. No, I’m being serious. I basically reflect sunlight.

Don’t believe me? Here’s Exhibit A:

And being this pale in Summer results in being told the same thing over and over again. The most infamous of these sayings being:

·         “Get out in the sun!!”

·         “OMG you’re SOOOO pale”

·         “Why don’t you just sit out in it and get a tan”

·         “She must be a vampire”

·         “Have you thought about a spray tan?”

·         “Just sit in the sun for 5 minutes, it won’t kill you”

(If you’re as pale as me then you may have heard a lot of these.)

And, guess what? I’m happy with my skin tone, I don’t tan anyway, I only burn and somehow end up paler than before. It’s taken a long time for me to realise that I don’t need to change it because everyone thinks I should be more tanned. Or that tanned skin is the typical skin tone showed in pretty much every women’s magazine, especially when advertising ‘bikini bodies’. Brief side note – more skin tones need to be shown in advertising and magazines etc. because all skin tones are beautiful and no one should feel like their skin is not as good as someone else’s (I could also say the same about body types..). But I won’t go on about that right now (not in this post anyway).

One thing I’m constantly struck with in Summer is trying to find clothes that I’m comfortable in, I’m a bit of a disaster in the heat, I just can’t function. I hate feeling clammy and sweaty, as does everyone, and I’m constantly in fear of my legs sticking to chairs and having it feel like my skin has been waxed off every time I stand up. And I won’t even go on about sweat patches.

Another thing us pale skinned people have to deal with is the constant going bright red when you’ve literally only walked up a flight of stairs; I look as if I’ve ran a bloody marathon, and people always think I’m really unfit or worn out when in reality I’m totally fine. Or you get this whilst you’re out and about and aren’t sure if your face is sunburnt or if your skin has decided it wants to emulate a tomato.

Which brings me on to the biggest reason I for why I prefer Winter to Summer, sunburn. I can’t actually remember a Summer where I haven’t been severely sunburnt and got sun stroke whilst wear factor 50+ sun cream. And I know what you’re going to say, “you got to re-apply!!”; trust me I know. I practically bathe in the stuff at least every 30 minutes, sit in the shade and still burn.

A lot of people tell me that I’ll tan as I get older, whether or not I will, we’ll just have to wait and see. Being super pale is one of those things that I hated when I was younger, I tried multiple fake tans, including one at the start of May this year only to result in looking like a tangerine and feeling dirty because I’m not used to seeing anything other than white on me. For people using fake tan I applaud you because it always looks natural on you, and I don’t know how you do it! Fake tan + me just doesn’t end well. Nowadays I’ve come to realise that my skin is one of the things that makes me, me. And although every now and again I still long for a darker skin tone, I just don’t think it’ll suit me and if I were to decide I wanted to be more tanned, I’d be too scared to go and get a spray tan for the fear I’ll look like Ross from that episode on Friends..

Whether or not you’re a fellow pale skinned person or someone of any skin tone, what I would love for you to take away from this is that no matter what someone says about your skin tone, it’s beautiful and you shouldn’t feel like it needs to change to fit in with other people’s ideals.

That’s if from my today, I hope you’re enjoying your Summer and staying safe in this heatwave!

As for me, I’m just going to go back to sitting in front of my fan where I can shop for all the new Autumn/Winter collections!

Have fun in the sun, or shade.. everyone!! Love,

Going Makeup Free

Today’s blog post is all about my recent journey of not wearing makeup for a few months. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love wearing makeup and feel great in it and I think it looks amazing on other women and men. You’re all definitely more skilled than me!! And I still love watching makeup tutorials on YouTube and putting on a full face every now and again for special occasions or if I just feel like having a play. But recently I decided to stop wearing it all the time and go bare faced pretty much everyday.

For some people, going makeup free will seem like nothing, but for me this was quite big, partly because I suffer with acne and rosacea. So when I say that I’ve not been wearing makeup, I mean that I’ve gone from wearing heavy foundation, powders and concealers to wearing nothing on my skin on a daily basis. Now I only wear mascara and very thin eyeliner when I’m off out. It’s amazing how much time I have to spend on other things in the morning now!

After the initial few weeks, it’s been surprisingly easy, when I first started this it was for a few reasons:

• I started a new acne treatment and wanted to get the best out of it. (update on that in a future post)
• I wanted to feel better in my own skin and not feel like I need to wear it in order to feel pretty.
• I wanted to be able to hug people without my face transferring everywhere..
• I didn’t want to go around worrying if I’d smudged my face.
• I wanted to be able to go to bed without having to think of taking my makeup off.

Week one was definitely the hardest, my acne was bad and all I wanted to do was cover it up. And because I’m so pale, my rosacea was really bad. Oh and I tend to go bright red easily so I was panicking about that.

I was so scared about what people would see and think that I did my best to avoid going out and only showed my face to the people I am closest to. And the funny thing was that when I went into work I got compliments about how bright and fresh faced I looked!! And no comments that I looked tired, ill or red or that my skin looked bad, but nice things that gave me so much motivation to go makeup free for the long run.

So.. that was about 3 and a half months ago, and part of the reason why I’m writing this now is because I’ve only just realised this week that I’ve not been thinking about putting makeup on to cover up my skin to go out at all!

I still love wearing makeup, and I wear it for special occasions, but only when I feel like it and can be bothered to put it on. One thing I’ve noticed from doing this is that my skin has definitely got better, whether that is a result from not wearing makeup or my acne treatments, or both, I’m not sure. My skin isn’t completely clear yet, and it’s still got a long way to go before it’s completely clear, but for now I don’t totally hate it (well.. at least on a good day). I’ll do a post about my acne pretty soon when I reach the end of my treatment.

Something I’ve noticed from going makeup free is that funnily enough, no one gives a shit. No one said anything horrible or made comments, I wasn’t stared at in the street and no children ran away from me screaming after seeing my face. All a bonus really haha..

If you’re thinking about going makeup free and you’re worried about what people will say, just know that it’s not as bad as you think, and it’s quite refreshing to have clean skin out and about. Also, if you aren’t sure you can go completely makeup free straight away, work your way up (or maybe down is more appropriate?) to it but gradually using thinner layers of makeup and cutting certain things out of your routine over a few days/weeks, whatever works for you!

What I think you should take away from this post is that you’re all beautiful in your own skin (mushy post alert!) and deserve to feel amazing in your own skin without having to worry about what anyone else thinks. And if you want to wear makeup then you should! And if you don’t want to wear makeup, then don’t wear makeup!! Do what makes you feel good, and that’s what’s important.

Don’t let anyone tell you you should wear makeup and don’t let anyone tell you you’re wearing too much makeup. And if they are saying you’re wearing too much then tell them that that’s good because you paid good money for that makeup so you’d better be able to see it! If someone tells you you should wear makeup then tell them that they should go fuck themselves because you don’t have to conform to their beauty standards!

I hope you all have a great weekend my lovelies!! Love,

Living With A Skin Condition

*Post may contain graphic images*

Grab yourself a cuppa and sit down, and let me tell you how this post came about. Well, the idea for this post came last weekend. I was talking with my mum about what sort of blog posts she would like to see more of online, and she came up with a post raising awareness about what it’s like living with an illness that people don’t necessarily see day to day. In other words, invisible illnesses. I’ll be primarily talking about an illness close to my family.

So why did she want a blog post like this? Well my mum suffers with a skin condition called psoriasis (pronounced with a silent P). Psoriasis is a common immune condition which affects 3% of people in the UK and Ireland. It has affects on the skin and is linked to several other medial issues that can develop.

Here’s me and my mum!!

Psoriasis causes a persons skin replacement process to speed up, taking a few days to replaces skin cells whereas someone who hasn’t got psoriasis would take 21-28 days. Due to the process being so sped up, the skin cells build up on the skin and form raised ‘plaques’ on the skin and it is flaky, scaly, it can be different tones on different skin types and it incredibly itchy. It can affect anywhere on the body, depending on the type. It is caused by the cells which fight infections becoming overactive, which as a result causes inflammatory chemicals to be produced, which leads to the rapid skin regeneration.

I know what some of you might be thinking, does this mean that you heal super quickly when you hurt yourself like a super hero?? In short, no. It just sucks.

Unfortunately there is no cure for it, but it can be managed with treatment and advice. But different things can trigger it and these are different for everyone.

My mum suffers with psoriasis pretty bad, literally head to toe. She’s tried all creams, lotions and potions out there. She could probably open her own chemist with all the different things she’s tried. The only thing that seems to work is the sun. Yes, the actual sun. And guess what, we live in England.. Not typically the home of hot sunny weather.

This means that one day you could see her and she’ll be out in a vest top and shorts and you wouldn’t think anything is wrong with her skin, and the next she could be in a long sleeve turtle neck with jeans and a hat to cover as much of her skin as possible. My mum kindly agreed to have some photos taken of her skin so you can see what it is like living with psoriasis.

As with all invisible illnesses, just like with mental health challenges, there are some things that people will suggest or tell you to do when they don’t necessarily understand where you’re coming from. And that you have likely already tried everything they are going to say. But we all know deep down they’re coming from a place of trying to help you out, so you just sit there smiling trying not to implode.

Things my mum hears all the time:

• Have you tried this moisturiser? I get really dry skin and this works for me.
• Are you sure it’s not dandruff? (Disclaimer, the answer to this is always NO. And we’ve tried all forms of anti-dandruff shampoo out there and they don’t work.. Stop suggesting them!)
• My friend has a friend who’s uncle’s cousin has psoriasis, and his doctor gave him this.. (we’ve literally tried everything from the doctors for my mums skin already)
• Why hasn’t the doctor given you injections to manage it? (The thing with going to the doctors about your skin is that you can always get an appointment at the doctors the same day, and with skin conditions they can look worse on day to the next. Which means half the time when you actually get to the doctors they don’t think it’s that bad because you’re having what my mum calls ‘a good skin day’.)
• Have you tried cutting out dairy? (yes.. It sucked and didn’t do anything..)
• Have you tried exercising more or yoga? (I don’t know why this is everyone’s answer to any medical problem..)
• Just stop itching it and it’ll go away (it wont.)
• Just stop worrying about it (people can say this all they like, but it won’t change the fact that we’re self conscious about it)

Having a condition or illness that can be invisible can take it’s toll on you mentally. It can really get you down and affect your self esteem. For my mum, if she’s having a ‘good skin day’ she’ll be happy to wear black tops and jumpers because she isn’t worried about having skin flakes everywhere. But if she’s having a ‘bad skin day’ she’ll wear primarily white tops just because she feels when her skin flakes it’s less noticeable.

The best thing you can do for someone with an invisible illness that isn’t always invisible is just be there for them. And ask them what you can do to help. Or ask them if there is anything they have found works for them, and just reassure them that if people stare, it’s because it’s just human nature to look at things we’ve not seen before (we’re curious beings, so we understand that people don’t just stare to be mean, they often don’t realise they’re even doing it). Keep telling them that they’re perfect the way they are and that it doesn’t bother you at all. It’s common and nothing to be ashamed of.

What’s important is letting them know that they are loved, regardless of any invisible or visible illness/conditions and that they will not change the way you see them.

My mum is incredible with how open she is about how her skin affects her mental wellbeing. She’s not afraid to speak up about it as skin conditions are not something really spoken about enough. It’s cheesy, but I don’t see my mum’s skin condition, she’s just my mum. And she’s perfect the way she is.

I think that’s enough from me today!! Have a great week everyone!!

Love,