Okay friends. I am going on a journey.
I have terrible acne and just all around terrible complexion on my face. My whole face is scarred and I look ridiculous. This has been a huge cause of self esteem issues for me, among other reasons. I am someone who is dealing with severe depression and I am beginning to suspect I have anxiety as well. My perception of my own beauty has a lot to do with this.
I have pretty much just resigned myself to having terrible, ugly skin forever and never being able to do anything about it. But, I wandered into the skincare section of TikTok and I learned a few things and so I have decided to try them. Something I really struggle with is washing my face. I can’t really explain it but it just always seems like so much work for no results at all, so I basically do it at random, even when I am wearing makeup. Yes, I have gone to bed many a night with my makeup on.
So, first things first: I have to wash my face every morning and every night.
Second, makeup removing wipes are the devil (apparently) and I should never use them again. Which absolutely sucks, but okay.
Third, I have started with a basic skincare product revamp. I threw out my St. Ives scrubs (yes, I owned more than one) because according to skincare TikTok, they are in cahoots with makeup removing wipes and basically destroy your face. So I bought CeraVe Foaming Face Cleanser, their AM moisturizing cream, their eye repair cream, and that really deep, blood red chemical mask from The Ordinary. The eye repair cream isn’t here yet, but I have all the rest.
Fourth, if you’re going to use that chemical mask from The Ordinary, you need to use sunscreen. The mask makes your skin super sensitive to UV light and can end up causing you more harm than good if you don’t use sunscreen. USE SUNSCREEN.
I washed my face this evening and let it dry completely. In reading the instructions for The Ordinary chemical mask, it says not to use on damaged skin, which my skin is not healed from my acne so I just tested a dot of it on my skin. It burned a bit, so I washed it off immediately and I am going to try again in a few days. Hopefully my skin will have cleared up a bunch by then. Then after that, I put on the AM moisturizer from CeraVe. Yes, I know it was at night but I don’t have enough money to buy both moisturizers so I figured the one with the sunscreen in it was better than the one that had none, especially since I am working on using chemical mask regularly. I hope to buy the nighttime moisturizer soon. But, that was it. I don’t have the eye repair cream yet because it is still being shipped. I expect it tomorrow. I want to buy some other products, particularly from The Ordinary, but I have to wait until I have more money. So for now, this is my only skincare routine.