#4: Journey to the center of my skincare problems

Buckle up

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Please consider donating to Khaana Chahiye Foundation, which was established during COVID to combat hunger in Mumbai. The organization helps to serve the area’s most vulnerable groups including sex workers and the LGBTQ+ community. From now until Monday, May 17, I will be matching up to $100 in donations. Please Venmo @bb-bean-burrito or feel free to donate directly and let me know how much so I can include it in my match. Thanks!

Hey! Howdy! Hello!

How’s everyone holding up? I, for one, am appreciating the nice New York weather. However, the nice weather is starting to approach the kind of heat that will turn me into a demon. Standby for when I reach my alternate form.

A few weeks ago, I had my first ever dermaplaning experience. It was...sublime. I think I may now be addicted to it. I want to have the skin scraped off of my face all the time.

A few days ago, my skin had a meltdown. I was breaking out everywhere on my chin and around my mouth. I experimented with different pimple patches.

Yesterday, I talked to dear reader and friend Amanda about microneedling, another thing I have experimented with.

This gorgeous trio inspired me to dive a little ~deeper~ into my skincare history. It’s been a long tortured journey. Join me.

skincare (my skin does not care)

Basically since the day I entered the seventh grade, I’ve been breaking out. It started out as just a pimple here or there on the rare occasion as puberty was creeping in, and by high school, I was having breakouts on a more regular basis. Back then, I was lucky in that I never experienced breakouts beyond my t-zone. I never had the kind of acne that resulted in lots of pustules and my cheeks were relatively spared. But still, the breakouts I did have were the bane of my existence. They were all I could focus on and my nose was covered in blackheads. I had very little confidence in my appearance. I went on birth control at a young age to curb the hormonal acne, but it still persisted. I began getting traditional spa facials around my junior year of high school and so began my experience with Real Skincare™.

The esthetician would bring me in and pick and prod at my skin for an hour. She would recommend products (all from the spa’s line of Dermalogica). The products worked okay, but my acne was stronger. Eventually, I went to my dad’s dermatologist. They put me on a combination of topical and oral acne medications that I honestly can’t remember the name of. I began them right before the summer, which was a mistake because they made me overly sensitive to the sun (as if I wasn’t sensitive to it enough already), so I spent most of the summer in the shade thinking about my curséd skin and my regiment of prescription drugs at the ripe age of 16. By the early fall, I was just using whatever topical medication they had given me. It made my skin dry and flaky and I didn’t know about moisturizer because I was a naive baby who thought my skin needed to be devoid of all oils. No one bothered to tell me I was a fool.

Flash forward to college. My skin still sucked, but it was a little better. One thing I feel I should mention is that the actual barrier of my skin is amazing. It is so frickin’ soft (humble brag). So in my mind, these pesky breakouts and scars I had really ruined my potential for the perfect skin I believed to exist. I would watch as my college roommates would fall asleep in their makeup and face no repercussions. I’d see them wake up in the morning and not wash their face and approach the day barefaced. I seethed with jealousy while I scrubbed and slathered on my latest drugstore skincare purchases that I told myself would be The Ones and beat my face with makeup.

Looking back, I think at some point around sophomore year of college, my skin was actually doing okay, but I could only ever see the flaws. Whether it was the dark circles under my eyes from late nights building sets or my naturally uneven red skin tone, I could never just let my skin breathe. I always needed to experiment with something new and then promptly cover it up. Makeup really skewed my perception of my own skin. I couldn’t see myself without it and therefore when I wasn’t wearing it I was convinced I had the World’s Worst Skin ©. 

Now I’m in my senior year of college aka The Bad Year. I didn’t have a primary care physician in DC and I had been putting off going to literally any doctor for a while as I was wont to do. My birth control prescription ran out and a doctor I had seen a few years before wouldn’t renew it. As these things are known to play out, I just stopped taking it. This turned out to be a Very Bad Idea. My face was covered in red dots and breakouts, I suddenly had acne all over my chest and back. My cheeks, which had once been a blank canvas, became an experiment in pointillism in the shade of crimson and blush. (Not to mention I learned that when I am not on birth control I have cramps so bad I cannot move and feel like I am being stabbed repeatedly—a topic for another day.) Instead of making the connection between my newfound horrors and the lack of something that had regulated my life for years, I blamed anything else and didn’t go to a doctor. I thought it was my detergent causing my chest and back breakouts. I switched cleansers and began burning my skin with drugstore products promising to zap zits. Eventually, I went to a doctor and got my prescription filled, but by that point, it was too late. I had done real damage to my skin.

After my college graduation, I went to a dermatologist about my face. The breakouts on my back and chest had subsided, but my face was still covered in the red dots and occasional breakouts that were not just pesky pimples but intense pustules. The derm prescribed me some topical treatment and doxycycline. He warned me about the sun exposure and begged me to wear moisturizer, promising it wouldn’t hurt me. He said he’d check in in about three months. He did not.

January 2020. I am in New York City. I go to a dermatologist because I’ve stopped taking the doxycycline recently and stopped using the topical treatment a year earlier. My skin is still covered in red dots and I think maybe I have rosacea. The dermatologist’s office is one of those typical New York City offices with two doctors who are said to be some of the best in the country; ranked in magazines and loved by celebrities. The office specializes in “cosmetic” dermatology, which I learn upon arrival means most of the people in the waiting room are visiting for their monthly injection or $500 medical-grade chemical peel (I admire these people, this is not a judgment). Meanwhile, I’m just here to figure out what the heck is going on with my face and sit in the waiting area like a shy teen trying to hide my imperfections from these seemingly flawless individuals. The physician’s assistant comes in, I clock immediately that has great skin. She looks at my face and asks me about my skincare routine. She has me walk her through morning to night, day to day. She commends my routine, which at this point I had perfected and loved (mostly products from The Ordinary and a devotion to washing my face no matter how tired or drunk I may be). She lists a few prescription options. She gawks at the fact I was taking doxycycline for two years rather than just a few short months. She recommends spironolactone, a blood pressure medication that has been shown to have benefits for young women in their 20s suffering from acne on their chin and cheeks, a common phenomenon which is assuring to learn. I am not alone in experiencing all of this. I take the script and run with it.

The spironolactone takes a few months to really find its groove, but once it hits its stride I suddenly start to have fewer and fewer breakouts. I run out of the prescription in the early aughts of the pandemic and immediately revert back to pustules and pimples. I get the prescription refreshed and the inflammation dies down. But I’m still left with these red spots all over my face. I touch my face and it feels soft and smooth, there’s not an actual bump anywhere to be found, but my entire face looks like it’s covered in breakouts because of these little red dots. I start investigating. I send pictures of my skin to a company someone on the internet recommends (shout out to Nolaskinsentials). They recommend products with glycolic acid, Vitamin C serums, exfoliators, etc. Things I heard of but never really had an idea of what they did. I buy everything they recommend and stick to this exact regiment every day.

I go home to my family in May and decide to take action on the redness. I visit a medical spa where I learn about hyperpigmentation for the first time. What I thought was scarring from The Bad Year of breakouts was actually my very pale skin holding onto the redness, something that will continue to happen as I break out. I have my face microneedled three times in 1.5 months to rejuvenate the cells. The results aren’t immediate, but I can see my skin changing. My derm prescribes me tretinoin for hyperpigmentation and breakouts.

dewydudes

A post shared by @dewydudes

I return to New York and begin getting facials monthly (shout out to Glowbar). They do a variety of fun things to my skin each month and chat with me about one of my new favorite things to chat about: skincare. We do everything from LED light therapy to high-frequency treatments to chemical peels to extractions to (recently) dermaplanning. My skin is softer and stronger. My relationship with it changes. COVID has blessed me with one thing which is a face free of makeup. I learn what my face really looks like and actually embrace it.

May 2021. My chin has a few tiny mountains on it. They’re annoying, but I’m honestly more concerned for their safety than my appearance and treat them with the utmost care and attention. I confidently take selfies barefaced and log on to work Zooms sans makeup. I’ve finally reached a point with my skin where I just want to care for it and give it things that nourish it rather than give it things that are trying to constantly correct it. Obviously, I still want it to look decent, I am human, but I also love knowing what it actually looks like. I still wear makeup, but mostly just because it’s fun and makes me feel like I’m getting dressed up for something after a year of not having anything to get dressed up for, not because I want it to hide anything. I finally feel comfortable ~in my own skin~. I also moisturize now.

drmedispa

A post shared by @drmedispa

Thanks for joining me on this week’s journey. Also, thanks to all who have donated to the fundraiser for Khaana Chahiye so far. You have until the end of the day Monday, May 17 to contribute as I’ll be making the donation on Tuesday.

See ya next week!

Kira