My Naked Face

I do not like my skin.

I'm very much in the mindset of self-empowerment and trying the best we can to love ourselves (especially as we are seemingly taught from a young age to hate ourselves), but I do not like my skin.

I somehow managed to make it through my teens with a below-average amount of acne but when I hit 20 it came out of nowhere. Thanks skin. I've done a bit of research and self-diagnosis (thank you google) and it sounds to me like it's caused by a hormonal imbalance. I get spots below my cheekbones and around my jaw, which I've learnt is called the U-zone, unlike the brow and forehead that's common for teenagers, the T-zone. Thankfully, I don't have HUGE amounts of acne all the time but I've got myself a ~lovely~ bit of scarring and red marks from where it's been.

So far, I haven't really found anything that helps. I've read all the reviews and tried all the creams, gels, foams and washes that I can get my hands on, but nothing really seems to make much of a difference. VISIBLY CLEARER SKIN IN UNDER THREE HOURS, the labels shout, but that remains to be seen. The only solution I've been happy with is to cover it all up with makeup, but I've realised recently that that doesn't really make me happy after all and I'm fairly sure it probably hinders more than it helps. I've got myself into a bit of a vicious cycle whereby I have bad skin so I cover it with makeup which makes it worse so I wear more makeup and the circle continues.

Recently, I've been thinking a bit about my relationship with makeup and I'm not sure whether it's always been a healthy one. I enjoy wearing makeup: I feel good when I'm armed with a decent lipstick and few things please me more than perfectly matching eyeliner, but I don't enjoy feeling like I have to wear makeup all the time. Some days I'm just a bit nahhh, and that's totally fine, but I don't always feel fine about it.

I'm not sure how old I was when I got my first pot of Maybelline Dream Matte Mousse, probably about 13, but I remember very quickly feeling that now I had taken on makeup as part of me, I couldn't not wear it, and that's pretty much stuck with me ever since. I used to do a lot of musical theatre stuff at school and I remember one day in sixth form we had a dress rehearsal and had to be in school for 8 am. I also remember putting on foundation at home to walk to school in, to walk through the campus in (bearing in mind there was basically no-one around because school didn't start until 8.45) and to TAKE OFF as soon as I got to the rehearsal room ready for my stage makeup. That was the extent of it.

Let me just say now that I've never had serious issues with body image. Sure, I often look in the mirror and don't like what I see, but nothing really serious. I didn't hate my skin or my body when 14 year old me was covering my face in concealer every time I had to leave the house, I just thought that was the done thing. I thought people would look at me differently if I went out with a naked face, so I've kept the routine up for the last seven years.

Last week I decided that I'd had enough: if I've got any hope of letting my skin clear up I've got to let it breathe, I thought, and leaving the house shouldn't get in the way of that. So, last week I took a deep breath and went into uni for a study day with...wait for it...no makeup. And do you know what? Nothing happened. Nobody cowered away shielding their eyes from me and nobody treated me differently. Incredible. I did that for three days in a row.

I've realised that most of the time, I'm the only one that cared. Everyone else if too busy being self-conscious to worry about what my face is doing. It's so funny that we care so much when literally no one else does, and I wish I'd realised that sooner.

I would say sorry that this is a long, incoherent ramble, but I don't feel like I need to apologise. I'm not going to pretend that I'm "embracing my acne" or that I love my scars because I don't. I envy people with clear skin, but maybe they envy my naturally wavy hair- who knows?

I do not like my skin, and that's okay. I've realised that I don't have to like my skin, but I don't have to be ashamed of it either.