I hope you are having a nice day, the weather here in Ireland is absolutely diabolical! I am longing for some sunshine, just 16 more days and I will be off on my holidays! :D
Today I want to address an issue I have been battling for about almost 10 years and I want to share some tips I have learned along the way for you guys and girls who suffer from this too.
Since I was in my last years of Primary school I have never been a day without having spots on my face.
I have been living with Acne for as long as I can remember and throughout my teen years it was at an all time high. I remember even my back was covered in spots.
It was horrible, and as I entered my adolescent years my confidence diminished. I never felt I looked pretty so I tried to cover my face with lots of makeup When you enter into secondary school all a young teenager wants is to feel cool and pretty and I found it very hard with my skin problems and seeing all the other girls looking so flawless all the time!
I remember asking my Mom when I was 12 if she ever had bad skin. She told me she did but they went when she was 14. I took that with some happiness believing my spots would disappear when I too turned 14. But no, here I am 21 and still getting the odd spot.
I learned to live with this believing I wasn't pretty enough for a few years and trying to cover my face as much as I could. But then I began to learn about cleansing my face and moisturising my face.
This did help a tiny bit but not a lot. When I entered into my Leaving Cert year I began to stop wearing makeup to school because at that stage I was mature enough to not care what I looked like. But in my Leaving Cert year I discovered something that put an end to the harsh acne.
I changed my diet. Never did I think that food could change so much about a person. Since I was a child all I would drink was milk, glasses and glasses of milk a day, I would eat a lot of bread and of course have a lot of sugary foods. I cut everything out. I stopped my milk consumption and exchanged it for Soya milk, I began to eat spelt bread but only a small amount, I refused to eat any starchy foods. I ate a lot more fish and vegetables, drinking a lot more water.
Side note: In 5th year (second last year of school) I developed this terrible cough which would make me get into terrible coughing fits in class. I went to the doctor multiple times about my cough and they gave me every form of medicine they could. Nothing helped and I was a year with this horrid cough.
After drastically changing my diet and my God was it hard at the start, two weeks after the change my cough went, my skin cleared so much. I still got some spots but the severity of the spots went down by over 50%! Never again did I get a spot on my back, to this day my back is spot free.
I'm 21 now and I have scarring on my face from my acne days. I do get some spots some days but only a small amount. I know my diet is a huge influence on how my skin is. Until this day I can't touch milk. I don't drink normal tea any more only Green tea. I have bread but very rarely. I still have confidence issues with the scars on my face but as I grow older I love the way I am a lot more. :)
Follow these steps and I guarantee you your skin will improve immensely.
1. DietCut your milk consumption in half or completely out of your diet. Substitute it with soya milk or Almond milk. Stop consuming so much bread. I have cut out bread in my diet and I only eat spelt bread now it's just as nice maybe even nicer! But I only eat it the odd time.
Introduce more fish and fish oils into your diet and meat. Introduce more vegetables especially green vegetables. Reduce your intake of starchy foods e.g. potatoes, crisps etc.
Stop the sugar now! An increased amount of sugar is a big no, substitute you sugary cravings with nuts, and cut out all sugary drinks from your diet. We all know they're not good. Drink water instead. Substitute you tea or coffee cravings for green tea or any of the herbal teas. If you can't do that then reduce the milk intake in your tea/coffee or else substitute it for soya or almond like I said earlier.
2. Sleep.
Try to get enough sleep at night especially if you are a student. While your sleeping your skin is trying to repair itself, lack of sleep reduces this process. Try to get 8 hours minimum every night and try to get your body clock in order. I know it's hard when it's summer time but try. It's called Beauty Sleep for a reason! <3
3. Water!
Keep yourself hydrated as much as possible. If you're out of the house a lot bring a bottle of water with you. When you wake up in the morning drink a full glass of water. After your nights sleep your body is dehydrated and needs water. Your body is made up of 80% water think about how much water you need to give it to keep it healthy and flushed of toxins.
4. Hygiene.
Cleaning your skin is very important, I try to use natural soaps to keep my skin clean, I recently started to use a soap called Nesti Dante Dolce Vivere Soaps from Italy.
My boyfriend was kind enough to buy it for me because he knows how much problems I have
with my skin. I find it to be excellent and after doing some research I know it's possible to buy
them on Amazon, You can shop the one I have here. If you have oily skin like me don't cleanse
your skin too much as it will dry it out and in fact cause more breakouts, wash your face twice
a day and moisturise after each wash.
The moisturiser I use is by Boots, it's the Botanics range which I love because its made from the
plants in the Royal Botanic Gardens in England. You can shop it here.
Another important tip, DON'T touch your skin, I know it's tempting to squeeze your breakouts
to get rid of them but it will only cause an infection and scarring. Try to leave them alone
and let the spot run its course.
Try to exfoliate once a week to remove dead skin, I use the exfoliator from the Botanics range
and you can shop it here.
5. Bed sheets.
I'm not calling you dirty but how often do you change your bed covers? If you suffer from acne
you should be changing your bed sheets a lot more frequently to prevent contaminating other
parts of your skin and preventing further breakouts. Your skin needs to be away from as much
oil and dirt as possible and changing your bed sheets is extremely important.
6. Stress
We all know stressing doesn't have good effects for our bodies so of course it wouldn't have
benefits for our skin. When you're stressed you are more prone to getting run down, lack of
sleep and in fact laziness with care for our skin and daily routines To reduce stress in your life
I found what helps me is to get organised. If you have a journal keep notes in it and you can
plan what you are going to do in work/school/college. Since I began keeping a journal I have
never felt more organised and on top of all my work.
If you're an acne sufferer and you have any tips I would absolutely love to hear them.
I hope you have taken away some useful information from this.
This was not easy for me to address but I believe I can help people from the experiences I've encountered and I want to help people overcome their confidence issues because I know it can be very hard.
I will share pictures of my skin and how it is scarred:
In these pictures my skin is actually clear and I have only one spot. These are just the scars left over from years of acne.
Love Ciara x
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