My Skin Story
How it began. . .
My story starts back in 2013, I had been a qualified beauty therapist for the last two years and was in the first year of my nutrition degree, with a face completely covered in acne. I was 21 at the time and felt so embarrassed and ashamed, thinking no one would take me seriously in my line of work when my face was like this. By that point in my life, I was becoming more conscious about health and wellness but didn’t really have an idea of what foods I should be eating, what products I should be using or how I should be taking care of myself. I tried every product you can think of for my skin. Working in the beauty industry, I would constantly have people coming up to me suggesting products and treatments to try, and I tried it all. More often than not, it would usually just leave my skin more red and angry. My boss at the time ended up doing a series of peels on my skin (1st photo - before, 2nd photo - after), which did make an improvement on the surface but after a while it all came back and it felt like there was no resolution in sight.
At that time, I was going to the gym regularly but I started feeling embarrassed to leave the house. One morning I broke down crying, I couldn’t bring myself to leave the house. My best friend stopped me and gave me one of the best pieces of advice that has always stuck in my mind, which was “it’s only temporary” and that’s what mentally got me through. It wasn’t easy getting up each day and facing the world feeling like an imposter, like I should know better now that I am studying nutrition and working the beauty industry. Being 21, I was incredibly self-conscious but remembering that this isn’t going to last forever, put my mind in a more positive frame of thinking.
Not too long later, I was at at the gym training when this older gentleman came up to me and started talking to me. He asked me “what are you doing to help you?”, I looked at him puzzled and he continued “your skin, what are you doing for your skin?”. It completely caught me off guard, until that point, people looked at my skin and made no comment but this was the first time that someone actually approached me, or confronted me about it. To put it into context, this man was a doctor and I ended up booking an appointment with him to see what he could offer. I knew the possible options were topical retinoids, antibiotics and roaccutane and until that point I was adamant that I wouldn’t take medication for my skin. But it had been almost two years and enough was enough. I ended up filling a prescription for minocycline, a tetracycline antibiotic that targets bacteria in the skin, and epiduo, a topical retinoid with benzyl peroxide to use on my skin. I did this for four months and my skin cleared up. It was the first time in years I had seen my skin starting to clear up, with only the post inflammatory hyperpigmentation remaining. A part of me felt like I was going against my values by taking antibiotics and knowing first-hand the effects it has on the microbiome, but the other part of me knew that I couldn’t take it any longer and I was willing to do whatever I could to mop up the damage I may cause from taking antibiotics and using topical retinoids.
Following this, a friend referred me to see an kinesiologist - something I had no idea what was involved or how it worked. My first experience, I thought “what am I getting myself into, how can the body know what makes it stronger or weaker?” But I persisted and I ended up learning so much about my body and how it responds to different things. From foods to products to thoughts to emotions, we went through it all. Things that I had previously put no thought to, was now so blatantly obvious that it’s not good for the human body. Things like spray tans and the products we were using in the spa, my skincare and makeup, the foods that I was eating, they were all having an effect on different parts of the body but mainly things like hormones, digestion and the liver. This understanding sparked my curiosity for foods and products, learning about ingredients, as well as environmental pollutants, EMF’s, packaging and so many of the things that we wouldn’t second guess that disrupt our body’s natural homeostasis.
Fast forward to my final year of my nutrition studies, I was still cleaning up the mess of what 4 months of antibiotics had done to my gut as well as working out what I was going to do when I finished this degree. And then it all clicked, I wanted to help people who were struggling with their skin. From all the ups and downs this journey had taken me, I fully understood the toll it takes on ones self-esteem. From this, I focussed all my research around acne, antibiotics and how proper nutrition could improve the skin. I learnt more about skincare ingredients, preservatives, additives and all these sneaky things added into our products as well as our food. This curiosity has sent me down a rabbit hole over the last 4 years since finishing my nutrition degree, and it has brought me to my next chapter of completing my degree in acupuncture (a whole other story) and applying all the things I have learnt from my personal journey, the countless research articles and hands-on experience to what I do today.
Sometimes we forget how far we’ve come, we forget to stop, take a step back and look at the whole journey to remember what we went through to get us to where we are today. If you’ve made it this far, thank you, and I hope by me sharing this story it can help someone in some way.
With love,
Lily.
