Categories: Beauty

How To Own Your Acne

Owning your acne is realizing that your skin reflects nothing about whats underneath it. Your potential is not written on your forehead. At 23, I am still, begrudgingly, involved with acne. They keep making themselves comfortable on my body, when I thought after high school and college, they’d leave for good. Too bad I’m smarter. Too bad I like to write. And too bad I want you to feel the confidence I would have never gained if it weren’t for our old pal Acne. Like the 1989 Buick Century my parents let me drive when I was younger, I chose to own my look. Here are ways confidence can grow out of your spotty situation.

Our Skin

You have eyeballs and an image of what you want to/have to look like. It’s healthy to feel strong emotions when you think about your acne. Feel frustrated, angry and like life’s unfair. Just don’t wallow in self-pity. Pick up that young chin and perk-up. There’s light and it’s not even at the end of the tunnel, it’s right here. My advice is to get outside of your thoughts from time to time by enjoying who you are. This will help you, like it did me, in your day-to-day.

Play your sport. Dive into your textbooks. Keep going to improv club. See your friends during lunch and on the weekends. Your skin belongs to you, and so does the body it covers. When I would turn the bathroom light on at the end of a long high school day, I’d see the same pimples that I had when I was laughing with my boys at baseball practice and standing in front of my club members at Model U.N. Your hobbies, clubs and sports fly you well above the acne embarrassment zone. Do like Eminem and Lose Yourself in who you are instead of how you look.

Acne Is Only Skin Deep

Today, we see models dating men that look like the gnome from those Travelocity commercials. Taylor Swift breaks up with beautiful boys left and right, and Brad broke up with Angelina. If this happens, how can physical appearances be the end-all-be-all? Your pimples won’t prevent you from falling in love, running fast, securing a college scholarship, or landing a fulfilling job. Those dots only go skin deep.

Your Confidence

Like Paris Hilton’s money, your skin was given to you. To base your confidence completely off of how you look would be to build a mansion on a marsh. Humans have unpredictable depth to them. Over your acne journey, you will develop your self-confidence from what you’re capable of. When I couldn’t hang my hat on a stunning complexion, I did what I wrote above^. I continued to involve myself in clubs and sports, passions and things that interested me. Yes, I hated my scarred face, but I loved the things I was doing. Overtime, I alleviated the pressure I placed on myself to get rid of my zits. I continued my skin care routine, and continued to be me.

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Skin-Care Routine: Clap Back

Washing your face every night is your clap-back to acne. Do what you have to do to keep your face clean. Do you need to wash during lunch? Run in the bathroom and scrub your face with the soap you brought in your backpack. Do you need to try a new face wash? Click here for today’s highest customer rated acne treatments. Your consistent efforts to clean your beautiful face leave you with a sense of ownership over your acne. Remember, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Moisturizer

When your body hydrates your skin, it secretes oils into your face, back or chest. Hydrate it yourself with a moisturizer so these harmful oils do not nullify the hard work you spent to clean your face. We want to replace these potential oils with oil-free, store-bought moisturizers. Today, I use Vitazing by Origins.