The lengths we go to, to make ourselves look good.

Hey Girlies,

I've been reading so many "my skin care routine posts" so i decided to put my skin on one of those posts, as i find they don't cover any of my personal issues.

I'll start with the basics, i turn 25 in exactly 13 days. I know 25 i hear you say, how is that possible.. haha.  No really though turning a quarter of a century old is quite scary, as i feel i have accomplished hardly anything in life.  But still there's plenty years to do everything i want.  But one thing that has never changed over the last 10 years is my skin, it's still "shite" so to put it bluntly.

Although it may seem drastic to say that about my skin, it's completely true, i have never been one of those people who was blessed with good skin, i have always suffered with bad skin.  It all started when i was 14, and bit personal but it was not due to puberty as i was a "late starter" and only at 17 did stuff start to come about, so all this it's her hormones/puberty business was absolute bullshit.  But that's an easy excuse for people to use.  I found that i stuck out like a sore thumb, with terrible red, blotchy and acne skin, especially on my face it was Horrendous.  Anyway i finally went to the doctors about it when i was 15 and they gave me tablets which i was on for around 2 years.... to start with they really helped, although my skin was still shockingly bad, it reduced the redness and stopped the almost daily breakouts and to be honest it was like a miracle to me, and back then when at 15 i was still a kid, wearing make-up wasn't really the done thing to school or anything so i was like nowhere to hide really.  I found that after about a year and half the tablets stopped working, to be honest they probably stopped working well before that but that's when i noticed it, and i went back the doctors but they said to let my skin be for a while and see what happened. 

Thankfully my skin appeared to actually be okay, and by okay i mean in the sense of it was drasically better than what it was but still a million miles away from "perfect", but for me "perfect" was never achieveable.

At 16/17 i was preparing for my school prom and was quite excited, but the night before i got the dreaed "spots" and found out i had chicken pox and was unable to attend my prom, gutted wasn't the word.  The chicken pox were awful i'm not even going to lie, they covered my face really badly, and i ended up in the doctors as they had spread down my throat and stuff and to be honest i looked horrible, once i got better some of my scabs had came off when i was sleeping and stuff and they left me scarred, i still have quite a lot of scars on my face from the chicken pox and one quite large one in the centre of my nose, but they are something that you learn to live with and to be honest things like that can't rule your life and there are people out there with permaneant disfigurements and they go about their daily life with a positive outlook.

Over the next 5 years my skin had it's good and its shockingly bad days but that's just how it goes.  I honestly thought that by now at nearly 25 my skin would have sorted itself out, but alas it hasn't therefore, i do believe i'll just be one of those people who will never have lovely smooth skin, i'll be the Cameron Diaz of the celebrity world.

At least by trying to keep my break-outs and blemishes at bay i'm trying to keep my skin under control, and my doctors are really helpful with me.  Although in years to come, i do think i will seek detmatalogical advice and see if i can have any treatments done, not to improve my appearance, but just to try and help with my scars and things, especially not i find, ifi i have a large spot, although they take ages to go away i find i get left with a dark mark or a scar now and i really don't want to suffer that because i have enough, but still i'm trying to keep my fingers off my face.  My skin won't dramatically fix itself, i know this, but still if i can do small things to help limit break-outs and just keep my skin looking decent then i will.

But this is just to say doesn't matter your skin condition, you learn to live with it, i know i look like a gremlin without make-up on, but i don't care i can go make-up free days, i don't stress about going to the shop without a full face on, i think that's better for you, and plastering your skin with make-up clearly doesn't help with already bad skin.  And to be quite frank, if you can't go without make-up to your local shop then you need to stand back and take a look and life goes on and make-up doesn't make or break you, at least then if you have those free days and you feel good about yourself then when you have your make-up on that will only boost your confidence further! :) be happy and be happy with yourself.

Anyway sorry about that spiel.... here's my new wee routine i do after the bath! :)

I recently bought a face steamer to help just cleanse my pores, as my skin won't dramatically get better i know that so just keeping it clean is good enough for me.  So i decided to implement a new little routine.  Firstly if i have a bath then i will put my face mask on after 10 minutes in the bath as the steam acts like a natural pore opener, but if not i will steam my face for 10 minutes then apply my face mask, and follow the routine.

My bath routine consists of, bath, and after 10 minutes add on my facemask, leave to dry and rinse off, wash my face.

I think add a deep hair conditioning treatment to my hair at the end of my bath and i wrap it up in my towel into a turban and leave it on for 30 minutes, during that time i follow through with my after bath routine.

start the face steamer.... steam my face for 8 minutes and apply cleanser.....clean off and steam my face for a further 5 minutes, i then apply a face mask/cloth that i soak in toner and apply this for 15 minutes, i then steam my face with this on for 5 minutes, then peel the mask off, i then steam my face for a further 5 minutes and then chage to the nose steamer, to which i steam my nose for 7 minutes, after which i turn my steamer off, and moisturise my skin, and go was my deep conditioning hair treatment off.

And usually my skin looks glowy and as healthy as it can be, i try to do this 3 times a week then do my normal, cleanse/tone/moisturise and usualy and do a hot cloth cleanser on a sunday!

here's some awful photo's of my in my grove.

               Deep conditioning hair treatment on, hair turban on.  /   Face steamer set - up and warming up.

1. face mask in the packet - can get them from Ebay Here

2. Soak the mask in toner, or whatever you want to use, and it swells and unfolds.

3. the mask after it was peeled, off, ghostly looking thing.

 Top photo: me with the mask on, so attractive.. i know.

Second photo: starting to steam

Finished steaming, beware it does get hot..so you may need to pull your face out slightly.

 Nose steamer ^

Finished atricle, all moisturised up. Sexy. Ha.