Wow that title sounds melodramatic, but for me my relationship with my skin has felt a little like a roller coaster relationship; we've had our ups and downs, trials and tribulations, on the way to understanding one another.
Basically up until the age of 18/19 my skin was pretty prefect, I had the odd spot but it was generally clear and wasn't something I was self conscious about at all. The only makeup I wore was eyeshadow and mascara, I never used concealer. Then about half way through my first year of uni my face erupted. I can't remember it beginning, the first few spots piling up, red marks left behind as new spots popped up. The more frustrated I grew at my skin the worse it got. I'd pick at my skin and make it worse, use products to try and fix the problem and feel my skin burn and tingle, all followed by slapping on as much foundation and concealer as possible to try and mask it.

For the second and final years of uni I hid behind makeup, rarely leaving the house without makeup as I felt so self conscious. Towards the end of uni at the end of my tether I started researching and really trying to understand why my skin was breaking out so much. The photo above is my skin at pretty much it's worst, since then there have times when it's calmed down then flared up again but now it's much better. The scarring has faded and I have way less active breakouts (currently two). I know my acne isn't the worst but it is something that has personally hindered my ability to feel comfortable in my own skin and in all honestly has been a real struggle.

Having spent years reading blogs of people with perfect skin I've felt a little disheartened, so I thought I'd share what I learned, what helped, what made it worse and where I am now with my skin in a few posts. This initial post was pretty spontaneous, I was wondering what I wanted to write about this week and having spent the day running errands with only a little tinted moisturiser on it occurred to me how much my relationship with my skin has changed over the last five years. So here I am bare faced at my worst and now; spots, acne scars and all hoping that maybe writing about my experience might help someone.

L x

*Edit - I've added in a photo of my skin now so you can see the difference/improvement.