u/okwowthatsnotgood

i have good & bad days regarding it but mostly i have accepted i have it & probably always will. i use sensitive hydrating products & lots of lotion to keep my skin "soft" but theres just no way i will go back to trialing all of those acids or even start to pay for session upon session of hair removal or chemical peels. id rather just learn to live & love myself. my life has been easier since i just accepted my reality & it doesn't affect literally anything in my life (because i don't let it) other than sometimes i wish i was a little smoother.

i hold no judgement & honestly a lot of respect for people who do pay & invest a lot into their treatment because i do believe that is also another form of self love but for me the obsession with product trialing was ruining my life.

edit: included one clarification + yes my kp hurts too, really really bad sometimes. but i have worked towards mentally tuning out the pain & refuse to scratch or itch because it only lasts a few moments for me personally & i know it will end so im ok with that :) its not easy, but i wanted my life back so thats what i did. it might not work for everyone but it does for me.

(expand images for a better view, sorry they're all close up i just can't really muster the courage to take a full face picture)

hi friends. despite my efforts my skin is the worst it's ever been in my entire life. i have no clue if im oily or dry anymore because i feel like both, & im too scared to shave my face these days which has also made me feel not great.. i've lost a lot of self confidence but i really don't want to give up.

i had relatively clear skin up until april of this year. after a horrifically stressful event occurred in my life, i went from from having one pimple come & go & sometimes my skin being a little dry to complete breakout city lol. my pores were always kinda big but definitely not this clogged or irritated though. my nose has been a little red before but never for this long & this bad. my skin never had a habit of acting up for longer than like, a week. this is when i finally started to use a skin care routine instead of just washing my face off with whatever random facial cleaner i found at the store. for about a month my routine was elf clean freak cleanser follow by the elf holy hydration facial moisturizer. it somewhat managed my acne but it didn't seem to be stopping any new acne from forming. i had to stop using both since at some point it caused a flare up of my eczema on my hands (i no longer use any products with hyaluronic acid in them)

at one point while staying in a different city my acne got so large/bad after i bought cerave sa renewal cleanser & used it 2x a day followed by a bit of tub vanicream since i left my other products at home on accident. this was definitely user error but i think honestly this MURDERED my skin barrier with over exfoliation because i broke out like never before. i suffer with contamination OCD & legit thought stripping my now sensitive face with SA twice a day right off the bat was great to fight the germs off lol. before my eczema break out, i switched back to the elf products when i got home which seemed to do a better job but still i had quite a bit of acne. it at least got rid of some of the larger pimples but again these products are out of the question now as everytime i use hyaluronic acid my hands freak out (since i think i was over using it just like i did the SA cleanser & developed a sensitivity)

for about two weeks i legit just left my skin alone. washed it with water, thats it. i know that sounds like a bad idea but the poor thing seemed so irritated & plus i was really depressed due to other circumstances & that was about all i could muster. my face seems to be so dry it becomes oily so starting yesterday, i now use la roche posays hydrating gentle cleanser 1x per day at night followed by equates oil free hypoallergenic facial moisturizer. in the morning i just rinse my face with water & give myself a spray of la roche posays cicaplast spray & again my facial moisturizer. i could probably use this cleanser 2x a day without issue but i sort of traumatized myself after cerave & elf lol.

i've done this once & haven't noticed a change in my acne but it hasn't gotten worse since yesterday so i of course have to wait & see how this routine goes. i don't have a new spf i can use so i still need to figure that out, since i tried the elf holy hydration one at some point as well but im pretty sure that has my trigger in it lol. also sometimes, i use TO's SA 2% solution as a spot treatment for pimples but only if they're really big & in the scary pus stage.

my pores are huge & a lot of these bumps are flesh colored & quite hard. im unsure if its my eczema/kp that spread to my face or what these bumps could be. i couldn't get a great picture of my forehead but some bumps are really red while others entirely skin colored & glossy looking. i'm also pretty certain i have milia bumps especially the one by my eyeball. i think that came from the period of time i wasn't properly washing my sunscreen off (good molecules) before bed because i was really drained by the time it was time to sleep i just neglected it 😭💔 i will never ever be that neglectful with spf again bc it wasn't the products fault at all & all mine LOL

am i damaging my skin barrier more with my new products? to be honest, i don't even know what's going on with my skin or if my new products will help. im also super open to dietary advice, medical grade topical products, & dietary supplements but keep in mind i am quite thin with medical problems relating to that so i cannot go on anything overly restrictive. thank you so much :)

i am not paying thousands of dollars just to get rid of my kp when self acceptance is free

the only thing that's helped is not caring

[acne] [product help] should i keep trying to find a routine that works for me or is at the point where i might need something else?