Everyone strives to have perfect skin, we are constantly bombarded with brands launching new must have products claiming to do this or that and don’t get me wrong there are great lotions and potions out there that really do work but its a just matter of tailoring what works for your own specific skin type.
This year I celebrated turning forty and suddenly I’ve realised I need to step up my skin care routine. As a teenager I had pretty good skin, yeah I got the odd spot but as every teenager does I just added another layer of makeup!
It was in my thirties when everything went crazy, after the birth of my second daughter my hormones became very unbalanced, my once thick hair went so thin, brittle and it seemed never to grow and my skin was a nightmare.
Whilst on holiday in the sun my face suddenly developed a sort of patchy pigmentation all over and then began to breakout, at first I thought it was just the combination of oily sun-creams and sweating that was causing it so I just bought an over the counter spot treatment and hoped it would clear up.
A few weeks later my face was getting worse and now it was on my chest and back too, it was awful, every girl knows that feeling when you try your best to cover a spot with makeup but you feel as if the whole world is looking at it!! Friends and family kept telling me it wasn’t that bad but to me it really affected my confidence, I would sit in the mirror for hours picking and squeezing, scrubbing and peeling until finally at my wit’s end I made an appointment with my GP.
I was told I had adult acne and given an antibiotic lotion to apply at night and a 6 month course of antibiotic tablets, after a few months I went back, I couldn’t even see any improvement so they switched me to a different tablet and gave me a benzyl peroxide/antibiotic cream to use. Months went by and still the acne was there, every spot healed quite quickly but then left a brown pigmented scar, I was becoming one big freckle!! On the next visit my GP finally referred me to a hospital dermatologist and they prescribed me Roaccutane they told me this would stop all the oil production and that I would have to use very gentle skin products. At the time I worked in Boots so I bought the No7 gentle cleanser, toner and serum and decided I would use nothing else. It was amazing, within weeks my skin had cleared up, I still had brown spots but was told they would fade over time.
I took Roaccutane for a little less than 6 months and came off it really slowly, I was terrified the acne would come back, but thankfully it didn’t. Of course there were side effects, my lips were always dry and cracked and I was also advised it could affect my mood, but to me the more my skin cleared the better my mood became.
As for my skin care products the gentle No7 range is great, occasionally I’d try a new moisturizer but my skin would become shiny and greasy and feel irritated so I always resorted back to my basics.
Now I have reached my forties I still use the No7 products but now I have started to think about anti-aging. I changed my Protect & Perfect serum to the more advanced Lift & Luminate , it has a lot of the original ingredients plus some extra youth boosting ones too. I have also started to give myself a weekly facial at home using the amazing REN products, I discovered the REN skin care range at a spa I visited a few years ago, REN is an all natural paraben free product range so it is perfect for someone like me that has combination/sensitive skin.
I would love to hear about your skin-care basics too. Please leave a comment.
Lots of love
Caroline xx
