It’s #acneawarenessmonth and I’m not gonna write about it.

I think everyone is very well aware if they have acne, it’s the most common skin condition in the US.

What’s interesting is the opposite: many people are unaware that they have good skin, and even #clearskin and even #skingoals skin…and this can lead to them creating their acne. I’ve been there.

So this post is really about #clearskinawareness — because it’s really important.

How I Created My Adult Acne

I had clear skin for years and didn’t know it.

It was consistently clear. I may have rarely gotten the occasional blackhead, or single pimple.

But I thought I had full-blown acne.

Why?

Because when I got some mild acne when I was 12, that’s the girl I identified with into adulthood.

After experimenting with different solutions for about 8 years, my skin finally totally cleared up — no scarring either.

So I had the clear skin, but I didn’t see the clear skin. I didn’t know that I hacked acne, and had zero confidence in my knowledge of it.

This put me in a very vulnerable position…

Because after about 5 consistent years of clear skin, I became aware of an acne coach talking about “natural skincare”…

It intrigued me seeing all the testimonials of people who allegedly got clear skin from using manuka honey and jojoba oil on their faces — and some from doing absolutely nothing (Caveman Regimen).

I tried the manuka honey for a couple of weeks and got 3 new pimples (which was a lot for me at the time). But, I trusted that it wasn’t the honey on my face…and blamed it on ME.

I decided there was something wrong with me that I got these 3 new pimples, and so my natural skincare experiment began — again! (Since I ruined my skin on jojoba oil when I was 19 the last time I had visible acne).

I eliminated most of my “chemical skincare” save for the cleanser in the PM, and switched to manuka honey and jojoba oil. But I also decided to do a total diet reset and do the #Whole30 diet.

I eliminated gluten, dairy, soy, sugar, caffeine totally. I was taking probably 15 different supplements a day. I was also exercising very regularly.

My skin got worse over the next month…

I decided that Jojoba Oil was too clogging, so I’d try Argan oil the next month because it had a comedogenicity rating of 0.

Again, my skin got worse the next month…

I woke up reaching for my forehead, and went to sleep picking my forehead.

I decided it was probably a health issue, so I went to my doctor, took all the tests, and he told me I was in “perfect health”.

That wasn’t good enough, so I went to see a Naturopath and took all their (expensive AF!) tests and learned that my cortisol levels were through the roof — they were literally double what was considered high in normal people.

So it was my hormones I decided!! They’re CAUSING THIS!!!

This conclusion felt terrible. I felt like my body was failing me. Wtf body, why you gotta play me like dis?

Acne was all I thought about. Acne acne acne. Why was this happening to me? I was researching every possible acne question you can imagine and looking for studies to prove or disprove every claim made about acne and it’s causes.

There was little consensus. And I realised that everyone was guessing. Nobody really knew anything for certain!!!

Divine Intervention

And then one day, I was out running and, of course, thinking about my skin, when a new thought occurred to me.

“What if it’s the oils? This all started after I listened to that acne coach.”

I swear to God, this moment is so divine that I’ll remember it forever.

When I came home from my run, I put away all the natural sh*t and took out all my previous products. I had a theory to test and I was hopeful for the first time in months.

And my life changed.

From that day until today, I have not put a drop of oil on my skin (except when I can’t fit a big piece of lettuce in my mouth but still try and end up getting olive oil on my cheeks or chin and maybe end up getting a random breakout on that spot, but am okay with it because that’s the cost of eating big lettuce — this is a joke! Please don’t be afraid of salad!).

My skin transformed, I started to relax, I started trusting my body again.

I felt lighter as though a huge weight had been lifted.

What was really lifted though, were my preconceived notions about skin!

No, the skin can’t be tricked by applying oil to regulate sebum production.
No, your skin doesn’t breathe through the pores but through the blood.
No, your skin doesn’t store toxins on the surface.
No, your pores don’t open or close.
No, your skin doesn’t detox toxins through the pores nor through sweating.
No, your skin doesn’t absorb 60% off what you put on it and this figure is made up.
No, you don’t need an oil to remove makeup effectively and it will actually leave all the bacteria and nonsense on your skin.
No, oils are not not clogging even if the comedogenicity scale says they’re not.
No, oils are not the best moisturiser and can even seal in dryness.
No, there’s no need to be afraid of chemicals since the natural world is composed of them.
No, food is not tested for safety for topical application and can actually be super irritating.
No, it’s not a good idea to skip sunscreen ever.
No, you don’t need to be super restrictive with your food.
No, your hormones aren’t to blame for everything.
No, there’s nothing wrong with you.

I picked up lot of limiting beliefs around how skin worked because the internet was and is full of totally false information that kept me from doing what would actually heal my skin.

Creating my own acne was STRESSFUL, which f*cked with my hormones, which made feeling good really hard, which contributed to the inflammation in my body.

Yes, acne is stressful. My hormone results proved it.

What This Experience Taught Me

This experience taught me that the clog starts in the pore, and that if I use clogging or irritating skin care, my skin will rebel.

I realised I gave lot of my trust to people who showed no actual proof of success (no real before and after photos). Some of them didn’t even have actual acne.

I gave other people’s opinions more credit than my own common sense because of some “guru” or “expert” status and this was a hard pill to swallow.

But it forced me to learn about how the skin and body really functioned so that I could take care of it without stressing about it.

I learned how to see a myth from a mile away and to stop following terrible advice from the internet.

Because that’s the only reason I developed #adultacne — the terrible advice. It wasn’t my hormones, it wasn’t my diet, there was nothing wrong with me. Except maybe that…

I didn’t know myself enough to know that there was nothing wrong with me.

One important thing I learned was to accept myself — every enlarged pore, every personality quirk, my rebellious mind.

I accepted the mistakes of the past and stopped judging myself for them. I did my best, and at least I learned a lot.

I also learned what clear skin looked like. All I had to do was look at photos of my skin with this created acne and my current skin.

The difference was huge.

What Is Clear Skin?

I started paying more attention to people with clear skin and I saw that our skin actually looked similar.

People with clear skin also get blackheads and even occasional inflamed pimples. They have textural irregularities, and discolouration.

Idolising clear skin so much, made me blind to my own clear skin.

The trouble with comparison is that it’s always super skewed. We look at someone at arm’s length and compare it to how our skin looks an INCH away from the mirror — or worse, how it looks in a magnifying mirror.

OR even worse, we compare our skin to a photoshopped/facetuned/filtered AF photo of “skin”.

That’s just such an inaccurate and unfair comparison that will always leave us feeling bad.

But we do this to ourselves, then convince ourselves that there’s something to fix and then CREATE the thing we want to fix…

So please, don’t make my mistake.

Final Thoughts

I’ve worked privately with over 500 women so far and acne awareness is not the issue. It’s clear skin awareness that people lack.

Many women simply don’t even know what clear skin looks like, but they’re convinced they don’t have it.

This causes them to try to fix something that isn’t broken…Which leads them to try every new cream/lotion/potion on the market…which leads them to create acne, rosacea, eczema, and/or melasma.

Everyone wants to care for their skin well, and that’s important because you can prevent a lot of damage with well-formulated products and good habits…

However, there are very few well-formulated products on the market — and the more you experiment the more likely you are to stumble across the sh*tty sh*t and damage your skin.

In order to experience the clear skin, you need to be able to see yourself clearly. The only way to see yourself clearly is with a clear head.

I’d love to hear if you’ve gone through a similar experience to mine, and where you are currently on your journey to clear skin and self awareness!

Love,
Olena

PS. You can work with me privately to create a custom routine that really suits your skin! Check out my client’s progress pictures — I’ve got plenty! 😀