This post is a sequel to Part 1 about which cleanser is right for your skin type and why.  This post is my personal story on how I developed acne and how I was able to clear up my skin.

How it Started

I would like to say that genetically I have dry skin.  I did not realize this until I was around 18 years old.  I went to the department store to purchase a cleanser and the lady at the counter did me a favor and explained to me that my skin was a dry skin type.  I was convinced that I had oily skin because I had breakout.  Of course I was a teenager and my hormones were balancing and I had some black heads and small pimples but in reality I do have dry skin.  So luckily I purchased a milk cleanser and went about drinking 64 ounces of water a day as per recommendation and my skin became more clear. Again it goes back to the correct cleanser for your skin type to get your skin balanced.  Lesson learned.

Fast forward a few years later and I relocated to the island of Maui.  Now I was living in a humid tropical environment.  My skin was still dry but I knew to switch up my moisturizer to something lighter due to the heat and humidity. I was living on the island for about a year and I decided to sign up and study at a trade school to become an esthetician.  I entered the program with beautiful clear skin.  Some of the students even complimented me on my skin saying how pretty it was.  This program was 1000 hours long and over the course of the months I slowly started developing break outs all over my face.  Imagine your in a skincare course and all of a sudden your developing acne everywhere.  It was extreme.  My friend in the course would stay after class and do extractions on me.  She, gained the practice of how to properly pop the blackheads and pimples and I, gained the idea of trying to clean up my face.  The reality is I learned the pain of having pimples (pustules) and black heads and watching them grow on my face. I gained the understanding of how it feel so see ones facial skin change in a negative way.

Having acne is a very emotional thing.  It can affect your psychological state of mind because it is easy to become obsessed with the pimples and it feels like something beyond your control.  No one gets pimples and looks in the mirror and feels good at what they see.  Every morning you wake up and look in the mirror hoping nothing new develops on your face.  Meanwhile your purchasing and mixing skincare brands like crazy trying to find anything that will work.  On top of the fact that you want to extract and pop your pimples like crazy to get rid of them which is a lot of pain.  Pain for the swelling pustules growing under your skin, that alone hurts and then add the extractions.  Its a vicious negative cycle that has you mentally wondering if your skin will ever clear up.

The Extreme

One day after about 6 weeks of all these new pimples on my face I had had enough and I asked my friend if she could do a facial and do massive extractions on me to get as many pimples and blackheads popped as possible.  She agreed.  Now two things here, first of all when doing a facial we had to pick out the products being used.  She asked me what type of cleanser I wanted to use.  Of course my mind is thinking I have acne now so give me the oily skincare line.  Second thing here, we were taught in school doing extractions can cause trauma.  Technically your never supposed to perform extractions on someone for more than ten minutes.  Well we went for it and I told her to keep going and thirty minutes later I was a red puffy faced extracted mess.  I left that day feeling terrible.  I was so down because you look in the mirror and your horrified to see all the pimples and redness and swelling.  You feel like your never going to heal.  To be honest the extractions for 30 minutes was a little to much emotionally and I did cry a little.  But I was at a loss and feeling desperate.

Incoming Workshop

So now I am still in esthetician school studying and I had an opportunity to go to Oahu and attend a workshop with a certain very well know brand.  This seemed like a great educational learning opportunity.  So I went to the one day workshop to learn more about skincare.  There was a section of the workshop that focused on acne and there was to be a live demo on extractions.  I begged the presenter to let me be the model.  With all the breakouts on my face I would love a trained professional with experience to do extractions on me.  She agreed and I was now the demo face for this workshop on how to properly extract pimples and blackheads.  Personally I was just happy to be getting extractions again.  Remember when you feel like everyday your waking up with more breakout you just want the skin cleaned. Unfortunately because I was the model receiving the extractions I never was able to see watch how she demonstrated doing the extractions. However, after this workshop I was convinced to purchase this skincare line of oily skincare products to clear up my face.  I bought the whole thing.  Cleanser, toner, spot treatment and moisturizer.

I had hope again.  But what happened?  Nothing.  I literally obsessed woke up every morning going straight to look into the mirror to see if my face had cleared up.  Checking to see if my spot treatment for those new pimples had worked.  Honestly I was seeing my skin look worse and I was getting hard bumps and my pimples were not coming to a head.  I was using spot treatment with salicylic acid and nothing was making sense.  (I found out later why this was)  Anyways here I had invested in this whole product line probably spending at least $70 dollars and my skin was not looking any better and if anything looked worse.  I felt defeated again.  On one hand I wanted to just give up and on the other hand I kept doing my research.  This had been going on for months at this point.  This vicious cycle of trying a skin care product with the hope of getting clear skin to seeing no changes.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

After feeling hopeless and not wanting to invest anymore money on products I was at a loss. I didn’t know what to do.  I literally felt horrible and just wanted clear skin.  I feel like the saying it is easier to gain weight than to loose it, well in this case it was easier to gain pimples and taking forever to get rid of them.  I was frustrated.  Then all of a sudden during my research I came upon a more holistic brand of skincare.   Their approach and concept for healing acne was homeopathic. Now at this point I was familiar with homeopathic as I had my own homeopathic doctor and I understood homeopathic remedies. The homeopathic method pertaining to skincare was way less invasive than what I had been using prior.  This line is very natural and uses flowers and plants from nature to heal the skin and I decided that was the way I wanted to go as far as skincare. As I was reading up on this it all made sense to me.  So I was down to give it a try. Ready to buy the whole skincare line but this brand offered a mini sampler kit. I think it was around $20 and I decided to try something new.  This way I could test what I needed without buying the whole line.

The brand that I found was Dr. Hauschka. In simple terms their approach was way different to healing oily skin or break out.  Essentially they have the homeopathic concept that like cures like.  So if you have oily skin you put more oil on it and you will stop producing to much oil?  It made sense to me as you read in my Part 1 post its all about the acid mantle.  If your acid mantle is stripped then you are going to be producing more oil.  I was probably guilty of this when I kept buying oily skin cleansers but the base of my skin type was dry.  With this line the concept was using a cleanser that was almond meal based so you felt like you were cleaning your skin nice and deep but it was gentle enough to use everyday and then you would spray the toner on your face and in the morning you would use an oil based moisturizer and at night you would give your skin a break and cleanse, tone and let the skin breath with no other products on it.

So here I am on the quest for clear skin with a new approach which is homeopathic with a brand that has more natural ingredients.  I’m all in and ready to try it.  Let me tell you within the first week I started seeing the difference.  I had hope again.  This homeopathic approach seemed like it was working.  Needless to say after 1 month my face cleared up and my skin went back to the beautiful clear skin that I naturally had. Another thing I want to point out here with skin is that everything has a 28 day cycle.  Your skin will renew itself in 28 days.  So whatever products you are using on day one if it is correct for you and your skin type and is balancing or healing you should see a change within 28 days. I was so grateful to find Dr. Hauschka and the clarifying day oil. Ill post link here (not sponsored) https://www.drhauschka.com/clarifying-day-oil/  It was such a good feeling to able to use the products properly and have everything clear up within 28 days.  I continued using this remedy for probably a month more and then I started to phase into the correct moisturizer for my skin type and a milk cleanser for the morning and the scrub at night time only.

The way that I had discovered Dr. Hauschka is because I had been searching for natural skincare brands to work with.  That is how I originally found them and then saw their concept to treating acne and problem skin. At the time they were offering a special 5 day training in Esalen California by Monterey for licensed estheticians. I was about 2 months out of facial school and I was down for more training. I had to apply and be approved to go to this training.  It worked out and I was able to go and learn about all the flowers and herbs in the products and what each ingredient was designed to do for the skin.  Let me just say that this brand changed my whole trajectory on how I approach skincare. I have always, since finishing my esthetician course, chose the natural approach to skincare with organic and natural skincare brands.

Conclusion

If you take anything away from this post it would be that it is possible to balance your skin. I definitely went through it with my break out crisis and I completely understand how it feels to have acne and oily skin.   Skin by itself is a science and I will say it always starts with your cleanser and what is right for your skin type.  You need to check in with the acid mantle and make sure your not stripping your skin and that your using the right products for your environment.  In hindsight I figured out what I had done to cause the break outs and excessive oil.

• 1) I took my esthetician program in the summer months on Maui.  So the weather was much hotter at the time and I was studying in a large warehouse that had no air conditioning.
• 2) I was receiving daily facials to practice skincare and it was to much for my dry delicate skin.
• 3) Add to it that we were using a steamer in no ac in a humid climate I was getting bacteria on my face like crazy.
•  4) Then use the wrong cleanser that was stripping my skin.  Forget it my skin would not have healed.

I share this personal story hoping that for anyone out there looking to clear acne or balance your skin you may be able to relate to some of the scenarios here to help you in your own skin.  A few years later when my life and environment changed I ended up developing borderline psoriasis and I had to figure out what was going on again and how to balance that.  Stay tuned for Part 3 on developing psoriasis and how I was able to get my skin back into balance. Please feel free to comment or contact for any questions on balancing skin.