Has K-Beauty Ruined My Skin?

As ludicrous as that question sounds, I often find myself with that question in the back of my head and sometimes angry and at the front of it. As a product junkie and beauty blogger, I am always trying new… well, everything. New skincare, new hair stuff, new makeup. I don’t have sensitive skin, and it hardly reacts to anything, but when it does, the damage is unfortunate. 

I’ve been looking back on photos of myself without makeup before I started using Korean cosmetics and find myself wondering what the heck happened?! What has changed? What am I doing differently? I have been monitoring my skin and every time I go over the pictures, I can obviously see that my skin is getting worse. Remember Foundation Free Friday? Ha! That shit is out the window! Lately, nothing takes (it seems like). I hardly ever sleep in my makeup anymore. I still get hormonal breakouts, and I have recently noticed when I eat sweets, my skin rebels! And my sweet tooth is uncontrollable at times! Sob! 

Since I started using Korean cosmetics, I have noticed some positives about my skin: even with all the hyperpigmentation sullying up my cheeks, I’ve still got a great glow and my skin is pretty much evenly toned. Also, the texture of my skin has improved along with the way normally feels. On the other hand, the glow I have acquired starkly contrasts with dark marks on my face and make me so self-conscious. And I know it can be worse because as each month passes, it is in fact worse.

To validate (or invalidate) this theory, I went through every post I have written on skin care to try and rule out all culprits, and what I found was that there weren’t any… It’s ME. 

It’s so easy to want to place the blame somewhere, but none of the products I have written about have contributed to the condition my skin is in right now. Once I ruled out skin care products, western and Korean, I had to take a good look at myself and what I was doing to cause this self-inflicted punishment.

One thing I did notice, as I mentioned earlier, is my diet. When that sweet tooth kicks in, I just act on it. Bread pudding, chocolate cake, Snickers bars. I’d rather eat cake than an actual meal. I’m not as bad as I used to be, but I need to accept that as I age, so does my body, so my mindset must change with it. I just can’t do the things I used to do! I never cook with or outright use granulated sugar; I have replaced everything I would need sugar in with Splenda; my way of cutting back on sugar. But I can’t get away from the sugar that’s in everything else I don’t have control over and everything seems to go out the window. Another thing that just occurred to me as I am typing this is the amount of alcohol I partake in. I am aware that wine has a lot of sugar in it |eyeroll|. At this point, that’s all I can muster up to say about that LOL. I have however cut back on alcohol in general because I’ve started working out more and that can’t help. 

These things, I would say, contribute to the breakouts I get. My acne isn’t anywhere near as awful as it used to be but I will get two or three zits every month. The thing is, the breakouts aren’t the awful part: it’s the marks they leave behind! And no matter what I do, ALL OF MY ACNE SCARS TAKE A YEAR TO HEAL. That’s right. Twelve months. There are so many serums and treatments out there. But those only go so far. I have noticed that my skin doesn’t go back to “normal” for a very long time. I’ve had a chemical peel once and the results were magnificent, but that was years ago and at the time I didn’t have much hyperpigmentation. I have seen the Coolaser treatment as well, and I’m sure that is going to cost me an arm and a leg. Maybe a body. But maybe that’s where I am with this. Something else to ponder. 

Another thing I notice is my own mannerisms. In a way K-beauty, and all its gloriousness, is ruining my skin in that it has caused me to touch my face more because I am so in love with the way it feels. I am very suspicious that this contributes to breakouts and here’s why: I rarely ever touch my face during the day when I wear makeup for fear of it rubbing off on some important document, followed by strange looks from my coworkers. I really had to train myself to not touch my face in that way. But when I am at home on days off, I find myself lounging with my hand on my face, or scratching my head then touching my face, or cleaning then touching my face; just touching things in general and then touching my face! Top that off with the fact that I often won’t do anything with my face until the afternoon on those days. 

I couldn’t rule out that my makeup was contributing to my breakouts. As far as my face is concerned, I am pretty consistent with my foundations and blush of choice in that I don’t own many. But then I though my makeup brushes… I don’t have time in the morning to clean them everyday but I really should do a better job of cleaning those. And with all my complaints, I really need to find time to do it at least every other day (if not every day) with my oily skin.

One thing I have learned about my skin is that it loves consistency. And I need to stick to the products that consistently keep acne away and use products with ingredients I know my skin fancies. It’s hard out here in these streets. And K-beauty is not at fault! Sometimes, you just need to look at the big picture and this experience is a reminder of that. 

So what am I going to do? 

Clean my brushes a lot more often. 

Be more aware of touching my face, especially after touching other things. 

Improve my eating habits. 

I have stopped keeping sweets in the house and have stopped buying them in grocery stores. Sometimes, almonds help curb that sweet tooth.

Alcohol is its own thing.  

I still have a lot of work to do. 

Thanks for reading!

-XX

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