How I Take Care of my Acne {Steps to a Clear Skin - Part 1}

Hello lovely people :)

If you follow me on Instagram, earlier today I posted a picture how I was starting to write notes for this post on my notebook. I was incredibly successful and actually managed to put everything together today, so it's time to show you my  tips. In this post I won't talk about skin care items that I use, but anything else. I never believed that the change needs to come from inside, but it was proven otherwise. There won't be really any pictures in this post because.....just because I didn't know how pictures for this post should look like. Anyways, I hope you won't get bored reading this and lets jump straight to the subject.

As some of you may or may not know, I suffer with acne. Since I moved to Finland almost 3 years ago, my skin went crazy. The peak point was during last November when I started using a foundation that aggravated the whole situation.  Unfortunately I don't have a picture from that time, because it was quite hard to take pictures without make up - I was going to uni to run errands without make up, but if I knew it's picture time, I was preferring to have make up on.  My skin is not 100% clear now, but I am getting there, and comparing with how it was looking in... lets say December, it's a big improvement.

My first step was going to a dermatologist who didn't really do too much except telling me that my skin routine is OK and I should keep it and also she recommended to start using Brevoxyl (4% benzoyl peroxide). I wasn't too happy with that so I started to search my own way of getting rid of acne. As I said above, I was never a huge believer that the change needs to come from inside, but I decided to give it a try. Starting with middle of January I started to be more careful with what I eating and I discovered some tips and tricks. Though mostly I will share my tips about diet, there are few which are related with your skincare routine. More about skin care I will talk in the next post from this mini series (I promise, that one will have some pictures).

• don't use a towel after cleaning your face; let it air dry - this is a tip that I received from a doctor (not dermatologist) who knew how my skin was in my teenage years and couldn't believe how it is know. She explained that it doesn't matter if the towel is freshly washed there can still be some bacterias on it, or maybe the washing machine didn't wash the detergent used well and you don't want to put that on your skin. She said that she also had a similar brake out and it definitely helped her. I must say that this definitely helped! I noticed that my skin wasn't so red and irritated one week before I started not to use a towel. 
• if you are using a brush for cleansing, give it up! - be gentle with your already irritated skin; if you have active brake outs, don't use anything that brake/pick on them or you may be left with beautiful scarring. The best way in my opinion is to use your cleanser with your clean fingers. 
• don't use harsh products on your skin too much - they can over dry your skin and it's definitely harder to treat dry acne prone skin.
• last tip related with skincare is to not be lazy with your skin care - trust me, I know how annoying can be to need to remove your make up/cleanse your skin when you are almost falling asleep or to need to cleanse your face in the morning when you are in a hurry. Skipping steps won't help your skin! Make the time to cleanse your skin properly.
• give up sugar - I wasn't really believing in this till I actually saw the effects. It is not so hard for me to give up sugar, but sometimes I just brake the rule and it something sweet and very soon I can see how my skin starts to act out. I try to eat fruits every time when I feel like something sweet and it helps! My sugar cravings are happening more rarely.
• see if dairy influences on your skin - give up eating dairy for awhile and see if your skin gets better. I found out dairy doesn't influence on my skin at all, but for some people it might happen.
• potato chips, pretzels, crackers and so on are not your friends! - replace them with walnuts, almonds, etc. Sometimes when I'm craving something salty and crunchy I even eat some cucumber or bell pepper with salt over. 
• drink water- I am sure you heard this so many times, but it's true! When I started to drink more water (approximately 2 liters per day) I definitely started to see an improvement in the overall aspect of my skin. 
• ditch the coffee and black tea for white tea, chamomile tea  or green tea (they are rich in antioxidants, white tea having the most) - this step was the hardest for me because my morning coffee was the only thing which was making me go out of bed in the morning. Anyways, I started by replacing coffee with black tea, black tea with green tea and finally green tea with white tea. Now I drink 2 cups of white tea and 2 of chamomile tea daily (OF COURSE WITHOUT SUGAR). Sometimes in the evening I may drink a lemon drink (2 slices of lemon in a cup and I pour hot water over) with just a touch of honey. 
• SODAS? they should be history - I replaced them with water, may water with lemon or fresh juices. Sodas as definitely part of my past. 
• didn't your mom tell you to eat your vegetables? Than I will tell you: ADD MORE VEGETABLES TO YOUR MEALS and if they are raw vegetables, even better - I was a big fan of eating my chicken with mashed potatoes; now this is part of my past as well. I eat my chicken with a salad, or I just make a chicken salad. Sometimes I don't even feel like eating meat so I would eat only vegetables. I also introduced more salmon to my diet as it it's very healthy for our body. If you want ideas for some easy vegetable meals, let me know and I'll see what I can do. 

Congratulations if you made it so far! I hope you found some useful advice and don't forget that this is only my personal experience. Below there is a picture of me and how my skin looks at this point. As I said, my skin it's not clear and I have some scaring but it look 200 times better than it looked in December. Also excuse the weird face.

In the next post from this mini series I will show you what skincare items I am using and tell you how I am using them .

I hope you enjoyed this post and let me know in the comments what you think and which of this tips are new to you.

xoxo
Cristina