My Acne Story

Acne Part 2 - My acne story

For anyone who has or is, battling with acne, I personally know how frustrating, soul-crushing and heartbreaking it can be when you think you are doing everything right and just can't seem to understand why your body is working against you. Trust me when I say, there is nearly always a deeper cause as to why your skin is breaking out. So here's my journey. I hope it gives you insight or hope.

I had no skin issues growing up as a teenager. My troubles began at age 22 when I moved to Europe to work on Superyacht. I remember stepping off the plane and feeling my skin inflamed and breaking out. This is also the time I stopped menstruating for 3 years.

I saw a doctor in France who said the best thing was to go on the oral contraceptive pill (no surprises there huh?).

The next few years were a hectic, stressful period where I moved from country to country with lots of travel, late nights and alcohol, as my skin went further downhill and I started developing some other health concerns, including food sensitivities and IBS. Eventually, after regular acupuncture and herbal medicine I stared menstruating again after 3 years, and moved home to New Zealand.

But my skin never calmed down, in-fact it got worse as I started experiencing premenstrual breakouts.

I took a food sensitivity test which came back with negative results to apples, citrus, peanuts, chocolate/cacao, and any forms of caffeine (coffee, black tea, green tea). All of which were my main staples as I was already on such a limited gluten-free, dairy-free diet as well as alcohol-free! I saw some improvements when I eliminated these also, but I decided that I no longer wanted to live such a restricted lifestyle.

The real healing began when I started to heal my gut, with high quality, practitioner supplements and probiotics, prebiotics, fermented foods, fibre and quality essential fatty acids. I worked on my liver function to help with detoxification pathways, and I made sure I got a good sweat.

With the help of an experienced, holistic skin specialist (shout-out to my angel Jess from A Peace of Beauty), we worked on my skin externally, by swapping all of my natural skincare (which I thought was great for my skin), to lab-formulated Dermaviduals, with no essential oils to irritate my skin.

I've started looking at my skin in a completely different way, doing more facial massage, trigger points and helping lympathic drainage. I am embracing my feminine right to indulge my skin.

I am more liberated with my diet then I have been in 10 years.

My skin isn't perfect, but is there such a thing?? Part of the journey is giving yourself some grace.

Everyone's approach to healing their skin will be slightly different due to their life history and it may take time. But find support and guidance from someone experienced and qualified and stick at it.