Oh what’s wrong with your skin? Are you okay? What do you use? You should try this, this and that. There is nothing I didn’t hear from well intentioned aunties and friends.
I’ve had acne for as long as I can remember, but it was at its worst when I was 16. I had breakouts EVERYWHERE. Forehead, cheek, chin, nose. It was pretty demoralising. However, my mum being the amazing woman she is took this battle upon herself. She bought me every acne fighting product you could think of.
I started out with pretty harsh and drying chemicals from clean and clear, then did some trial and error with dermalogica, Clinique, proactiv and lets not forget about the unlabelled Nigerian brands. At first, they all seemed to calm my acne, but due to my laziness, it’ll get bad again, so I’d give up.
Instead of battling my acne, I got pretty good at covering it up. I got into makeup, got good at it and that made me feel comfortable with my appearance for a little while, but when I turned 20 I got tired of covering everything up.
So I just stopped. I stopped hiding behind makeup, I started snapchatting with my bare acne ridden face, trying to act like it was nothing, trying to act normal. People noticed and it was received with many negative comments. It was quite demoralising and a tad heartbreaking because for a society that encourages owning your truth, I felt pretty condemned for doing so. (Not a great ‘pop culture’ moment).
Over the years, my acne settled down. I started having less breakouts and more post inflammatory hyperpigmentation. THIS was what broke me. It seemed impossible to get rid of. They seemed to never fade and I had no idea what to do. I went to the GP and they’d give me medication for acne saying if we control the acne we control the spots. THAT WAS NOT WHAT I NEEDED BECAUSE I DIDN’T HAVE SPOTS ANYMORE. They weren’t listening to me and as a medical student that was gone perfect example of what NOT TO DO as a doctor.
I got really depressed and sad about these scars because for example, at beach days I’d never really be able to go bare faced, or when I compared myself to my friends, I felt quite ugly. This was weird for me because I’ve always been relatively confident and comfortable in my skin, but these scars? They took that away. Instead, they brought so much unsolicited advice and so many rude comments. “Use aveeno”, “use Aloe Vera”, “have you ever tried this.. have you ever tried that?” “Ah Iyin what happened to your face?” “Ah Iyin what did you do to your skin?”. Wow, thinking about it, Nigerian’s really don’t know how and when to talk.
Anyway, I kept using all the harsh chemicals under the sun to try getting rid of these marks, I went to a dermatologist that gave me azeliac acid which was just the worst. Everything made me either too dark or too light. I was irritated, so I just stopped.
I started using soap and water, then I came across this new brand ‘Arami essentials’. They were relatively unknown, but I loved the branding, so I bought their onyx polish, the glow scrub, then their ivory butter. Their onyx polish changed the game! My scars started fading, relatively quickly. It all seemed to work, so I stayed with that for a little while. Unfortunately, I kept getting the odd breakout here and there, so I needed to add something to my routine. I started using Retin A, nightly (I won’t suggest to use it without a prescription) and sunscreen religiously. At first, my skin got worse, I noticed a lot of peeling and dryness (That’s what you should expect with retin A anyway) but all this improved a month later and it’s been improving ever since.
I played around with some toners, some serums and moisturisers until I found what worked for me and now thankfully I have a very simple routine that works for me.