for all my links –
Hello hello welcome back to my youtube channel so recently on my instagram i have been talking a lot on my stories about my journey with hormonal acne and how i fixed it made it better it’s not 100 yet so many people said that they have also struggled with hormonal adult acne and so i didn’t know how to concisely tell everyone about like my journey and what worked
And what didn’t so i thought i would just make a youtube video of it and kind of go through the nitty gritty and if you were going through the same thing then i hope that this helps obviously this is just what worked for me um and it’s different for everyone so i’ll start by walking you guys through some photos and i’m currently not wearing any face makeup but this is
The current state of my skin so as you can tell i have scarring left on my cheeks my acne was mostly based over here um and then a little on my chin so yeah i still have scars left but there’s no active pimples and my texture is completely smooth now so if i do put like moist tinted moisturizer on or something and it evens out the redness then my skin looks close
To perfect although there’s no such thing as perfect skin which is important to note as you go on your journey so basically at the start of quarantine in 2019 it’s now 2022 um i abruptly went off of birth control and my skin flared up for the first time um really in a long long long time i think i had a little bit of acne as a teenager and then i quickly went
Back onto my birth control because i was concerned that was the reason why my hormones were out of control and it helped a little bit but uh the acne persisted and then in the past year it got so much worse to the point where i decided to reach out to a dermatologist to go through like what was going on my dermatologist told me that the birth control i’ve been
Taking for many many years is actually not very good for acne and i was on an asian brand um because i used to live in hong kong so i didn’t even know much about it in hong kong you can buy your birth control just um over the counter so i wasn’t prescribed it ended up going to a gynecologist in new york city which is where i live now and getting new birth control
And then on top of that my kind of my dermatologist gave me spirunolactone which is a very common medication uh for hormonal acne started at a light dose and then we kind of increased it from then onwards then on top of that i implemented uh new skincare products that um i will talk through at the end of this video after i show you guys my photos and those products
Uh first were aimed at targeting active acne and then afterwards they’re targeting scarring because scarring is the hardest thing i think to get rid of but yeah that’s kind of why i got hormonal acne is because i guess my birth control was just not suitable for me and um i was really just driving my skin nuts with you know the on and off and moving i think i was
More stressed than usual so we’re starting in 2020 and i’ll insert the photo right here um this is when my skin was at its prime i also have blonde hair as you can see but it was you know really clear and i thought it was starting to get bad here so it’s the first time i noticed any type of bumps on my face um what a concept to think that that was a concern to me
At the time here’s another picture from 2020 um again just i don’t really have that much acne here that was march of 2020 fast forward to august i did actually start developing some bumps on my cheeks here’s another photo from august 2020 so as you can see just a small patch on my cheeks now we’re at october 2021 it’s gotten a little bit more severe or spread out
On my cheeks and it’s starting to get on my chin and then towards end of october 2021 there was a lot more active acne and this is when it became painful um and would show through my makeup because it was bumpy and that’s when i decided to go see the dermatologist because it was interfering with my daily life like sleeping on a pillow would hurt and stuff then i
Think at december is when it was at its worst traveling during christmas break so i have these photos that i took december of 2021 um and as you can see it was the most severe here i actually haven’t shown these photos to many people because i used to be so so embarrassed and i did not go without makeup even around my closest friends and family members because i
Just felt so insecure about it here is me january 1st uh it looks more severe in this photo um it was a bit red because i was taking off my makeup but you can see there’s just a lot more acne on my cheeks from then onwards i followed the routine that my dermatologist recommended to me here’s another photo from december where you can see the texture was just really
Starting to show through my makeup i was so self-conscious i was very unhappy in some of these pictures you can kind of tell from my facial expression i just always felt like people were just seeing my bad skin i know it’s different for everyone and severity is different for everyone but for me it really affected my own confidence i stayed very diligent with my
Skin care regimen um and i was on a new birth control i think that those two factors really are what helped to make my skin better in the end i didn’t change my diet at all actually um i think for the most part i eat generally quite healthy but i’ve always had dairy in my diet so um as for dairy and sugar i kind of kept that the same and my doctor said that that
Was all right for me i can’t express enough when it starts to get a little more serious the sooner you get yourself into a dermatologist’s office the sooner you can start fixing it obviously easier said than done i went to enter dermatology in manhattan and with my health insurance i think i was paying 60 dollars per session and i went like every six weeks or so
So i probably had five sessions total before things got better my medication i think i was paying like 20 um every few months or so to get it refilled so just cost wise that is how much i invested into it and also on top of that i did spend money on my products just want to make that transparent uh from the start i did not try to heal my acne by like changing my
Diet or anything because i strongly believe it was the consequence of my previous birth control and spiking my hormones all over the place that really triggered my acne that’s why i decided the approach was to stabilize my hormones and the new birth control that i was on um was on the list for like birth control that helps with your acne started my skin started to
Get better a couple months after so like between december and july by summer time is when it started to improve and with medication like spironolactone you need to take it regularly and you won’t see results for a couple of months but one day you’ll just realize that your skin is getting better i had no idea and then people started complimenting my skin texture
And that’s when i realized like oh my gosh my skin has gotten better because my mindset was so much like i have bad skin and i’m really happy about it um as for my steps to fix scarring again i’m using certain products i’m about to take you guys to my bathroom and show you all of them but also uh there are procedures you can do like a laser treatment to rebuild
Collagen and it will regrow collagen and new skin over your scarring so after a few sessions um your scarring will go away although that is a pretty expensive procedure i decided not to opt for it um if i’m never able to get rid of my scarring and it really bothers me then maybe i’ll consider it in the future but as for now um i’m just going to topically try to
Treat it so let’s go to the bathroom and i’ll walk you guys through everything i did so welcome to my bathroom um we’re gonna go through my little shelf of skincare here i’m gonna start by doing my morning routine and then i’ll show you guys my night routine so in the morning i would first cleanse my skin and i used this cleanser um i got it on amazon i will link
Everything that i can below another great cleanser is something like this or a cetaphil one a lot of dermatologists will recommend a really like plain ingredient cleanser like this uh it does the job and it doesn’t have a ton of extra stuff in it this was the next step that i would use in my morning routine and uh this is supposed to help lighten your scarring so
I have been using this morning and night um and i just put it on my like dry skin once it’s washed i actually think i’ve noticed a difference in the lightening of my scars so i really like this so far and it is not super duper expensive this is newer to my skincare routine and it’s not for acne but for under eye circles i use this eye cream in the morning after
That i went in with my cerave daily moisturizing lotion i love this it’s very simple a lot of dermatologists will recommend it so i just used this and i would set with my super goop sunscreen i used the mineral matte sunscreen um although all of them are really great options i just wanted a matter look everything that i would do in the morning for my skin and
Now we can delve into the nighttime routine that i’ve been using so after washing my face with the same moisturizer i have been going in with one of these pads from dr dennis gross they’re a little pricey um but i really like it i try to use it every other night it’s two wipes and you just do it on your freshly washed skin you can do it every night but for my
Skin that’s a little too harsh and you don’t want to ruin your skin barrier if you don’t want to get the dr dennis gross pads you can also get these paula’s choice products that i used to use before the dr dennis ones um these are both exfoliators and you don’t have to use both but if you need a good exfoliant these ones are really great this is a bha and this is
An aha again not necessarily an every night thing but maybe every other night you can do that these are the two products that my dermatologist prescribed to me and i used these for the longest time first i would put dap zone on all of my red areas so mostly around my cheek and then i would go in with a cleaf and i would put this on my active pimples this one’s
A bit stronger so like every other night i would use it this is a proactive post acne scarring gel that around halfway through my journey as my skin started to get better my dermatologist introduced this to my routine um for night time you can also use this in the day time in replacement of the ordinary i used to just use this morning and night now i’m using the
Ordinary serum instead but both of these are targeting lightening your scars um i kind of switch in between them now because i want to use both of them this is what my dermatologist recommended to me if you want to follow the same routine then lastly again i finished with my cerave lotion at night before bed and would use my eye cream from innisfree it is their
Orchid eye cream it’s a little thicker i started my routine during winter so for summer time this moisturizer is really great for me but during winter i needed a thicker one and my dermatologist told me to get this one it’s a ven or veen i don’t know how to pronounce it um but this is like a really thick moisturizer and it was great for the winter time that was
My morning and nighttime skin care routine um i will touch on some extra things that aren’t really related but that i like first is my gua sha combined with my rose hip oil from the ordinary um i also would use this at night every once in a while just you just go like this keep it at an angle would go within this side focus on my cheekbones focus here um but
I didn’t wash on until my acne got better because it used to hurt me to wash off because my pimples were on my cheeks and then for my lips aqua aquaphor before bed to keep my lips nice and moisturized makeup tips during acne um this cc cream by it cosmetics literally had the best coverage and has spf in it um i still swear by this today it just instantly evens
Out my skin tone um when i had bumps obviously the bumps don’t go away but it evened out the redness so well and it’s really high coverage but not as like thick as a foundation so i used this like every day because i wanted full coverage but i didn’t want to wear foundation every day that is everything um i really hope you guys enjoyed this video and if you are
Dealing with hormonal acne keep your spirits lifted the sooner you get started trying to treat it the sooner it will get better and i know it feels like it’s never gonna go away sometimes acne can be really stubborn but then i think it is possible to improve your skin condition you just need to put in the effort and wait because it is a waiting game does not happen
Instantly and sometimes your acne will get worse before it gets better my photos in october when i started medication and stuff were actually better than in december so it got worse before it got better but yeah just keep that in mind i know it’s like a mental struggle and at the end of the day you always think people are judging you for your acne but so many
People go through little acne i’ve realized that now because i thought i was the only one true so many people deal with it and you would never walk by somebody who has acne and think any less of them so don’t think that people would do that to you don’t be so hard on yourself because the way you feel internally i think definitely reflects in your skin if you’re
Really stressed about finding a solution it could do more damage than good so just be patient with yourself and trust the process and when you’re not feeling at your best give yourself more love and grace because i think that’s what helped me get through it is actively trying to have more positive talk although i have shed tears before i know this is all easier
Said than done i wish you guys good luck with your acne journey and if you have any questions feel free to leave them below and i think that’s everything bye
Transcribed from video
How I healed my hormonal acne with photos + my skincare routine (spironolactone experience!) By Isabelle Van Oppen
