About Me
Hi. Welcome to The Curious Millennial. This blog is about my skincare journey and how I got my skin to a place of confidence. Skincare can be overwhelming for most people. Bad skin can damage your confidence – that can alter the quality of one’s life in a big way. I had bad skin a couple of years ago, and it was a learning experience for me. This blog is an outcome of my desire to utilize my experience into making useful suggestions for common skincare problems that most people in the world face.
What’s My Story?
A few years ago, when I was working at one of the reputed IT firms in India, I had severe self-esteem issues because of my skin. My skin was extremely oily, and it looked dull and dark most of the time. Whenever people said they have oily skin, I felt like it wasn’t as bad as mine. Like, it was really hard for me to wear foundation without it looking all cakey after a couple of hours.
Even if I used a primer, it still didn’t improve it. I had to use a powder every two hours. It made me look like a white washed wall.
I tried a lot of facials and skincare products to help with my skin condition, with less than expected results. I paid an obscene amount of money to beauticians at parlors who promised me a sure fire turn around. It didn’t work.
To make matters worse, I developed painful acne. It seemed to break out when I was under stress or when I ate food that was not home made (which I HAD to, owing to circumstances). My skin started looking from bad to worse, and people started noticing it. In every conversation, every interview, every interaction with people, be it my roommate, be it my boss, or be it the girl in the next cubicle, I felt like my acne was attracting more attention than what I said.
The looks of people – sometimes sympathizing, sometimes patronizing, rarely indifferent, only made my ‘condition’ more conspicuous. The quality of my talk got (it FELT thus to me, anyway) shadowed by the elephant in the room that my skin seemed to be. My life, it appeared, had got hijacked by my skin.
Some of my girlfriends helpfully offered me pieces of advice that did nothing except make me lose confidence on my choices. After a point, it got so frustrating that I decided to pay the dermatologist a visit. The lady informed me that my acne was severe, and that it needed medical attention. I got prescribed with Accutane for reducing my acne. This was a 3-month course of treatment and after that my acne was supposed to clear up.
The acne treatment was really painful for me. My skin dried up so bad that I just had to use a moisturizer all day. My lips used to be chapped all day and I had to keep applying a lip balm throughout the day. I remember being very depressed and sad during that time.
Gradually, over time – after bungling through various treatments, and smarting from having made several unintelligent choices, I started realizing a few things. I realized that I had a lot of misconceptions about my oily skin and some of the things that I was doing to cure it were actually making my skin worse. Like I was washing my face 10 times a day.
Little did I know that doing that was making my skin go into overdrive trying to produce oil faster than I can wash it away. I was skipping moisturizer and sunscreen completely without realizing how important they are for oily skin. I also understood what factors actually cause oily skin.
I am glad that time passed. My cystic acne cleared up. I promised to myself that I will not let that painful acne come back ever again. I started getting really scared of using skincare products bought from a pharmacy.
The large variety of products available in skin care market drove me to a state of indecisiveness before buying ANY product. Also, the variety of chemicals that any product contains – made me jittery of buying readymade creams. I thus started veering towards homemade solutions for oily skin. I started preparing DIY face packs, serums, moisturizers, toners for treating my oily skin and acne marks. This way, I KNEW what I was putting onto my skin, and that gave me confidence. Not that all products in market are not worth buying. But I am just saying, one should know all aspects of an issue.
Fast forward to today, after years of trials and tribulations, I have emerged richer with the experience. I have reached a place where I am happy with my skin. I still breakout a bit sometimes, but it never lasts longer than a few days now.
So, enough rambling. Here’s the thing – I realize that millennials face a lot of skincare issues similar to mine and it’s really hard for them to figure out what is right and what is not right for their skin. Bad skin erodes your self-esteem, and for a girl in teenage, it can be traumatizing experience. I wish I had someone to hold my hand, and give me solid advice when I needed it.
Based on my experience, I want to help you guys. I would like to share the learnings I picked up during my skincare journey. That is why I started this blog. This blog is my attempt to bust some of the popular skincare myths and advice about the best products and ingredients for your skin type. I post a lot of tips for oily skin and acne prone skin, where most of my experience lies.
If you have any questions, do not hesitate to reach out. I wish you the best in your skincare journey.