“I tried everything to ‘fix’ my acne. Accepting that my skin will never be perfect freed me.”

Patsy Chem

Credit: Patsy Chem; Stylist

Love Women


“I tried everything to ‘fix’ my acne. Accepting that my skin will never be perfect freed me.”

By Patsy Chem

2 years ago

7 min read

How do you feel about your skin? For many women, the answer is complicated. In our series, Skin Stories, we ask women to share their journey of how they came to accept and embrace their skin and gain total skin freedom.


As told to Ellen Scott


During my teens, I felt lucky not to go through the acne ‘phase’ people typically associate with adolescence. But at the start of 2020, as I had just turned 24, everything changed.

My skin went from only ever experiencing small, manageable breakouts to being covered in severe cystic acne, triggered, I believe, by an overprescription of medication and a hormonal imbalance. It all started in 2019, when my periods stopped and I experienced a small number of spots on my body. The dermatologist I saw insisted I take antibiotics, rather than treating the area topically. The antibiotics didn’t help my skin and they damaged my gut microbiome. I began experiencing food sensitivities and stress, followed by a major breakout across my cheeks. I was prescribed a short course of contraception to calm down my skin, but once I stopped taking this my cystic acne became inflamed and flared completely out of control. 

In the summer of 2020 my periods came back and my acne spread all over my face and neck in deep cystic lesions. I felt so alone. Nothing seemed to help and no one I knew was going through the same thing. 

patsy chem's acne in 2020

Credit: Patsy Chem

I did anything I could to try to clear my skin, from the viral celery juice cleanse to healing clays and peeling solutions. Most attempts just made my skin worse – apart from the celery juice, but the cost of buying organic stalks every day just wasn’t sustainable. I went on restrictive diets, I tried every facial, I spent hours watching YouTube trying to figure out how people had ‘fixed’ their skin. I was exhausted.

I tried working with nutritionists but had negative experiences. One told me to cut out all carbohydrates and eat only greens and fish, which not only triggered my past eating disorder but also made me feel constantly faint… and did absolutely nothing for my acne. I also tried a ‘cleansing’ raw vegan diet. Again, it didn’t make any difference to my skin. 

Sharing photos of my acne online dissolved any shame I was still carrying around

Patsy Chem

I started to share my acne journey online because I felt so alone and overwhelmed by information. As a result, I found a community of people who were going through a similar struggle, and started to learn a simple truth: everyone’s acne is individual, and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. The turning point came when I realised that many of the things that we are told about acne are either factually incorrect or are theories led by prejudice. I decided to filter out the noise and start listening to my skin and my body – working with it, rather than against it. This also meant coming to terms with the fact that I will probably never have ‘perfect’ skin.

Accepting this freed me. It helped me to slowly begin enjoying life again. By worrying less about my skin, I was actually able to finish my degree and socialise. I was no longer exhausted by constantly searching for answers, and could take a more mindful, consistent approach to helping my skin feel its best. I learned that rather than chucking whatever acids, juices, and judgement I could find over my skin, a far better route was meditation, talking kindly to myself and finding peace with my skin the way it is. 

patsy chem graduating
patsy chem skin

Building my confidence was hard at first. I started by wearing less foundation and using makeup as a form of expression, rather than something to hide behind. This really helped me to become comfortable with just seeing my skin – a big shift considering I’d been so scared to look at myself without makeup on that I did my evening skincare routine in the dark.

The online support was a huge help, too. Sharing photos of my acne online dissolved any shame I was still carrying around. I received – and continue to receive – nasty comments occasionally, when my posts make it outside of the acne community, but I’ve learned not to let it bother me. We still live in a society that blames and shames individuals for experiencing health issues, rather than looking at systemic causes, namely: stressful lifestyles and lack of access to basic nutrition due to the cost of living and poverty. I think this is because acne is often seen as a cosmetic issue rather than a health issue. That is what is most upsetting about this condition - the lack of care and support that is offered to the public. When you couple this with the shame that is thrown at people for having acne, it can feel extremely isolating and debilitating. 

patsy chem doing facial massage gua sha

Credit: Patsy Chem

There are still many misconceptions about acne. People assume that it can be easily treated through skincare or cutting out a food group, and as a result they view those experiencing acne as ‘lazy’ or not trying hard enough to ‘fix’ their skin. It is such a complicated condition yet people think they can simply blame someone for having it. Society doesn’t seem to accept that people with acne aren’t a project that constantly needs to be fixed.

I have always been curious to understand the root cause of my acne. This year, through a lot of trial and error, I have been figuring out what works for my skin both nutritionally and topically, and I’ve also realised that a big acne trigger for me is stress and irregular eating patterns. I have had a chance to work with a great nutritionist, who found me through Instagram, and I’ve had several tests (blood work and stool tests) which I think are essential when it comes to understanding a skin condition as complicated as acne. It turns out that I have a few deficiencies which were contributing to my inflammation and triggering my acne, as well as gut issues, stress and a hormonal imbalance. It’s a real shame that these options (testing and nutritional advice) are not routinely offered through the health system or even when visiting a dermatologist privately.

patsy chem selfie
patsy chem on train

I try to keep my skincare minimal, but as consistent as possible. For me, it’s all about listening to my skin and figuring out what it needs to stay balanced. That’s why I don’t really believe in skin types - my skin can go from oily to dry back to oily again depending on the time of the month in my cycle, the weather and several other factors.

I don’t think about my skin so much these days, but rather my overall health. I think when I stopped trying to ‘fix’ my skin and instead focused on my improving my health is when I saw an improvement in my acne. But I also feel at peace with it. Of course, I have my off days when I feel down about my skin if I am going through a painful breakout but I have divorced myself from the blame. I would say, to sum it up, I feel neutral. I think there’s a danger of pushing too much ‘positivity’ when it comes to things like acne, especially with current social media movements, and I think a good place to be, on a mental level, is neutral. Because no one can be ‘positive’ 24/7 - it’s just unrealistic. 

I urge everyone to be kind to themselves, and to remember that there is no shame in having acne – or any skin condition for that matter. Your body is always doing its best to heal, even when you can’t see it.

To anyone struggling with their skin, I want to say one thing: stop putting so much pressure on yourself to be perfect. A friend of mine always says: “the least interesting thing about you is the condition of your skin” and I always think of that. There is so much more to life than what your skin looks like. 


This article is part of Skin Freedom, a Stylist Love Women series that aims to champion the reality of women’s skin in all its glory.

Images: Courtesy of Patsy Chem

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