As told to Ellen Scott

When I reached university, however, I started to feel more self-conscious. I was surrounded by new people and began picking apart my appearance, making me hyperfocused on my skin. It didn’t help that at the same time, my acne was becoming more frequent – and leaving post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation behind, which I found increasingly difficult to ignore. 

As I struggled to get it under control, people around me tried to help but ended up saying hurtful things. I heard comments like, “You don’t wash your face properly,” as though my acne was due to bad hygiene (which certainly wasn’t the case). Some people would try to make jokes about my skin, and I started to feel increasingly insecure. I stopped socialising as much because I was scared that people would take one look at my face and judge me. Soon enough, I was staying in my room most of the time, as it was one of the few places I felt safe. 

The time I spent looking at the mirror, obsessing over my spots and trying out products that claimed to get rid of acne, became alarming. It was tiring to wake up every morning and feel a new spot that wasn’t there the previous night. The first thing I thought of whenever I got money was how I could get my hands on the latest product that claimed to cure acne. Once my money was exhausted, I’d move on to organic home remedies. In hindsight, I realise I was doing more harm than good. It all put me in a dark place mentally, and I never want to go back there.

In 2020, at the height of Covid and lockdown, I tried out a new batch of organic products that made my breakouts even worse. I lost the little confidence I had left. When lockdown was lifted, I found it harder to get back into the swing of things – especially if it involved meeting other people. I just knew comments would be made about my skin. Before my breakouts, I’d loved posting on social media, but that all went away when I started to hate the way I looked. 

I started to notice that hardly anyone posted photos of their skin when they had a breakout; it was so rare to see my type of skin on social media. I decided I would do something different. I faced my fears and posted a photo of my real, unedited skin on Instagram. The love I got on that post stunned me. I felt so seen and appreciated in that moment, so I decided to do it again and again. 

Eventually, I stumbled upon the ‘skin positivity’ community. I saw people with so many different skin conditions, posting pictures of themselves, sharing their journeys and motivating others. I started to see that I wasn’t alone – there were people like me all over the world who were shy and maybe even a little ashamed to talk about their struggle with their skin. Social media had made it seem like a stigma to not have clear smooth skin, but that isn’t a reality for most people.

Posting my skin unfiltered on both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ skin days made me get used to my appearance. The bad relationship I had with my mirror gradually stopped. Instead of picking at my skin when I looked in the mirror, I started affirming myself, and little by little, I formed a better vision of myself and my skin.

People have been shielded from the fact that not everyone has perfect skin. We see a lot of filtered and edited content on social media every day so it’s easy to think that it’s not the norm when we are faced with skin having texture, spots and discolouration. The one thing I hate is when I hear people associating skin conditions with being dirty, having a bad diet or not caring about yourself. In most cases that’s not true. There are other factors – including hormones, stress and your environment – that you cannot control. 

I’ve started making better and more informed decisions about my skin, starting with understanding my body and knowing that my type of acne is hormonal, which means my skin’s condition changes throughout my menstrual cycle. There’s a possibility that I will always have acne, but I can manage it by doing proper research about my skin type, reading up on products and their ingredients and curating a proper skin regimen that targets my skin’s concerns. All of this makes me more confident in loving how I look, whether there’s a breakout or not.

The advice I’d give to anyone struggling to love their skin would be to first deal with the hate they have for it mentally. Being in a positive mental state allows you to see things clearly and make more informed decisions about your skin. Follow good skin influencers – the people who preach skin positivity and have similar conditions to you. You can learn one or two things from them about creating a routine or knowing how to show your skin some love. If you can afford it, see a dermatologist. Their job is to help you if you don’t know what steps to take next when caring for your skin.

Finally, know that the journey to healthier skin isn’t linear. For most people, there will be lots of ups and downs, products that work and products that don’t. But in everything you have to exercise patience and love. 

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: Oyintofe Oduyingbo