If you watch Pixiwoo tutorials you will probably know that Sam and Nic both naturally have amazing skin. Regardless of skin care routine they do just have great skin. Their mum does too, so do their aunties and grandmother, it's in their genes. They also have normal/dry skin so they never really suffer too much from blemishes.
I (this is Stacey by the way) on the other hand have a combination skin type which is also extremely hormonal.
Generally my skin behaves but at certain times of the month I get hideous cystic spots that come up, usually on the chin and jawline. If you have experienced these you will know how horrid they are. Solid, swollen lumps under the skin that never really come to a head. They just sit there distorting your face shape and hurting so much it's impossible to forget about them.
Now I know that you HAVE to leave these alone. They take weeks sometimes to go down but if you leave them they will eventually go. I know this...however as gross as this sounds I always have to fiddle about with it and try and extract fluid from it to see if it will help the swelling go down. Well guess what, it never does. It just swells up more, goes red, forms a massive scab, looks worse than ever and just to show you who is boss it leaves you with a red scar that takes weeks and weeks to fade.
Here at Pixiwoo I am so fortunate that I am able to try lots of amazing skin care products. I eat a healthy balanced diet (I do cheat now and again), avoid sugar, changed the type of milk I drink (I'll talk further about this), have a 2 litre bottle of water on my desk which I pretty much nail every day, I have the odd glass of red wine at the weekend and I go to the gym 3 times a week. Lord give me strength, I can do no more.
I have accepted that my skin is hormonal and each month there will be a point that I will have a breakout. I think if I ever got married I would have to plan the date arount my skin breakout time!!
I have also learnt that certain things help it and certain thing seem to make it worse.
I often feel like a total drama queen when moaning about my skin. I'm well aware there are tons of people out there dealing with illness, scarring and disabilities and here I am thinking strategically where I can sit in a restaurant to avoid the light hitting my face. Believe me I feel pathetic but I also know I'm not alone for feeling this way and I receive tons of emails each day from ladies and gents feeling the same so that is why I wanted to share my experiences.
What annoys my skin?
Milk. I learnt this from Ruth Crilly (A model recommends). You can read Ruth's article on milk and spots here..
http://www.amodelrecommends.com/2013/02/08/milk-dairy-and-acne-connection/
After reading this I decided to change my milk to Almond Milk. It tastes quite nice really and my breakouts definitely became less frequent. After a few weeks of drinking this I became complacent and decided I would rather drink soya for some reason!
I seemed fine at the start but then I began to make fruit smoothies in the morning with the soya and after two weeks of drinking more than normal amounts of soya I had the worst breakout. I counted seven huge cystic lumps all along my jaw line right on the bone just to ensure they hurt a little bit more. I don't know if the soya had done this and there is a lot of conflicting information out there about soya milk but for me I have decided to go back to my Almond Milk for now.
Chocolate is another no no for my skin. I know that chocolate upsets my skin because I hardly ever eat chocolate. I'm not really into it, never have been and can go weeks without eating it but when I do have some boy do I know it. My skin freaks out.
Coca Cola. We went through a stage here at Pixiwoo of drinking a can of Diet Coke with our lunch every day and my skin was not great for this period of time. I don't touch the stuff now.
What my skin likes
The girls recently did a Body Talk video with Caroline Hirons who is a skin care goddess and I took lots advice from this video all of which has helped my skin enormously. You can watch this video here.
Two things I learnt..
A balm cleanser and flannel are my best friends. I always thought a balm cleanser would make my skin feel greasy and cause it to be more oily. It doesn't and after learning about the various types of cleanser available I wouldn't use anything other than a balm cleanser.
My absolute favourite at the moment is balance me Cleanse and Smooth face balm.
It smells lovely, it's 100% natural and the balm lifts off all of my makeup including mascara with ease. Tiny pieces of oatmeal inside help to gently exfoliate also. Targeted at a more dryer skin but is definitely not too rich for a combination skin.
This is £20 for 125ml
https://www.balanceme.co.uk/face/product-family/daily-essentials/cleanse-smooth-face-balm/
My second favourite product is Biologique Resercher P50V phew what a mouthful.
This is an acid toner. Sounds scary but it's all designed for the skin and is perfectly safe. I'm not going to lie, this stinks like vinegar. Nic couldn't use it because she said she could smell the vinegary scent on her skin all day. Initially for a few days I could smell it too but you get used to it and now I don't notice it. To be honest I would still use it even if I could smell it anyway.
Also this stings big time. I wipe it all over my face and it stings me but you are actually meant to pat it on which lessens the sting.
I actually love the sting because it generally stings in the areas where I can feel a lump deep down in the skin waiting to errupt. I find after application 9/10 times the spot never comes up and on the odd occasion that it does it quickly heals and goes away again.
After prolonged use it makes my skin appear smoother, even and generally amazing. It balances my skin out so much that I don't even need to powder my T-zone anymore during the day.
I've had two bottles of P50v both inherited from Nic and Sam. It wasn't for them because they already have a dry skin and found it dried them out more and also because of the smell.
They both got theirs from Liberty in London however Liberty no longer stock it so after mine ran out I couldn't get hold of another and my skin went pants again!
I emailed Biologique Resercher to their French site and UK site asking if I could buy direct from them or if they could tell me stockists but I never received an email back. I called them in desperation and left a voicemail but they never returned my call. I had resigned myself to thinking I'll never get one again unless I go to France however Caroline Hiros came up trumps again and told me where I could get one Hurrah!
A few salons in the UK do stock it and I got mine from Zen Spa in Notting hill, London.
http://www.zenspalondon.com/ I called and spoke to a lovely therapist who happily took my payment over the phone and popped it in next day delivery for me.
Zen spa looks particularly lovely and somewhere we will be definitely stopping by.
Ok so P50V isn't cheap. It's £52 a bottle for 150ml but it is worth every penny. I wouldn't think twice about going into TopShop and spending that on an outfit for a Saturday night and to be honest I would rather spend it on this product because when my skin is bad it doesn't matter if I was wearing a Vivian Westwood gown, I would still feel grumpy if my skin was having a meltdown.
This product is strong so it may not be for everyone but it works so well for me that I wanted to share with you.
Anyway sorry for the long rambling post and I hope it has helped some of you.
We would love to hear your comments on your favourite products for your skin type below.