Hi everyone,

It’s Sunday and a new season is coming!

A new page is turning in all our books, we all have our own stories of how we deal with them.

Today I would like to share with you all, one of the biggest source of my insecurities, my skin.

Wow I might get emotional writing this, but I think it is now time to share my story. I now have more
confidence and I’m not ashamed anymore.

As a teenager, I started having pimples, like many of us. It was at the time never a big of a concern as I
had other concerns like school and fitting in.

These are my high school pictures, yes those cheesy picture you take at the beginning of each year.
I was skinnier at the time and my problem area was mostly my forehead and a bit on my cheeks. I never
had a full blown pimple breakout.

At the time, my skincare was, well I didn’t have one. I washed my face with Clearasil and my face lotion
was Nivea. Whenever we would go to the Philippines, I would then try out and buy products there. I
would use Clean and Clear or Ponds and Eskinol. Typical Filipino basic skincare.

I finished high school and college with not much care given to my skin.

Then in 2010, I finally entered the workforce. That meant changing my routine, eating habits and …
stress management. It also meant I now had an income!

With my first job came also skin concerns. I started having pimples. I tried to treat it with products sold
in pharmacy. I was clueless what would be good/bad for my skin. The only thing I knew was that I had
oily skin.
I started using Effaclar from Laroche-Posay.
In 3 weeks, my skin went from bad to worse. I went to the pharmacy again to try something else. I even
told the pharmacist that Effaclar made my skin worse. The only answer she gave was because it is
summer, it aggravated my skin and thus the big breakout.
But during that summer, there was no sun, I was always inside. I was never under the sun.

I then tried out Avène as I used to use their body wash when I was a kid for my eczema. This time, as an
adult, it didn’t do much. The pimples were still there and weren’t healing at all.

In the summer of 2011, we went to the Philippines and that’s where I found the solution to my problem.

This was the state of my face. I hated it. It was red pimples everywhere on my face and it hurt.
The trigger
I never visited a dermatologist, as I had an acquaintance who went to a derma for her skin issues. She
was given pills, her skin on her face cleared out but then she broke out on her back. I’ve never been
good with medication so this solution didn’t appeal to me at all.

I liked Sandara quite a lot, still do, and it was that time when she was the model of Etude House. When I
saw that there was an Etude House in SM Fairview I went in, and that’s where my love story with
kbeauty started!

The Sales clerk was selling me the AC clinic line for my issues. I was offended at first, but then I thought
why not. It was the best decision I have ever taken for my skin!

After a month or two, my skin calmed down and my skin cleared out!

I loved it and since then I never stopped using Korean and Japanese beauty products.

See how my skin cleared out perfectly. I don’t have any BB or CC on on any of these pictures. I was just
so happy my skin looked great so I barely applied any makeup on my face. I loved it!

The change
In 2014, after my holidays I quit my job. I just couldn’t take it anymore and it was time for me to start a
new chapter in my life. The first few month, I just took everything easily. I could finally relax. I just
thought I would find a job after easily, but life won’t always turn out the way you want.

I started stressing and eating more, as it has been months and I still couldn’t find a job. I had no income
and lived on my savings. That’s when I started participating in giveaways, to get products for free. I was
lucky enough to win some giveaways.

I started blogging more as I had a lot of time. This was my break from the stress of finding a job.

I had discovered Wishtrend recently and there was an affiliate program you could apply to get a 25$
coupon. I applied and was able to get new products. One of the products I got was the C20 serum which
started a whole new nightmare for me.

This was my face in April 2015, I had some imperfections here there and I was just looking for
something that could help me brighten and make my skin look even clearer.

That’s when I started using the C20, but instead of brightening my face, it destroyed the balance of my
face and started breaking me out badly.

I stopped using the C20 serum and started looking for products to get rid of my pimples and then tried
out CosRX BHA A-sol line. This didn’t make things any better.
It started well the first two weeks, but then my skin was horrible to the touch. I had bumps here and
there. My face was even oilier than before.

By this time it was July and I still hadn’t found a job. I was really stressed out and I gained almost 10
kilos. I had been jobless for almost 10 months and the job interview were scarce. My routine drastically
changed. I ate at random time, slept only when I was sleepy. I was always on job sites looking for that
one offer where I could apply to.

Let me tell you it was hard. You think you finally find something, but then you see you can’t apply
because you don’t have the qualification. Or because it’s too far.

I was basically stuck at home, as I didn’t even have the money for transportation. I was on the verge of
depression.

I guess my state of mind showed on my skin.