North / South: November 2012

You may or may not have noticed that I hardly ever use close-ups of my face when I do personal-style posts. That's partly because I want to showcase the fashion and not my face, but it's also because my face is seldom clear. As it turns out, I'm joined by a fairly large portion of my demographic (hormonal acne affects 45% of women between 21 and 30, according to a study cited in this New York Times article.) Dermatologists aren't in agreement about the best approach to fixing the problem, which makes ridding ourselves of it that much more complicated and frustrating.

My Skin

I'm convinced that prolonged stress is what's caused the two bouts of cystic acne I've had in my life. At 19, I chose the wrong college for me but felt I had to remain there for financial reasons. Trying to convince myself to be happy in an environment that was not conducive to my happiness was a toxic way of living, and it showed on my face. My dermatologist prescribed an antibiotic (doxycyline) to me, and after taking it for a few months, and then spending the summer at home, the acne cleared, with little scarring.

The next case of acne came a year and a half ago when I was living in my husband's small-ish hometown in South Africa. My situation in South Africa was another one in which I was not entirely happy but was trying to convince myself to be. I was surrounded by the natural beauty of mountains, oceans, lakes, and estuaries, and I had returned to this country after having an intense love affair with it when I studied abroad my junior and senior years of college.

This is where we lived.

But this time, things were different. I was in a more isolated town, there were no other Americans or foreigners in our friend group, I didn't have my own housing (lived with my in-laws), I had limited access to jobs (no work permit), and I felt that I didn't have an identity outside of my husband. This perceived lack of control of my social, financial, personal, and professional life produced in me a perfect storm of stress. Add the guilt I allowed myself to feel for not being happy in such a beautiful place, and you'll have what I believe to be the trigger of my current cystic acne. While I was in South Africa, I tried antibiotics for two months, but they didn't work.

When I returned back to America to live, the acne didn't go away. It's been about nine months since I've been back, and I'm still breaking out on my cheeks and jawline. However, in the past few weeks, I have seen improvements in the number and size of breakouts. So here are some of the things that I'm thinking could be playing a part in these improvements.

Possible Solutions

1. For the past month, I've cut coffee from my daily diet, replacing it with chai, chamomile, and peppermint tea. I only started drinking coffee on a daily basis when I was living in South Africa, so the inclusion of coffee in my diet could have been contributing to my acne.

2. I'm on my third month of Lutera, a birth-control pill. Balancing my hormones could be helping, though I didn't notice any improvements until now--my third month on it. I was hesitant to take bc again because I had had a bad experience with Yaz a few years back, but Lutera has been pretty good to me in terms of physical and mental side effects, and it may be the reason why my acne is not as severe now.

3. I started using this organic sugar scrub. It's deep cleaning, and it leaves your skin feeling soft but not greasy. I follow it with either tea tree soap or African black soap from the same shop. I truly believe that this scrub is central to my recent success with limiting the breakouts.

4. I have a stable job, and I work for people I love. The job provides me with purpose, keeps me challenged and keeps my mind active, and gives me financial security. This all reduces my stress.

And that's about it. The type of makeup I wear (or don't wear) doesn't affect my acne much. And the expensive Clinique acne products that my grandma insisted I try really didn't help much either (except for the dark spot serum--that stuff is pretty good for scarring.) But, yeah, maybe keep in mind that price does not always guarantee effectiveness. So there you have it. I'm crossing my fingers that I continue to see improvements.

I've been overwhelmingly busy with work since I got back to Minneapolis from Puerto Rico. This is the first chance I've gotten to edit and organize a few of our pics.

My sister and I mainly chose outfits based on what would keep us the coolest in the scorching 90-degree temperatures. What none of these pictures capture (luckily for you, dear reader) are the buckets of sweat that constantly dripped from our faces (and onto the beautiful tiles of any store or restaurant we entered).

It was a great trip and was just what we needed--a break from the winter cold. We basked in the sun, got lost, drank some rum, met some nice people, met some dodgy people, went to some cathedrals, went to some fortresses, ate mofongo, ate waffles, drank coffee, and mostly just farted around a lot since that's what Vonnegut says we were put on this earth to do.