Please Don't Touch My Face

Growing up, I wasn't particularly fond of my face.Somewhere along the line, my skin had become dull, uneven and covered in acne. I knew I didn't look the way I wanted to look. It was obviously getting bad, but I don't think I fully understood just how much it bothered me until someone made a joke about my face in front of other people.What hurt wasn't just the words. It was the laughter that followed. It was watching people join in. It was realising that my humiliation could be entertainment for other people. I remember crying for hours afterwards. And somewhere in between all that crying and feeling terrible about myself, I made a decision. I was going to buy skincare. And so began my skincare research era.This was before skincare influencers were everywhere, before Instagram could give you a ten-step routine in thirty seconds, and before Korean skincare became the phenomenon it is today. There was no algorithm waiting to tell me that I was looking in all the wrong places. It was just me, Google Chrome, and late-night searches that left me more confused than when I started.Vitamin C eventually caught my attention. From everything I'd read, it seemed like a good place to start. So when I finally found myself in a skincare shop, I had an idea of what I wanted.Unfortunately for me, I had no idea that skincare was so expensive. Every vitamin c serum they pulled out was way beyond my budget. I stood there, confronted with the reality that the thing I'd spent so many nights researching was something I couldn't afford. A part of me wanted to walk away, but another part of me couldn't bear the thought of leaving empty-handed after everything. And then, almost by chance, my eyes settled on a dusty black package on a shelf. Pei Mei Retinol C Serum.I don't remember exactly why I bought it. I'd heard of retinol before, but I'd read that it had a bad habit of making acne worse before it got better, and the thought of my already troublesome skin getting worse was enough to discourage me.And yet, for reasons I still can't quite explain, I found myself reaching for it. Apparently, my curiosity had more money than my commons sense, because the next thing I knew, I was walking out of the shop with it. I did give it a chance, but only for about three applications before my fear got the better of me. I tucked it away in some dark corner and, for all intents and purposes, forgot it existed.Months passed, ASUU strike began, and I found myself with plenty of time away from the sun. A little voice in my head told me to try the serum again. And so, for no real reason, I did. I started using the serum again, still with a healthy amount of suspicion. I wasn't expecting miracles. If anything, I was just hoping my skin wouldn't punish me for giving it another chance.But then, something happened.Within about two months, my acne had cleared remarkably. My skin was looking brighter, and I spent every free second in front of a mirror. I don't think there are enough words to describe how happy I was to see the reflection grinning back at me.After spending so long being self-conscious about my face, the feeling was almost unreal.Looking back, I sometimes wonder whether God had been trying to steer me away from vitamin C all along.Because here's the funny part.Years later, I finally bought the vitamin C serum I'd originally wanted so badly, and it broke me out terribly. I've since realised that my skin gets irritated by vitamin C products pretty quickly.Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if that had been my first skincare experience. Back then, I was so discouraged by my skin that one bad experience might have been enough to make me give up altogether. I might never have discovered the product that helped me feel comfortable looking in the mirror again.It has been five years since that purchase, and over the years, I've added more products to my routine. I've learnt more about ingredients, skincare and my own skin. I've had good experiences and bad ones, and I've discovered that finding products that work for you can involve a lot of trial and error.The retinol serum is still in my routine. I've lost count of the number of empties I've had to throw away. I went into that shop looking for one thing, left with something entirely different, and somehow found a product that stayed with me for five years. It wasn't what I'd planned to buy, but it turned out to be exactly what I needed at the time.Funny how life works sometimes.

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