Skincare and what happens when we don’t practice what we preach
Why is skincare so important? Little acts can really add up. Our manager at Urban Body Laser, Janiece, shared this cautionary tale.
We all do our best to practice what we preach when it comes to taking care of our skin.
We try to make sure we are using proper products – PH-balanced cleanser, spritzers for particular concerns, proper moisturizers and so on. We keep clean brushes, wash them weekly and use clean pillowcases. We tell ourselves, “Don’t pick your face! Wash your hands!”
I know best that I shouldn’t be picking any pimples on my face. However, one day I woke up with a pimple on my face that was big and red. It had no whitehead. I left it all day and then before bed I had a very hot shower and steamed the big red pimple on my face. When I got out of the shower, there was a tiny whitehead on it. I gently tried to squeeze it, with no luck. The next morning, I had another hot shower and steamed it again. I got out of the shower and gently tried to squeeze the little whitehead again – nothing happened. Three days later we held a staff event and this thing was not looking so pretty. I covered it as best I could with my Colorescience and used a brush to cover the area with my pressed compact powder.
This was the beginning of a month-long journey of dealing with increasingly difficult issues with my face.
I did my best to wash and keep my face clean. I chalked it up to irritation from me picking at it. After six days of a rash traveling in all different directions on my face, I took a picture of it and sent it to my friend who is a Naturopathic Doctor (ND). He said that I had a Staph infection and needed to use some topical antibiotic ointment. I filled the prescription and spent two days applying it. During those two days, one hour after I applied it each time, my face was so itchy that I couldn’t stand the ointment – so I took it off. Needless to say, the infection kept spreading. It was oozing, moving farther along my face, cheek, chin and neck. It was painful, itchy and scary.
I ended up having to take a very high dose of penicillin to stop the infection. I was advised to check my temperature hourly – if it spiked, I would need to get to the hospital asap! After seven days of antibiotics, the infection was almost gone. Two days later, I went out for the evening and when I came home at around 3:00 am, my face started burning again. I didn’t realize that I had reinfected my face with my makeup brush and the pressed compact that I had used two weeks prior to cover what I thought was an irritated pimple. I didn’t know that I had reinfected myself, but instead thought the antibiotics had stopped working. I spent the entire Saturday with butterflies in my stomach all day, wondering what was going to happen to my face. Then, I started thinking about how I had used the brush again. I figured out that bacteria was still living on my makeup brush and pressed powder.
It took well over a month for the skin on my face to get back to normal.
After the infection was gone, my face was irritated and dry because it had been so damaged by the infection. I am so grateful I was able to use healthy products to restore and treat the affected area. I used R3 Derma Soothe, Aloe, and Revive to heal, plus Colorescience Tint du soleil, Pep Up and Pressed Mineral Foundation Compact to hide and heal.
I talk about keeping skin healthy and never in a million years did I think that this would happen to my face. It is sooooo important to keep your brushes clean! Don’t pick those nasty little annoying pimples…especially with fingers that have not been washed!
There are a lot of things here that I did wrong despite preaching these things daily:
- Always wash your brushes
- Never pick your face
- Never touch your face with dirty hands
I am writing this article and sharing with you why we ask our guests not to do the things they need to do to keep their skin healthy and what can go wrong – all for the exact reasons of what happened to my face. I broke every rule that I preach and ended up spending almost an entire month of time treating my face, taking unnecessary antibiotics, being itchy and uncomfortable and missing out on work and social events.
I am sharing this to create awareness about the worst-case scenarios that can happen – they even happen to us at Urban Body Laser when we don’t take our own advice.
