28 #BadSkinProblems

1. Realizing that you may start getting wrinkles before you fully get rid of your acne.

2. Hearing people be like, “Oh, well it kind of makes you look younger!” and thinking that, okay, yeah, it makes you look younger in the way adult braces make you look younger.

3. Getting absurdly jealous of celebrities who have unlimited access to Photoshop.

4. Having a complicated, bitter, occasionally joyous relationship with base makeup and concealer.

5. Weeping internally when a friend mentions that they don’t know what a T-Zone is.

6. Getting frustrated when no one understands why you can’t just pass out and have to wash your face before you put your head anywhere near a pillow.

7. Watching Proactiv commercials who use celebrities with a single, isolated zit talk about their miraculous experience with the transforming product.

8. Hearing people refer to themselves as having “terrible skin” when they have the aforementioned single, isolated zit.

9. Being intimately familiar with the agony and the ecstasy that is Accutane.

10. Feeling intense jealousy over anyone who is unfamiliar with the effects of rosacea, psoriasis, or cystic acne.

11. Having a “bad day” and avoiding leaving your apartment at any and all costs.

12. Realizing that there are literally no models with bad skin ever, which somehow feels like a grave injustice, even though it shouldn’t be.

13. Understanding profoundly that bad skin is not simply something that happens in or around the facial area.

14. Constantly looking up new remedies for your problems and having vivid memories of your face covered in some combination of the following ingredients: egg whites, avocado, honey, crushed up aspirin, tomatoes, lemon juice, or oatmeal.

15. Occasionally seeing yourself in pictures and being like, “Okay, I guess I am permanently red for no reason.”

16. Avoiding unflattering light like the plague.

17. Seeing someone else with heavy makeup out that is obviously covering some mild-to-moderate acne and being like, “Ooh girl, I know that feel.”

18. Not being able to go anywhere without your cornucopia of medicated creams.

19. Fearing winter and its subsequent dry-skin season the way many people fear heights or snakes.

20. Having a very special relationship with bangs, your occasional best friend/worst enemy when it comes to forehead breakouts.

21. Knowing exactly which foods cause what kind of breakouts and sometimes eating them anyway because fuck it.

22. Wondering constantly if you are allergic to something and just don’t know it yet.

23. Never being able to trust stretches of “good days,” no matter how long they last.

24. Secretly being in love with all of this Instagram nonsense because it immediately makes anyone’s skin tone look perfectly even.

25. Being unable to describe your envy over people who have just always had beautiful, clear skin and couldn’t understand what it’s like to struggle with — even when they try to relate.

26. Having a heightened awareness over the size of your pores, and being really excited on days when they look at least somewhat “invisible.”

27. Investing absurd amounts of money in makeup or lotions that won’t send your face into a fiery rage.

28. Trying to remember not to touch any part of your skin if you haven’t just washed your hands, but doing it anyway without realizing it. (You consider taping on oven mitts like you do with little kids who won’t stop scratching their chicken pox, but decide it wouldn’t look very good with your wardrobe.)