So, I thought it was only a month since my last skin update but I just back-tracked on my previous posts and realized that it’s been about two and a half months since my last update. For that, I sincerely apologize. January was an extremely busy month for me, since I had observations and clinical rotations every weekend – that month just flew by me.

But I have for you a set of periodic pictures that I’ve been taking for this month that tracks the progress of my skin (which is actually important, because I’ve recently been playing around a lot with my regimen):

February 3rd. This was how my skin looked before I began the current regimen that you see on my Regimen page. Scroll to the bottom of that page under ‘previous products’ to see what my previous regimen was made up of before the switch.

February 4th. Same comments as above.

February 5th. Same comments as above.

February 11th. I began the regimen you see listed on the Regimen page on February 7th.

February 12th.

February 15th. Around this time, I began to use a Japanese silicon facial brush (I got it off ebay, I suppose it’s a Sasatinnie Japanese accessory facial cleansing brush rip-off) to exfoliate morning and night along with my cleanser and decided to stop using my usual exfoliating scrub. Bad decision – perhaps it was too much exfoliating but I began to seriously break out on my left cheek and all around my lips and chin. My skin was also excessively dry and parched. Due to the dryness of my skin and the dry winter atmosphere, I also stopped using Naris Up’s Hyaluronic Acid Skin Lotion because it contains a lot of alcohol and replaced it with the HARUHADA Hyaluronic Acid Moisture Skin Lotion. These additions aren’t currently reflected on my current regimen page!

February 17th.

February 19th.

February 19th. I decided to stop using the silicon facial cleansing brush morning and night, and instead only use it at night. It seems to have helped decrease inflammation but my skin was still flaking excessively – which is embarrassing during the day when I’m literally picking flakes of skin off my face (like a snake shedding, no joke).

February 27th. Two days ago, I started to add 2-3 drops of jojoba oil back into my regimen to help moisturize my face. If my face is feeling particularly dry, I’ll even double up again and add 1-2 drops of jojoba oil to my Olay Complete moisturizer. I use it morning and night as an additional moisturizer, along with all the other parts of my current regimen. My skin has started purging, since there are a ton of small papules that have come to surface on my cheeks and jawline – but they all easily “pop” and appear to be really close to the skin’s surface. Generally none of the deep, nodular acne that I am usually more prone to but there are still some – which isn’t out of the ordinary for me. During these past 3-4 days, I’ve been mostly struggling with a patch on my left cheek and a welt of nodular/cystic acne around my left lip and jawline (see above).

February 27th. My recent breakout along my left jawline.

I’m still continuing to stick with the jojoba oil even through the slight purging because it has really helped prevent flaking. I haven’t had any flaking since I started using it to moisturize. I’m going to give it a little longer, hopefully it will end when my pores have nothing else to “purge”. I will keep everyone updated.

I thought that it would be helpful for me to track the condition of my skin as I was making so many changes to my regimen in the course of one month. I also know that it can be difficult to convey the condition of my skin via pictures, since my camera is cheap and doesn’t take good pictures – not to mention the differences in lighting and angle that can change how a person’s skin can look. I take all pictures in macro mode and in natural lighting by a window, so they are relatively accurate. Hope this was helpful for everyone; I will be more on top of skin updates from now on!