You are your best benchmark – Love the skin you’re in, not covet someone else’s skin

I often come across tips or clickbait style titles in magazines that profess to tell you “How to get {insert celebrity du jour}’s skin!” with a list of products that said celebrity says she uses. I also sometimes have people ask me how to get skin like mine, which isn’t even great skin to start with. You don’t really want my skin, trust me LOL!

And I’m going to tell you this. It bugs me. It bugs me a whole lot.

 

My beef with this way of thinking, is this. There is no way that you can get another person’s skin. Not unless you scalp them, in which case the skin is pretty much useless to you anyway (gory yes? 😛 ) I know that’s looking at it literally, but even if you think about it from an abstract point of view, you can’t get your skin to look like anyone else’s skin. If you’re looking for skincare tips, you really shouldn’t be looking to get someone else’s skin, but instead, to use those tips to get a better version of YOUR OWN skin.

I realise that people are really trying to attain what they perceive to be an ideal. Everyone wants smooth, unblemished, poreless, porcelain skin. The skin we are all born in. We are sold that as the ideal skin to strive towards because Photoshop makes it possible.

Yet I’m sure that most of us realise that photos in magazines or on the internet are largely retouched. I don’t deny that there are some people who very honestly put their true faces online, but in the main, there is an element of retouching, lighting, angles; and there is always makeup. Few of us know what {celebrity du jour} looks like in real life, without the trappings of glamour, so we only have a perception of it. Now, if you take photos of yourself (who doesn’t these days?) you’d notice how, with good lighting (and some filters) you can mimic the sort of ideal skin everyone wants.

This is more so when I look online, at all the filtered and retouched photos uploaded to Instagram. I’ve seen some of these people in real life, and let’s be honest. They don’t look half as good as they do online. I met a reader recently, during my meet-ups, and she paid me the biggest compliment ever, by telling me that I looked better (I think she said younger, I’ll take either LOL!) in person than online LOL! Whew! 😀 But there’s the rub – a living person in front of you, is quite different from a picture of a person in a magazine or online.

You see, the simple reason you will never be able to attain X’s skin is due to many factors – genetics, environment, health, age and money are just 5 that come readily to mind. For some people, who are born blessed with beautiful skin, they don’t see why they should be using any products at all – it happens, lucky ducks! 😛 But even if you share the same gene pool, some of us draw the short straw. I have a pigmentation problem, my sister doesn’t. She has a problem with fine lines, I have less of a problem. Genetics can really screw with you. As I age, I’ve realised that my eyebags are more pronounced, dark circles more noticeable and my skin loses it’s glow if I slack off. It’s all fairly natural, and in some ways, unavoidable.

If you have money, regular laser treatments and fillers can solve most visible problems quickly. If you’re eyeing the skin of someone younger, realise that age, experience and environment plays a big part in helping you NOT achieve that same skin.

What I feel we should try to achieve, is a better version of our own skin and ourselves. We should be using ourselves as our benchmark, not someone you see in the glossy pages of a magazine or some online personality or “guru” (I hate that self-declared title and it brings to mind half-naked yogis living as hermits up a mountain 😛 ). I play around and read a lot about skincare and different products people use, but I only pick the ones that I feel may help me with my skin concerns, but never with the impression it will give me the same result as someone else. This is why I always advise all of you reading my blog, to please think about how it fits you,  your lifestyle and your routine because I only use a product that I think will work for me. What works for me, may not work for you and vice versa. Treat it as a guide, never as gospel.

I’ll use myself by way of example. I am a skincare junkie but I don’t have great skin. I will be the first person to admit that. You’ve all seen my before/after photos and I know some people even roll their eyes when I say I’m a skincare junkie, because I don’t have porcelain perfect skin. Incidentally, it is because I don’t, that I’m a junkie. Doh! 😛

Genetically, I am not predisposed to have good skin and I went through bad bouts of acne from my late teens, all the way to young adulthood, which have left pitted scars. I have never really thought about getting them removed with lasers because that would cost a lot of money. If I had the spare cash, I might have done it. As I don’t, I’ve accepted it and will live with it.

I have a pigmentation problem (which appears to be partially genetic and partially foolhardiness of youth) and the occasional breakout. I’m lucky to not have a lot of fine lines, or skin that is predisposed to crinkling and wrinkling, nor a problem with large open pores, all of which I attribute to genetics, but I have my fair share of problems. Problems I could cure with money if I wanted to but I’d rather save my money for more important things.

However, I have better skin now, with constant care and attention, than I would have had, had I not bothered about my skin. So, even though I don’t have great skin, I’m happy with how it is, because I’ve improved it, and it belies my age. It might even be better than it was 8 years ago, because I don’t have as many breakouts anymore *touchwood* My skin is generally more refined, I break out far less often and I’m keeping whatever pigmentation problems I’ve developed, under control. Well, somewhat. I don’t have as many lines as I should have for someone my age, but that is attributable to genetics as well as care. But I go through bouts of good skin days, and shitty skin days. We all do, and I’m currently in shitty skin phase. Sigh.

Living in a hot and humid country doesn’t help my cause because heat can cause redness and blotchiness in skin as well as the dreaded sun spots, and humidity makes you sweat and makes your skin oily. Living in a dry climate isn’t wonderful either – your skin dries out to a husk and that means you can develop fine lines more quickly. If my health fluctuates, or my food intake, it reflects itself on my skin.

We all want beautiful skin. But I think we should be looking at ourselves, understand our skin, and accept what we may not be able to change, and work towards making our skin better, and aging gracefully. We should not be looking to someone else and saying “Oh, her skin looks so beautiful, I want her skin. Let me steal all her tips and use all the products she recommends, and go for the treatments and lasers she recommends.” It’s not going to happen.

What say you? Do you feel that way – that you want your skin to look like someone else’s?

I realise it’s only human to want to feel this way. So it takes a conscious effort to ensure that we pull back and keep our expectations realistic. Product recommendations are useful but can only take us so far. Lasers and treatments can give significant improvement, but can only do so much. Genetics, lifestyle, environment and health plays a much larger role in determining how we look. At the end of the day, as long as we are able to improve on what we have, age gracefully and accept that there are some things that we might not be able to improve on easily, I think that’s reasonable. When all else fails, there’s always makeup LOL! 😉 Do you often feel disappointed with your skin and wish you had someone else’s skin?

Paris B