My Journey to Cleaner

In 2017, I had recently graduated college. After years of wearing a sweaty catchers mask, cheap drugstore makeup, and sleeping in my makeup more than I care to admit, my skin looked its worst. In middle and high school I was pretty lucky, my skin was pretty clear just really sensitive. However, in college that changed for the worse. It was still super sensitive but also added painful breakouts to the mix.

I spent too much time caking on too much makeup. In hindsight, I also was spreading the breakouts with makeup and brushes. I had worked my way through every option at CVS and Target hoping that something would clear up my skin or at least hide it.

In May of 2017, I woke up with pink eye. I took myself to urgent care to get it looked at only to find out that I had not picked up a virus from the middle schoolers I was teaching at the time. My eye inflammation and irritation was from a chemical burn. The concealer I had been using was for "acne" and "oily prone" skin. It had salicylic acid in it which had gotten in my eye and burned it.

It literally took burning my eye (thankfully before I had contacts to make things more complicated) to make me think about what I was putting on my skin. I had a friend selling LimeLife at the time posting about the products. I figured that I had tried everything else, so why not? I got a Teen Collection to get me started with all my makeup and then a Skin Confidence Collection to try to tackle to root of the problem.

I immediately noticed the coverage from the foundation and the concealer! At the start, I was using way too much. The pigmentation was so good; it was actually covering my spots. This was the immediate solution I was looking for, but what I found over time was even better.

My skin slowly started to heal. The breakouts weren't as bad or as frequent. I was using a moisturizer for the first time in my life! Much to my disbelief it wasn't making my skin oilier.

When I started all of this, I was truly just looking for something that would work for me. I got that. What I also gained was a lot more knowledge and awareness. Knowledge about ingredients, regulations (more like lack thereof), and how to actually care for my skin and awareness that cleaner swaps are out there and can work for normal people. Instead of constantly stripping my skin of everything with chemical after chemical, I'm conscious about taking care of it with quality products. In return, my skin is not nearly as oily and is not as red and sensitive all the time. Yes, I still have the occasional breakout, but my skin is so much clearer and healthier than before. Through this, I've even found the confidence to go without makeup.

I'm far from a perfectly clean and sustainable lifestyle, but this was the first of many changes for me. Skin care and makeup led to aluminum free deodorant, then hair care, then household cleaning supplies, then single up plastics. I'm a scientist, I know I won't always have all the answers but I can do my best to learn from the information out there. Science and our understanding is constantly evolving and that's okay; we're all just trying to do our best each day and each decision.