I’ve had poor skin since I was about…I don’t know, at least freshman year of high school if not earlier. It’s been a battle for the ages and let me just say- I damn well haven’t been winning, BUT like a creature of the sea I RISE FROM THE DEPTHS and get right back at it (sorry the dramatics). 

I mean, if there was a new hot product on the inter-webs then there was a damn good chance I’d seen it, thought about buying it, or already had it. If I walked into the beauty section of a store you could bet I was probably going to walk away with at least one product in hand. Oh and all the internet tracking knew this to the point where now almost all the ads I see on Instagram or FaceBook are skin care related. 

This all came to a head though on my last dermatologist visit. You see, I was using a product that I was seeing improvement with, but my dermatologist wanted me to go back on two topical prescriptions. Now I’d used these before and wasn’t a fan. They made my skin thin to the point where if I idly scratched my face I usually ended up with light scabs and the results hadn’t been that great even after using them for months. PLUS with my most recent insurance, ONE prescription alone was going to cost me over $200. That’s when I decided to steer away from the pricey options because sometimes price doesn’t necessarily denote results given varying skin types and what not. 

With this in mind I ended up making a purchase for ABS (African Black Soap) and a moisturizer to match. The cost of both products plus shipping literally cost less than some of the products I already had which was…a mood. Now the product didn’t ship as soon as I bought it because the owner needed to make fresh batches. It was the first time I’d ever had to wait on a skin product, but it honestly made me more hype- especially since the Instagram page was keeping customers updated with the process and just HOW MANY orders she was handling (it was huge). When I finally go the text saying my package had been delivered I practically rushed home from work to try it out.

Using the product was simple enough. I’ve interacted with ABS in the past, but it never worked out well for my skin. Turns out the reason it wasn’t working was because I needed a moisturizer that could actually restore everything the soap was stripping away- hence why I also purchased the moisturizer. Now this moisturizer is…interesting. I’m used to moisturizers being light/gel like/milky if that makes sense and this moisturizer is DEFINITELY not that. Instead it’s thick and almost reminds me of thick honey butter…That probably didn’t make sense either…

ANYWAY, what started out as kind of weird is now as easy as 1, 2, 3. I’m all for it and I love the products. Today marks one month and while I’ve seen improvement I’d be lying if I said my skin was perfect right now. The thing is though; my skin was such a wreck that I in no way expected it to be perfect- especially after just one month. I started breaking out over the weekend which sucked, but then I realized I got my period (ayyyy) and had that stare into the camera moment.

All in all I am learning to be patient with my skin and just going with the motions because I’ve realized that when I scrutinize my skin every day it becomes harder to notice overall improvement as opposed to just doing your routine and checking in every once in a while. I don’t know, I may be in the minority with that thinking, but I’ll take it. By the way I definitely took “before pictures” and plan on posting side by side comparisons somewhere around the three month mark or even sooner depending on when my skin gets to “acceptable levels”.