[0:00]My skin, it's been through a lot in the past year. It's looked like this and this and also this. But now I look like this. Yay. So today I'm going to take you through my journey of Accutane, show you lots of pictures and videos, tell you how I cleared it, and answer a bunch of questions you guys have been asking me. Enjoy. Hi guys, welcome back to my channel. This video that you're watching is so long overdue and I am so sorry for that. I have been moving into a house in Utah. But we're not here to talk about that. Today we are here to talk about my skin, my accutane experience, and everything in between. So I'm going to start by telling you guys my skin history, then I'll tell you my accutane story, my whole experience with that, and then I'm going to show you guys my current skin care routine. Actually, I'll do that not. Oh my gosh, I'm so sick. I gotta post my skincare routine as a separate video because I got skin care by him to react to that so I want that to be its own thing. Wow. Anyway, and then I'm going to answer some questions that you guys asked me at the end. Let's just dive right in. Here's what my skin looked like all throughout high school. I would have like random pretty rough breakouts here and there. I went on birth control for a little bit for my skin. Honestly, I don't think it really did much and it kind of just messed with my hormones, so I got off of that. I then went on backroom, which is like a bacteria controlling pill. I don't think the pill really like affected me, but I think it did keep my breakouts a little bit under control. For the most part, I had pretty clear skin. Coming out of high school, 18, 19 years old, my skin was really good, honestly. That was probably like the clearest my skin was. I did not have any issues. Now, my dad had cystic acne, and he had to go on Accutane twice. So my family has a history of acne. Poof, one day, I got it so bad. I don't know if this is the reason, but I can't help but think this had something to do with it. Right before my acne started developing, I got this laser scar treatment done at a med spa. They like zapped a bunch of like tiny little injuries all over my face, and I think the idea is that your skin kind of repairs itself creating a fresh layer of skin, getting rid of like the impurities. But for me, it didn't do anything but make me break out. So that was back in August of 2019. Then September rolls around and I decide to move to Utah for just a little bit. Right when I moved to Utah, that's when my skin really started getting pretty bad. The zits that I was getting were pretty big and they wouldn't really go away. They were just more and more cropping up, and I didn't really know how to handle this other than just put like spot treatment on it and then cover it up with more makeup. So that's what I did. My skincare routine was pretty inconsistent. I'm pretty sure I was using like Mirad products, but no matter what product I use, nothing was helping my zits go away. So I just continued to cover it up with makeup. As my skin got worse and worse, I decided to try to find a dermatologist in Utah, so I did. He looked at my skin and this is what he prescribed to me. I used this for about a week or two. It only got worse and I know, I know I should wait a little bit longer for all that kind of stuff to kick in, but I did not have the patience to use these products that I knew were only going to help my skin a little bit, not totally clear it. When I knew that Accutane existed, and Accutane can just obliterate everything. So then a month goes by, around November, I go to Kenya. At this point, it was reaching its peak of how bad it got. And the kids would make comments on my skin and ask me like, if my skin was okay, if I was okay, like what was going on with my skin, which was kind of crazy. And I was like, wow, this really, really is bad. I have, I have never experienced anything like this. My skin has never been this bad. Self-confidence was just, it was an exponential decline. When I don't feel confident, I don't want to do anything. I started to not want to show my face at all. Like I was like, sorry, gotta go. I don't want to do anything ever again. I don't want anyone to see what I look like. I don't want to meet anyone for the first time because I don't want them to see this version of me. Like I just felt so awful. We need to do something about this. So I took my first dose of Accutane on November 25th, and it was 40 milligrams. Everybody takes a different dosage, but mine was 40, so I would take two pills a day. Here is what my skin continued to look like. I remember the first week of taking Accutane, I noticed my skin and my lips and everything got so dry. The texture of my skin was so weird. The pores just shrink right up, and everything just gets incredibly dry. Just after the first week you start noticing a difference. I had to get my blood drawn every now and then and make sure my body was okay. Thankfully, everything was good every time I got my blood drawn, and I was kind of aware that the Accutane was enhancing my depression. So I was like, it's just the Accutane talking. It's just the depression talking. Like I just am going through this right now, and the pill has everything to do with it. On top of the effects that the pill has on your body and on your mental state and emotional state, the way that you look, the way that it feels when you touch your face and there's bumps all over it, that definitely has an effect on you too. Obviously, I mean, when you have a breakout, it sucks, but imagine looking like this all the time. That was another added stresser and confidence killer. It was really hard not to be so focused on that. Anyway, so I started taking it late November. My chest gets red when I get fired up. I'm getting kind of fired up. So anyway, December comes around, I moved to New York for three weeks to film the Snapchat show Endless Summer. And the climate there is just so harsh. It's really cold, it's really dry. Not ideal for the skin. And this was also when Accutane was really kicking in, what it does at the beginning is it kind of brings up everything onto your face, so you have like the most zits you could possibly have, and then it starts clearing up your skin. So at the same time, I was on set every day, so I had a makeup artist put so much makeup on my face every single day, which is so bad, so bad for my skin and just terrible timing for all of that.
[6:04]Oh my gosh, this is also when I flew to LA for a day, made this video, tried to get help from a celebrity dermatologist, but apparently he's not actually like a dermatologist and he's just like a med spa type guy. I don't really know. No hate on him. His advice was not good for me. He told me to put baby oil and olive oil on my face. Like, what? Anyway, at this point, I was trying to figure out my skin care routine. I was just kind of using products I had and the intention of keeping it gentle and simple were definitely there, but execution was not the best. This resulted in this happening, which resulted in this happening. This is when I found out about skincare by Hyram, but one of his first reaction videos was to my skincare routine. Oh my gosh. This is one of my biggest regrets because I titled that video skincare routine. I'm pretty sure that was not my skincare routine for acne, that was me just like taking off my makeup to like proceed with my day, and then later I did my skincare routine at night, which was different from what I did in the video. So like mistitled that. That was not a good move on my part. I'm actually thankful that I posted that video though because then Hyram was able to help me out. And this was cool because we started DMing each other, and now we're friends. He helped me. So thank you, Hyram. I continued taking the Accutane. I upped my dosage to 60 milligrams at some point. Definitely should have like written down when I did this, but you know me, just like not really thinking ahead, so I don't know when I started taking the 60 milligrams, but I know I did take 60 milligrams for a few months. Okay, wait, at the same time, for like the last four months, I totally forgot to say this, but I was taking pantothenic acid too. Don't know if it did anything. Don't know if this was like super bad for my skin, but clearly I was just willing to do anything it took to get rid of the acne. It wasn't until March, April that my skin really did start to clear up. Finally, my zits were going away, and my acne was not as severe, and this felt really, really good. I wasn't wearing makeup every day, which was nicer on my skin. My confidence was starting to come back a little bit, which was awesome. Throughout this whole process, it really sucks because I really only felt confident when I put makeup on my face and covered up all of my acne. But like, looking back on it, I never covered it up that well. It looked just gross. Like it was bad, and I wish I had just not worn makeup because makeup or no makeup, the acne is still there. You can still see it on my skin. The makeup was probably slowing down the clearing process and just like packing all of that on my face almost every day was just so bad for my skin. So don't do that if you have really bad acne. Don't cover it up every day. If you're going to an event or something, or you just really want to feel better, if this makes you feel better, then go for it, put some makeup on. But I was definitely putting too much on far too often. My skin slowly but surely continued clearing itself up. Then I think it was June 21st that I finally got off Accutane. And here's what my skin looked like at that point. So that's my Accutane story. That was kind of long. And now we're here in October. My skin is almost like totally clear. Okay, it's question and answer time. Let's go. And now in a rental car because my car needed to get fixed. So welcome to my Ford Escape, Ford Focus. Honestly, it's kind of lit. What is a product you swear by? The Cetafil thick moisturizer, this one right here will never stop using this. I use it all over my body. It's gentle, the perfect thickness. It moisturizes perfectly and it works everywhere. When you had acne, would you pop your pimples or just let them be? I would pop them because I thought that that would make my skin look better. I was insanely wrong about that. Please don't pop your zits, because it either makes it worse and or that causes scarring on your face. Do you still get occasional breakouts after Accutane? Yes, I do. It's usually just once a month, like when I get my period, when I PMS, that is when I break out. I get a zit here, here, here, and then sometimes little ones will come up along my jawline, but they're not painful, they're not super big, and they go away quickly. So, thank you Accutane. How long did it take for your skin to clear up? It took about six months for my skin to start clearing up. So it took a while. Could you easily work out while on Accutane? Yeah, actually I could. My back kind of hurt, my joints kind of hurt too, but other than that, I was totally good. I know Accutane affects everyone differently though. My sister who went on Accutane, her back really hurt, and it was harder for her to work out because of her back. Some people have to take it really easy, but I was fine. Did you notice any negative side effects while on Accutane? Oh my gosh. I don't really talk about this online because I just like to keep this part of my life private. But I have mild depression. Being on Accutane definitely heightened that, like so much. It progressively got harder. Like I would just be sad for no reason more than I normally would be, and it definitely made the whole experience a lot harder. I think that was my biggest struggle is that I was really, really sad, and I lost my desire to like make content and do fun things. It took a lot more for me to do things that normally made me happy. So that was really, really rough. This one's kind of weird. It caused weird dreams and nightmares. I don't know. Another really sucky one is it caused angular cheilitis. That name alone is so gross. I would pretty much just get like cold sores in the corners of my mouth, and they hurt so bad. And I would wake up in the morning and they'd be like so crusty. It was really gross. That was like one of my least favorite things ever. That happened to me like three or four times. Another side effect. Obviously, my skin was really, really dry, my whole entire body. Sometimes I would get like small rashes on my body. You constantly have to have Aquaphor on your lips, otherwise they will crack and bleed because of the dryness. This one's kind of weird. It caused my hair to like stop growing. My hair didn't grow, I swear the whole time I was on Accutane, and now I'm taking like Biotin gummies, and I think it's grown a little bit. And I've heard about hair loss. I did not experience hair loss, but my hair just didn't grow. Kind of weird. Going along with everything being dry, my eyes were really dry all the time. Every time I would go to the beach, my eyes would water so much. Like it felt like I got like sunscreen in my eyes, and it lasted the entire day. It was so annoying. I would try to put eye drops in and everything, but there's not much that you can do about it. I look back on my Snapchat memories of me just like live and life while I was on Accutane, and you can totally tell just by looking at my face that I was on Accutane.
[13:48]So it was totally worth the high dose for me. What do your scars look like now? How are you healing them? These are what my scars look like right now. It looks different with different lighting. Right now what I'm doing to heal them is using that Cerave product, the retinol resurfacing cream. It's meant for post-acne skin. So I think that's been helping. How's your mental health now compared to before Accutane? Love you. Love you too. Before Accutane, I definitely was more like, like my life is pretty easy. My skin is clear. I don't have to worry about it. I can take selfies and feel pretty, and then during Accutane, it was like complete opposite, and I was like, dang. There is so much I can learn from this. And I am thankful that I was able to go through everything that I went through in the six, seven months because I understand people that struggle with depression better. I understand people with severe acne because that was me. I gained a better perspective on life, honestly, because before my acne, my life had a lot to do with my looks and my physical appearance, my face. Because I'm a YouTuber, and I do makeup, and that is my brand. And so, it kind of put life into perspective, like what really matters is not my face, is not my beauty, my physical appearance. That's not what's most important. Not that I was like consciously thinking like, that is the most important thing of life. It was just kind of like a, didn't really think about it, but subconsciously, I was like, you know, this is what matters. This may sound like overly intense and dramatic for you, but it was a huge trial and it hit me really hard. It was, it was a lot. Throughout being on Accutane, I also really realized how important mental health is, and how that is like seriously everything. Your mindset and how you're doing inside is huge, and if you're not taking care of yourself in that way, and you're not paying attention to the state of your mental well-being, oh my gosh. Your life can be totally different than if you were paying attention to it and if you are taking care of yourself. I don't think any of us are like perfectly happy with the state of our mental health, but it is very important to focus your energy on mental stability and feeling good. Because if you're in a bad state, you might be unkind to others and yourself, and that may not be a true reflection of who you are, but because of your poor mental state, that can cause that kind of reaction. Sorry, I kind of went off there, but that is very important to me. So that's pretty much it for the question and answer. I hope I answered all of your guys's questions. And if I didn't, leave it in the comments. I'll be reading all of the comments. And I'll totally respond to your questions if you have any more. Hope you're having a great day. If you want to subscribe, you should totally do that. Anyway, I will hopefully see you in my next video. Bye.
