Almost every teenager goes through the acne phase. I did too. It started when I was in middle school. And it would have been totally okay if I wasn’t such a obsessive compulsive person. But because of that I basically kept touching my face and I couldn’t stop it! You should probably also know that I’ve always had very long nails. My parents weren’t too strict about me cutting them short and I managed to get away with it in school too. Give acne and long nails to a girl who can’t stop touching her face – and what do you get? A disaster.
Anyway, that’s the story of how the marks came about. Every zit would leave behind an ugly brown mark that wouldn’t go away for months (and sometimes years) to come. And being in high school when this happened was the worst thing ever. While no one really said anything to me directly – because, come on, everyone is going through some or the other awkward phase in high school – it definitely made me feel less confident when I was under the spotlight. I tried homeopathy, allopathy, home remedies – nothing worked. And maybe I also didn’t have too much patience back then.
Then came makeup! My mom was never too much into makeup so I never had anything other than lipsticks and eye pencils lying around. The first time I tried on foundation (other than for dance competitions and stuff) was when I was at my grandmother’s place. It was a really nice one too (I’m forgetting the brand now) that my aunt had sent from London. I didn’t know anything about applying makeup, though, so i just dabbed a bit on my marks – and even just that little bit made a huge difference in how I saw myself! My grandmother saw my doing this and told me to keep the foundation. I was so happy!
It started small but grew to quite an obsession! I started buying foundation and pressed powders and using them on a regular basis. I depended on makeup to make me feel beautiful at a point in time when I was really unhappy with the way I looked – and I think that’s completely fine! Using base makeup made me feel confident that people weren’t just looking at the marks on my skin and actually listening to what I had to say without distraction.
But of course too much of anything can be bad…and my dependance on makeup, even to step out for grocery shopping, was a bit disconcerting. I’m glad I realised that. So I began with baby steps and started going makeup-free occasionally.
Of course I got many concerned comments and even some very blunt ones like, “What happened to your face?” It didn’t bother me, though, because by this point I knew that it takes me exactly 5 minutes with my makeup bag to look flawless – if I want to. I had the choice of using makeup but it was only to make me look my best, to add that special touch, you know – not to look beautiful.
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