Skin.
The other night I lay in my bed, in the dark, staring at the nonexistent dance of black and white dots in front of me. I was thinking about a reel I just posted on the new Instagram account I started specifically for this Blog. I decided to document the first time tasting my very own, home made, blue berry kombucha. I grabbed my phone and drink and sat in front of the camera with the kind of excitement a child may have when they finally get their hands on something their parents always told them they couldn’t have. As I sipped, my palette started to distinguish a known yet particular taste. It wasn’t bad! I was pretty happy with the result considering I had no fucking idea what I was doing. Also, it didn’t explode in my face, big plus. After a while of sitting, sipping and smiling I stopped the recording and left it there for a second. I’m really weird about my image. It takes me a while to accept that the person that’s in the screen is actually me. I need a moment to process what happened, accept that whoever is on the other side is me and that whatever the outcome it’s fine because it’s only a millisecond time frame of the entirety of my life.
After a couple of minutes I looked back and saw a very happy Sara chillin’ in her garden, enjoying the results of her fermentation experimentation. But, what’s that redness on my cheeks? Oh, acne. I forgot about that. After having it for so long I almost forget it’s there. Sometimes it’s all I can think about, other times it’s so far away from my awareness it’s as if it’s not even a thing that exists in the world.
I had a very recognizable thought: what will people think? Oh, such a wonderfully helpful and efficient thought to have. Will they think I’m disgusting or “brave”? Do people even care? Do I care? I didn’t even think about wearing make up. Or doing my hair nice. Or anything of the sort. At no point did I even consider making myself look “nice” for the camera. So I guess not. Then why am I thinking about it now? Why am I considering not uploading it?
To be perfectly fair, it’s nothing out of the ordinary. It’s not a video that will change anyone’s life. It’s just me struggling to open the bottle and hoping it doesn’t detonate all over my bare chest and face. So if it didn’t get uploaded to the inter webs it wouldn’t have created the type of butterfly effect that completely and radically shifts the universal direction of daily events. That’s not the point though. The point is: in what way does it negatively impact…anyone? Does anyone give any fucks? And if they do, why?
An Article on rush.edu states that “In a 2018 report by the ASPS, more than 40 percent of plastic surgeons say looking better in selfies on Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook is an incentive for patients of all ages to seek both cosmetic surgery and nonsurgical enhancements like Botox and fillers.”
Selfies? Selfies. I mean, yeah sure, I open up my Instagram and all I see are glowing perfect faces. However, I know those faces. I know they don’t look like that and in many ways neither does mine. I work my angles. I have some nice cheekbones to work with. I know what I can do to make myself look a little more “selfie-ready”. It’s nothing new. My grandmother doesn’t look the same when she gets ready to go to Church on Sundays. It takes her much longer to be out of the house than it does when she needs to go grocery shopping. Of course when we know that more people will be looking at us, or at least we think they will, we want them to look at the best possible version of us. That makes sense. There’s nothing wrong with it.
So, is my worry that I’ll be judged negatively due to my pimply face something that’s perfectly reasonable or “problematic”?
Young(er) Sara and her skin.
When I was twenty three I had bad acne. Everywhere. Face, neck, back, chest. It was a fucking nightmare out of a Rob Zombie movie. I couldn’t leave the house without feeling like I was going to traumatize someone’s child.
This Sara spent a lot, and I mean whay more than she could afford on cosmetics, face cleans, dermatologists, medicines and even antibiotics. Even though nothing worked I kept trying. I tried and I believed in the bullshit they would sell me. And I covered. I hid behind foundation. The idea was that what was happening to my body was wrong. A mistake. A glitch in the system.
Then, one day, out of nowhere it just…left. I no longer had demons all over my skin but just a couple of pimples across my cheeks. “Not too bad”, I thought. Going from the italian version of the boogie monster to a couple of pimples and some redness seemed like quite the improvement.
Shortly after this hormonal shift I started living in hotter climates. I lived in Brasil, then southern Spain, then Guatemala. Being in places where the sun beams heat for most most of the year foundation simply isn’t a good idea. I could always tell when someone was wearing make-up because at around 12pm their faces slowly started melting into their necks and had them looking like a worn out Church candles.
Lack of money was also a factor in leaving the make-up behind. In no job have I ever made enough disposable income to justify spending large amounts on cosmetics. As my skin is incredibly sensitive I couldn’t buy just any face paint without having to endure some very itchy-scratchy consequences. If I don’t buy extremely expensive, natural, vegan products then my face will break out more times than Foo Fighter’s Dave Grolh shouts out those same words in the song by the same name. Even he had skin issues I guess…? So the only other options I had were: spend a tonne on “good” products or, like, just, don’t…like, just…don’t wear it because it’s not something you need…like, at all.
So just like that, one day to another, from pasting my face with brown powders and creams to just a bare face. Now, wearing foundation makes me feel like an impostor. It doesn’t feel right. I don’t even wear it on dates. It’s weird.
I guess this is point of today’s entry though. If I feel secure in myself and in this particular case my skin, then why do I feel weird about this particular video? This video that shows my skin in it’s imperfect greatness, something that doesn’t bother me in the real world, is making me doubt all the journey traveled to feel more confident.
I came across a video of Stephanie Lange who tries to be as kind and polite as she can whilst calling out “instagrammers” who very shamelessly over-edit their photos to make it seems as thought they’re these michealangelo painted goddesses who defy the very laws of nature. She’s trying to be understanding. At the end of the day in many ways they are “victims” too. But, they get paid, and they get paid A LOT to make me, and many others, feel like a lonely, saggy, hairy, ballsacks. So excuse me if I feel zero empathy here.
I knew I was doing this but it took a little while to notice that even as an adult I was comparing myself to images of women who don’t exist in real life. This video “exposes” something we’re all fully aware of. We know that photo shop has become easily accessible to anyone. We know that people that make a living out of their image are aware of what they need to do to always look impossibly gorgeous. We know that these standards are impossible to come across in real life. We know all these things yet we still aspire to reach a definition of beauty that doesn’t exists. I mean, not really. Sure, there are people in this world that are more precious than diamonds but just like diamonds they’re rare. They’re a minority. Most of us, and that is A LOT of us, like, most of the people that inhabit the planet, don’t look like that.
Marketing is a multi-billion dollar industry based on making you feel like shit so that you buy shit you don’t need. People literally profit out of making you feel insecure. As someone who was always glued to a TV screen it made sense that I’d grown up with a distorted idea of what “normal” looked like.
As someone who recently started using social media as a means to popularize my blog I noticed that the more I used Instagram the worse I felt about myself. Mainly because I go and look at other girls profiles knowing perfectly well that they are girls the kinds of guys I go for desire. Which is my responsibility entirely. I can definitely choose the content I consume and I purposefully go and look at the very thing I know will make me feel like shit…will make me feel like shit by comparison.
What I hate is being conditioned to think that this is what I should want to look like. It’s not something I aspire to become out of my own volition. It’s an idea that was implanted in me since childhood and is continuously being promoted, shifted and molded by other people who profit out of my consequential lack of self confidence.
Acne isn’t here to bully me. It’s not something wrong. It’s a completely normal state for skin to be in. It’s the result of a number of things. Out of whack hormones, bad diet, stress, change in climates, genetics and much more. It’s your body’s way of saying: “hey, so we got a situation going on in here. We’re trying to figure this out. Give us a sec and if you can maybe give us a hand by sleeping a bit more, eating less junk and taking better care of yourself. Actually, while your at it, put down your fucking phone and go hug a tree or something.”
I guess, to answer my question, it’s reasonable to be worried. As a 28 year old single woman my Instagram is in many ways my business card in the dating realm. Not only that but if I want to make it as a writer in this day and age a “good look” is definitely a boost in the right direction. It makes sense that I’d feel insecure about showing imperfection at a time where perfection is the expectation. It’s also true that perfection, at least the Instagram definition of the word, is not something I even remotely aspire to. So if a potential mate uses Instagram parameters to judge whether he’s interested or not well that’s already a sign that it’s not going to be a successful partnership. The same goes for my potential readers. If the author needs to look like she’s beaming light out of her pores then I’m probably not writing the kind of content those people want to consume.
I wouldn’t say it’s problematic because there are people out there promoting different kinds of beauty standards. That’s the wonderful thing about the internet and it’s huge networking capacity.
In many ways with this post I want to promote my very own standard of beauty. One that’s about acceptance of what’s natural. I’m doing this through the very platform that shows me the images of unattainable symmetry and shine.
So I guess I feel a little better about my skin and also about showing it to the world. I’ll be taking pictures of my red dots in just a while and I’m actually kind of excited. The one right above to be more precise. Isn’t she a beaut!
Until next week,
Sara.
