A love letter to your skin

A year ago, Ellie shared her conflicting relationship with her "mixed" skin in her article " A love letter to my skin ". A subject that touched us all internally and generated many reactions from our community on Instagram. Because as Ellie so rightly described it the skin is the first thing we see of ourselves in the mirror when we wake up, without makeup, without filter, without safety net. This skin defines us, defines our mood of the day, or can even scratch our self-confidence when it is not perfect. As part of our "skin that pulls" event, I wanted to tell you my skin story.

Because I myself have been at war with my skin for a long time, a war that started at the age of one and a half months when my mom stopped breastfeeding me. Here, not the shadow of a pimple, but the face, the neck, the ears, the folds of the arms and the knees, covered with eczema. An eczema called atopic, a chronic inflammatory disease, characterized by an extreme skin dryness associated with severe lesions : red patches, raw skin, which oozes, which scratches. A nice poisoned gift, half-hereditary, half-unexplained, which was going to define my childhood (photo albums still remember it), my adolescence (turtleneck in winter, long sleeves even in summer), and my first steps in my life as a woman (intimate life, the only place where you can't hide under layers of Dermablend anymore).

The advantage of this poisoned gift is that my mother made me discover very early the definition of the word "holistic" by seeking by all means the miracle recipe which would cure me of this skin disease (which by my cries, haunted her nights). I tried almost everything : the thermal cure at the age of 1 year (with beneficial but ephemeral effects), homeopathy via the taking of granules, auriculotherapy (an auricular acupuncture technique), consultations with a recognized magnetizer who placed her energy-laden hands on my belly... and of course, the ritual of the cream, my favorite, the greasiest and richest one possible, that I religiously applied morning and evening on my face and my whole body. Improvements, lulls, but but the naturalness always came back at a gallop, with violent outbreaks in case of stress, or during my period. My skin hurt, I wanted to live under a bell to cut myself off from outside aggressions, to spend my life in a bathtub of soothing cream. So I had to use the hard way, dermatologist, prescription, cortisone, antihistamines and anxiolytics to "relax and stop scratching", and even a session at the shrink's to be sure that it was not "psychosomatic". An explosive cocktail, which did not cure anything, but allowed me to "live better with it", while hanging on to the doctors' prognosis, "You'll see, with time it will subside, maybe when you get pregnant?

Since motherhood was not on the immediate agenda, I continued my quest for "wellness". I consulted different therapists in Paris, I started yoga (better than medication to relax) and I gradually traded in my cortisone tubes and parapharmacy balms for more respectful skin care products with real I've gradually traded in my cortisone tubes and balms from the drugstore for skin care products that are more respectful of my skin, with real active ingredients to moisturize, nourish and soothe it (which is how I discovered Oh My Cream long before I started working there). But most of all, I learned to listen to her, by being patient. I understood that it was better when I was less stressed, ate well, drank little, slept a lot (not really compatible with my party life ahah) and that I avoided hostile environments (dog hair, grass, big green spaces!). I understood that I would always have rashesI understood that I would always have redness, unexplained reactions, and chronically dry, tight skin. But that I could make it feel betterBut that I could make it feel better by taking care of myself with daily, well-oiled rituals, by combining the useful with the pleasant. Ironically, I am often complimented today on my skin... as if nothing is ever written in advance...! ;)