How I got clear skin in one week!

Sounds too good to be true, right? You’ve seen all these hacks on getting clear skin overnight and nothing seems to work! Trust me, I’ve been there! My acne used to be so bad that I’d always wear makeup, even when I wasn’t leaving the house. I didn’t want anyone to see my skin, it really does get you down.

Before my family and I went to Spain, I was experiencing a particularly bad breakout but I told my mum that I’d leave my makeup at home so we had more space for essentials. I was regretting it on the morning of our flight because I had such bad skin!

By the end of the the week however, my skin was clear and I’ve kept it up while being back. So I’m going to break it down step-by-step on everything I did differently that has contributed to my skin right now.

A lot of sun exposure.

Now, I know that the Sun isn’t great for your skin in regards of ageing and skin cancer but the moisturiser I used every day has SPF and I applied sun cream over that. The sun cream I used was P20 which had an SPF of 30 (strange, I know!). P20 has a very thin consistency so it didn’t clog my pores and cause a breakout.

Sun, despite its negatives, has also been known to reduce the appearance of scars which I think contributed greatly to my clearer skin as scarring made my breakouts look a lot worse and therefore knocked my confidence.

Stripping back my skincare routine.

Now, I do have an in-depth skincare routine on my blog that you can read here. This routine kept majority of my breakouts at bay but whilst on holiday, my laziness led to me not wanting to carry out the same long routine at night- especially when we were getting in so late!

So, at night, I used my Biore cleanser, Pixi glow tonic and Simple Kind to Skin hydrating light moisturiser. These are all drugstore products and work so well. The Biore cleanser is great at night as it really cleans out your pores. The Pixi glow tonic is to make sure nothing is left on my skin and to make my skin, of course, glow. The Simple moisturiser is light yet hydrating as the name suggests and this works with my oily skin.

In the mornings I used Lush Let the good times roll cleanser which is very gentle and smells absolutely gorgeous and I then used the Superdrug Vitamin E day cream. This has SPF 15 in it. Since coming back to England, I’ve been using the Ordinary Salicylic acid serum in the morning and this stops any breakouts that may arise in the day.

No makeup.

This is probably an obvious one but no makeup most likely benefitted my skin. I had been having more no-makeup days before we went but never for a consistent amount of time, so a week of no makeup allowed my skin to breathe. Despite it also helping my skin, it was also nice not to have to put that effort in, and to save time.

It would have also been impractical to wear makeup, especially since most time was spent in the pool or in the sea. It was also so warm that my oily skin would have melted it off straight away.

Keeping hydrated.

We had all inclusive on holiday so drinks were readily available. I didn’t drink too much water but I did drink quite a lot so I always hydrated. I know a lot of threads say you have to drink lots of water to get clear skin but I think as long as you consume enough liquid during the day then you should be fine. I was drinking a lot of Diet Pepsi and my skin got better, I wouldn’t be writing this post if it didn’t!

Swimming in the sea.

You may think this is a strange one, but when I thought about it, it made sense. The sea is saltwater and saltwater is known to dry out acne. I was swimming quite a lot and obviously I was gonna saltwater on my face and those days, my skin was visibly clearer later that night. This combined with the Sun made the world of difference; the salt water splashed on my face then the Sun evaporated it off!

Washing my face often.

After getting back from the beach or pool mid day then I’d make sure I at least rinsed my face to ensure all the sweat was washed off. After doing this. I made sure I applied after sun until we were about to go back out and then I’d apply the SPF again. Not only did this help my skin, but it was also very refreshing, especially in the hot weather, it was good to just splash some cold water on my face. Because of this, I was washing my face 3/4 times a day rather than 2 and because I was only doing it with water, my skin wasn’t being stripped of natural oils.

My skin has never looked better and I’m so much more confident because of it! What’s your clear skin hacks! Let me know in the comments below!