Show me your pimples

« There is no beauty without truth and reality » Peter Lindbergh

Hide (it). Touch (it). Break (it). Take (it) off. There are the first gestures that come to my mind as soon as a pimple show up. My acne came, like for a lot of us, around adolescence. As a sign of me going through puberty, it was noticed and analized by my whole family including me. “You’re growing up!”, “It’s time”, “Ah! We’ll go to the dermatologist” said my entourage. I remember that pride feeling that quickly turned into shame.

At school there was “those who where lucky”, those without disgraceful stain of their faces and “the others”, in another word: me. In high school it’s more complicated. Those who had pimples before were free, but I wasn’t. Of course I went to the dermatologist. Creams on creams, pimples where still winning the war. A treatment was following another: failure.

I had pimples until the last year. I’m almost 21 years old. Scars are still here, and sometimes, pimples come back. I’ve started to take them off one by one. A few comments, my will to be like everyone else and my desire to be attractive lead me to camouflaging products: BB creams, concealers. As a man I had to face comments, looks…

Whatever you do, comments will be there. I finally decided to let my skin free. Assume them, without masking them. It’s not some breaking news, your skin needs to breathe. Put products to clog my skin, what for? I simply decided to clean my skin and apply an orange blossom water. Stress, worry to have more pimples, I’ve banished it. It will be a lie to tell that I never think about it. But try. You are beautiful.

Alexander Peters
- @alexanderptrs

Illustration: @naomiikado
www.naomikado.fr