Hello, my name is Lee Ann and I’m a skin care addict.
Admitting you have a problem is always the first step. Let me walk you through my journey.
As a teen, I was totally clueless about skin care. I struggled with flesh-colored bumps all over my forehead and was beyond frustrated. I tried everything under the sun to get rid of them: I used an ‘acne-fighting’ bar soap to wash my face. I tried drinking milk, believing that a lack of calcium was causing the acne.
The real problem? I only washed my face once a day and never exfoliated. I was jealous of the girls in school with enviably clear skin and would ask them what they did to keep their skin looking flawless. They seemed to be clueless about skin care as well as they were doing the exact same things to their skin that I was! Their clear complexions must have been attributed to genetics.
When I was 20 years old, I was chatting with a beauty consultant about skin care. What translated to me as a scare tactic were really just simple facts. She informed me, “crow ’s feet and wrinkles begin to form at the age of 20.”
What?! I couldn’t believe my ears.Surely I didn’t have to worry about anti-aging until I was 40, right? Wrong. From that point forward, I began taking my skin a little more seriously. I had to start a preventive regimen...now. However, I was still washing my face only once a day (at night), believing that a morning wash was superfluous. However, I swapped bar soaps for gel or foam based face cleansers, and I even incorporated an eye cream into my regimen (thinking I was a big shot).
However, in spite of my sincere efforts, I was in denial of the importance of daily sunscreen, so I still had quite a long way to go. I read in beauty magazines that it is crucial to wear a moisturizer with SPF, but I wasn’t fully convinced for some reason. I assumed that sunscreen was only necessary for sunbathing; I didn’t realize it was the very best way to prevent premature wrinkling and hyperpigmentation.
In my early to mid-20’s I spoke to co-workers twice or triple my age who would boast of friends who treated themselves to facials regularly. I was under the strong notion that facials were a luxury for wealthy people. Conversations like those sparked my interest in learning more about skin care and I became more and more intrigued with how to acquire beautiful skin. For a long time I believed that the secret to youthful-looking skin was contingent on an expensive cream that only the affluent could have access to (unless of course someone with a limited income such as myself remorsefully charged it on a credit card).
When I was 26, a girlfriend of mine and I splurged on a spa day and got the whole nine: massage, facial, and mani/pedi’s. That was my very first facial and I was so thrilled to finally experience one. Instead of relaxing during the facial, I asked the esthetician 101 questions about how she became an esthetician, what skin care school was like, and which school she graduated from. Four months later, I enrolled in the same skin care school as a full time student. Six months after graduating, I became a licensed esthetician.
As you can imagine, I learned a heck of a lot about skin care that year and I mastered the art of performing a facial so that I could have done it in my sleep. Now people were approaching me and asking for skin care and beauty advice. I finally found my passion. Moreover, working at Mario Badescu Skin Care as a skin care consultant and copywriter reinforces my passion every day; I get a tremendous amount of satisfaction knowing that I’m helping people achieve the beautiful skin they’ve always wanted.
Every skin care expert was once a novice and I’m not ashamed to admit that. It’s unfathomable to think that only a few years ago I actually boycotted sunscreen! I never realized the magnitude of the ramifications of poor skin care. What can I say; I’ve come a long way. You live and learn. Now that I know better, I tell as many people as I can how imperative it is to wear sunscreen all year round, sunshine or rain, summer or winter. With or without my esthetician lab coat, I aim to ‘save’ the world one face at a time.
