#blemishes

The major insecurities are always physical. It’s your stomach, your feet, your legs, your nose, your cheeks. There’s always something about yourself you don’t like, and that starts flashing red the instant you get ambushed by a mirror. It’s all you can see, and it doesn’t matter how good the rest looks, it’s the coherent portrait in the middle of a Pollock painting. It’s a banana viscously inserted into a beautiful Turner storm.

Of course there are mental facets that you’re not a fan of, but they’re the ones that you con yourself into thinking you can hide from public consumption, bury under general effusiveness, bad jokes and a winning smile. You can’t get rid of this nose, even if you did want to just spite the face, because frankly a noseless face wouldn’t exactly be preferable. Doesn’t mean you haven’t thought about it. 

But you’re being ridiculous. No, really, you are. 

Everyone has insecurities, because that’s the way society works. It tears down the things you think make you strong, and leaves you exposed with your weaknesses, to be laughed at. The worst part is that you help them; you pull apart your strengths just as much as they do, and then feel all the more worried about the things that someone once said something about that was maybe not the most flattering.

Fuck ‘em.

You’re beautiful. You’ve obsessed over that one tiny blemish for so long you’ve lost sight of things. You don’t realise that it's because of that tiny blemish that your face works, or your body looks as lovely as it does. You don’t realise that your habit of making stupid jokes at the wrong times is the reason that someone is going to love you some day. Just let go of it all. Take a moment, think about it for a second, and then let go.

The greatest thing D/s has ever done is put you on a fast track to self acceptance. I can tear you down for things that you aren’t, while emphasising the beauty that you are. I call you a slut and then kiss that nose, I turn your arse a lurid shade of red and then dress you up to show of your stomach, and call you the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen because of it. I obsess over you in the way you obsess over your flaws, and frankly my dear, my obsession is just a little more powerful than yours.

And as for my insecurities? You blow them all away the instant you call me a beautiful name and do exactly what I say. Because why on earth would a creature as beautiful as you ever do something I say, unless I’m worthy of it? 

You make me worthy. And I make you beautiful. It’s all rather lovely.

Juice Beauty Blemish Clearing Serum

Is anyone else breaking out like crazy right now? No? Just me? Oh, okay. Well, for the select few of you who are on the express train to pimpleville with me, I have a cool new product that may be of some interest. This is the Juice Beauty Blemish Clearing Serum ($38CAD/$30USD) and it’s something different from just your ordinary pimple spot treatments.

Before we get on with the review, can we just talk about the word “pimple”? I feel like it’s such an underused word because it has such negative connotations in the beauty community. Wow, Taylor, you really analyzed that word. But seriously. Everyone either says blemish or acne or spot or breakout. I don’t hear anyone saying ˆpimple anymore and for some reason, that bothers me a lot. Everyone gets pimples and whether that number be ten or twenty or just one, they’re just a fact of life and not something to be embarrassed about. Heck, I have a good nine pimples on my face right now with another three below the surface threatening to pop out any second and I honestly don’t care. Wow, we’ve come a long way in my self esteem since my teenager days. Good on ya, Tay. 

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.  

So, I don’t know about you but I didn’t know a whole lot about Juice Beauty before I sat down to write this post. I’ve definitely heard the name before as it’s a brand carried at Sephora but that was about the extent of it. Juice Beauty is all about creating organic and natural formulations that perform as well as conventional beauty products yet never compromise on that luxurious experience! It’s a Farm To Beauty kind of company focusing on being organic with no parabens, sulfates, petroleum, silicones, pesticides or artificial dyes and fragrances. That’s only half of it. The list goes on. 

So this Blemish Clearing Serum is designed to reduce breakouts, unclog pores and even your skintone. It contains willow bark, salicylic acid and organic fruit acids that work together to kill those pesky pimples. But that’s not all! This serum also contains Vitamin C to fade those acne marks while organic aloe renews the skin and makes it glowy and hydrated!

So what separates this product from your typical spot treatment? Well, it’s a serum so you can cover the entire affected area instead of just concentrating on the individual pimples so this is a great product for someone experiencing a cluster of breakouts in one spot or all over their face (AKA ME). Another reason that I love this serum is because I can mix in a few drops of the serum into my foundation. I have been a huge fan of the Clinique Acne Solutions foundation and the Almay Clear Complexion foundation (essentially just foundations containing salicylic acid) in the past so this serum allows me to turn any of my foundations into a blemish fighting makeup! Handy, right? It also gives my foundation a slightly matte but hydrated look which I dig!

But before this review is over, we must discuss if this serum actually helped the state of my skin. If I’m being honest, I would have to say no. But hear me out. I have been battling with acne since I was 13. That’s ten years of breakouts. So A little serum like this isn’t going to cure my skin overnight. It’s a long, hard fight. Plus it only has 0.75% salicylic acid in it so that low of a concentration is really not what my skin needs. But, by mixing it in with my foundation so it sits on my skin during the day, it does help to keep my pimples under control. So for that I am thankful and that makes this serum a winner in my books!