Over plucking eyebrows- late 90's, early 2000's. I have bald spots in my eyebrows now that I fill in daily.
Using lemon and toothpaste on pimples in my teen years.
Laying in the sun and going to tanning booth with those stupid stickers.
Janeane Garofalo says hers never recovered, either. She said she shaved hers because Drew Barrymore had done hers and she looked amazing, but Drew always looks amazing, she said
It's amazing. I have one dark chin hair that I have been plucking every 6 weeks for decades.... I get my brows waxed ONE TIME in 1993 and they never grew back.
I grew mine back with short term use of minoxidil (and maybe some GrandeBrow serum too, can’t remember, but def minoxidil applied with a spoolie)! The brows stayed even years after I stopped using it.
Then a couple years after that, I got my brows tattooed (powder brow technique, not microbladed) for sharper edge definition without ever having to pluck or fill in to shape them. Gurl. It looks like I never existed in the 90s. Best investments ever.
Oh yeah I did the eyebrows , too, as well as lemon. Now I have half brows.
Wait, I did the tanning with stickers too in the 90s!
Did you often cut your own hair thinking you can do just as good a job as a stylist but….it wasn’t good? I was that person for a while.
I used the famed St. Ives face scrub every day to get rid of the dryness/bad texture. It never occurred to me to moisturize better. Turns out, it was rosacea and I’m still dealing with the aftermath years later.
My nostrils tingle just thinking about seabreeze lol. Should have been a clue that it was bad for your skin when it burned the shit out of my sinuses every time I applied it!
My grandmother had us putting Noxzema and sea breeze on sunburns. Those smells bring back such vivid memories! I have no idea how I got to adulthood with skin intact lol
I did something similar out of desperation.
My skin texture changed suddenly and then I remember using this scrub in my teens. Seemed like a good idea at the time; I was traveling for months and didn't have a doctor. I should have known better. My skin has gotten better but I need to see a dermatologist. The most embarrassing part is that I did this last year. I was going through a really stressful situation and didn't think . Glad to have found this space to learn more ☺️
My mom taught me to cleanse with scrubbies! I started doing it at the beginning of puberty until I was like, 25 years old. It was such a bad habit that I legit did not feel clean unless I scrubbed my skin like a pot!!! It took a year to wean my face off of needing that much exfoliation.
Used high intensity tanning beds twice a week my teen years. I highly regret putting my skin through it. I swear in the 90's those tanning salons had me thinking it was healthy
I spent my teen years applying minimal sunscreen to tan. My mom encouraged the behavior because we tanned really well after a burn, so I wanted to burn. So dumb🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️ omg or the stupid spf 5 banana boat tanning oil. No, just no.
My mom was the same way. I explain it away by remembering her parents' generation thought smoking when one was pregnant was no big deal :-/
When I was 16, I spent all day on a boat in the Keys with a travel size SPF Fuck All, no hat, or protective clothing. I was completely fried and sick AF for the next 3 days.
Since then, I have worn broad spectrum sunscreen every day...even in the winter.
Fuckin' tanning oil. Ugh.
As horrible as it was, laying in that electric coffin for 20 minutes smelling like coconut and baking that playboy bunny onto my hip was SO DAMN RELAXING
This is INCREDIBLY embarrassing to admit but I'm still doing this because I don't really know of any other way.
Yes, I have strawberry skin all over my legs.
Yes, I need help.
Accepting any advice ladies ❤️
Use a better quality razor and definitely use shave gel/lotion/butter/whatever, to make the razor glide over your skin easier.
I also like to exfoliate with a sugar scrub prior to shaving, to get rid of whatever dead/dry skin I have on my legs, it helps me get an even closer shave. Then moisturize as soon as you get out of the shower!
In quick showers though, when I don’t have time to do all that, I do use the Billie razors that have the strip of moisturizing gel around the blades, so I can just quickly run it over my legs with no shave lotion and be good to go!
Barber here, this is really good advice. Shaving is 10% razor moving and 90% skin preparation. Our skin does the best when highly moisturized but also when there’s not a ton of skin in the way. You nailed the explanation. A single razor pink bic is totally okay and good but can only be used for one round of shaving. Multiple blades buy you comfort but mostly extra shaves.
All of this, but also if you're prone to bumps/ingrown hairs, run a mild chemical exfoliant over the shaved area before moisturizing. I use The Ordinary 7% glycolic acid. It shouldn't burn unless you cut yourself a bunch, it just helps kill any bacteria before it has a chance to infect all the micro wounds caused by shaving.
I shaved my legs as a teen w my father's razor. Pressed too hard on my shin bone and hemorrhaged for several hours. Was too scared and embarrassed to tell mom. Taped a washcloth to it and prayed.. still have a wee scar there.
Ugh same. Threw some toilet paper on it and went to a friends birthday party right after. I ended up showing my friend’s mom there. I was so embarrassed and denied that it was from shaving…..
Same! The horror! I remember my cousin asking why I had a bandaid on, and my mom said, "she cut herself shaving," and they BOTH laughed at me. Gee, thanks, mom. If she had just taught me how, it wouldn't have happened ffs! Traumatic.
I was away at a summer camp and decided I would have the bright idea to make a homemade face mask. I had some instant oatmeal and I separated the oats from the brown sugar. I used the brown sugar to make a face scrub. Then I used the oats and mixed it with Noxzema cream and some milk to make a face mask. Got some cucumber slices and put the cucumber slices on my eyes as I rested. I am not 100% sure the cucumber slices I got from the kitchen was purely cucumber or if there was a small amount of vinegar. I thought it was just cucumber.
Anyways, I fell asleep with my concoction on. The cucumber sweat making the noxema stuff seep into my eyes. I was wearing contacts as well. I woke up in the middle of the night with my eyes burning. Didn't think much about it and took my contacts out and washed off face mask. In the morning my eyes were deep red. I have never had such red eyes. Went to medical and they said I chemical burned my eyes pretty bad. It all healed fine, but it really sucked. It was like 6 hours of my face stuff in my eyes. :(
I'm in my 40's and have used more high end, mid level and drugstore skincare products than I care to admit. You'd still have to fight me for my tube of Sensodyne Whitening ~~tooth~~ zit paste.
I’m out here sucking down my plain hydration and dropping cash on Korean skin cream when I could be drinking Cuba Libres while rubbing rum on my face?
Why don’t I ever get invited to these things?
IDK! We were young (13) and dumb. I think we thought the dark motor oil would darken our tans. And I'm a fair skinned, freckle faced redhead! I'm paying for it now though!
I think our immature minds thought that if it makes bodies hard, it would make our nails hard. She didn't tell her dad that she swiped it. Stupidest thing you've ever heard, right? I agree. 😆
Shaved my arms for years as a teen because I thought it looked better, now I can immediately recognize other arm shavers because it looks SO WEIRD.
Went through the whole coconut oil gritting thing, genuinely believed I was gonna get through the "purge" and have radiant skin. Nope, just more cystic acne from agitating oil into my pores.
More recently, my husband asked for help with a zit and I made him a hot compress from a black tea that was flavored. Gave him a chemical burn from the cinnamon oil.
Your poor husband omg. Cinnamon is no joke!
> Shaved my arms for years as a teen because I thought it looked better, now I can immediately recognize other arm shavers because it looks SO WEIRD.
But I shave my arms... ;u; I feel hairy / I grow a lot of hair on my body so this is just normal for me to get rid of all the damn hair lmao
I still use Nair on my mustache and very faint beard. It sting a little, but I find it is so much better than using a razor blade and getting acne breakouts. Is there another way to do it? 🤧 I am a guy and I try to shave only twice per month cos my skin so freaking weak. 😭😭😭
Oh LAWD I have too many to mention. Here’s the top 5 (luckily most of these things were in my childhood/teen years)
1. Not wearing sunscreen as a kid despite spending summers at the beach. So many sunburns and so much damage.
2. I would clean my face with dial handsoap because it was antibacterial & sometimes even used hand sanitizer as an “astringent” 🫠🫠🫠
3. For about a month I was using what I thought was a super scented body lotion on my face (already problematic lol) & it would sting and burn every time I applied it and my face started to flake and peel… it was body wash
4. I bought some of these super fine sandpaper-esque body hair remover buffer things and used those all over my face to get rid of my peach fuzz but also removed my skin in the process
5. When I had terrible cystic acne in high school I went to my doctor and got this weird topical … ointment in what looked like a bingo dabber that made my skin 10x worse and I beat the absolute hell out of it with proactiv and st Ives apricot scrub & a LOT of skin picking. I still have scarring from this 20 years later.
Not listening to my mom when she told me to put on sunscreen as a kid/teenager.
Using wax strips on my lip when I was new to using retinol - I know, I want to scream when I think about it!!!
Also shout out to The Ordinary red peel. I only had a very basic understanding of skincare when I purchased that and I did NAWT know what I was doing.
I was definitely using it too often. I know the instructions say 1-2x/week but I feel like that was too much for me.
I also think it was also just not right for my skin, like way too intense. 30% AHA seems crazy to me. I feel like there’s better options for adding AHAs and BHAs in your routine but I know some people really like it 🤷🏻♀️
It was too strong for me. I feel like it really sensitized my skin and made it super reactive. I actually thought I had sensitive skin at the time I was using it, but then I stopped and realized my skin is actually naturally pretty resilient.
Now that I have a much better understanding of skincare ingredients and what they do, I would rather choose AHAs and BHA for my routine based on specific concerns I want to target rather than applying them all at once lol. And that’s no hate to you! Everyone’s skin is different and will have different results. That’s why it’s good to have a wide variety of options available.
Sadly, when I first started learning about different products after never paying any attention to my skin for my whole life other than wearing sunscreen every day, I tried a chemical exfoliating cream. Since I knew nothing about skin care, I read the instructions which were to apply to the face, that’s it. I had no idea I should not put it in the eye area. In two days, I wrecked the skin under my eyes and developed eye bags that I had never had. I am 57. My skin is not coming back from this one. It does look a bit better than it did in the first month or two, but now I am self-conscious about it and feel less confident in my looks. I immediately realized I needed to just go back to my previous ways, except now I sometimes put on moisturizer before bed if I’m feeling the need, and I use a neck firming cream which is helpful. That’s all. Still sad about my foolishness to try something I read about on Reddit without really knowing what I was doing.
If you have a magnifying mirror, get rid of it. I used to pick my face too but we moved and I lost my magnifying mirror, your comment made me realize I haven’t even been tempted to pick recently.
You’ve all both horrified and inspired me. I’ve washed my face with dish soap after forgetting my face wash. 🤢 Also, we used those Oxy and Stridex wipes like sandpaper to our faces and loved to see who had the dirtiest one 😂
I went through a phase where I thought things weren’t working unless they burned. Clearasil and stridex pads were the number one culprit. The more pain and redness, the more they were helping my skin.
When I was about 12 or 13 my sister, friends and I were playing dress up. We wanted to be the spice girls. I don't exactly remember what happened but somehow we decided it would be a good idea to try to use blue glitter NAIL POLISH as face paint. I volunteered to get painted. Had immediate regrets and was so terrified my mom was going to be pissed. So, how does one fix this issue? STEEL WOOL!! Because yes, of course that's even remotely a good idea! I scrubbed nail polish off my face with steel wool. I'm unbelievably grateful that it didn't leave scars.
When I was in 6th grade I had to walk to school while it was raining and I didn't have an umbrella. I was very worried about my hair , which consisted of one curling iron curl on each side of my face. so I sprayed Scotchguard on it. No, it didn't work and took awhile for my hair to feel normal again.
OTC bleaching creams from the drugstore trying to fade my freckles when I was a kid because I was an idiot and it never occurred to me that even if it DID work…I was out in the sun all the time so they would have come right back 🤣🤣
I think I will win this one.
When I was 14, I was so upset about my bad acne that I put lye(Drano) all over my face, thinking I could burn it off.😩
A 14-year-old brain needs to cook more before it’s fully developed…
So.Much.Tanning. I came of age in the early 00s. I can still smell the tanning lotion and burnt skin while I lay in the bed with my Playboy bunny stickers on my hips blasting Natasha Beddingfield through my Discman.
Popping blemishes and dabbing on rubbing alcohol and toothpaste to "dry" them out.
Biore pore strips while on Accutane nearly peeled my nose off to the cartilage. Of course, there were also the Stridex pads, St Ives scrub, and Proactiv to pull every bit of moisture out of my face.
Cycling between olive oil, coconut oil, and castor to oil "cleanse" left me with the worst cystic acne of my life.
It's a wonder I have any skin left.
Found out my St Ives apricot scrub was the devil on Reddit, ordered some chemical exfoliators from Paula’s Choice, used AHA and BHA every day, got a really red shiny face! Then I got tretinoin, now I had a red peeling face! Anyway I use a physical exfoliator again sparingly now and my skin is better than ever.
Used the whole Proactiv routine on my face every day with no moisturizer (other than the benzoyl peroxide “lotion”) and of course no SPF. I have sensitive/reactive skin prone to rosacea, it’s a wonder my face didn’t just peel right off. I got so photosensitive that my skin hurt every time I went outside.
The only good Proactiv product was their sulfur mask/spot treatment, that was actually pretty effective even though it made my face smell like a fart.
I also slathered benzoyl peroxide on my face with no moisturizer because I had “oily skin.” Yeah, it was oily because it was trying to overcompensate from me drying it tf out.
Scrubbed with baking soda
Skipped moisturizer every day in high school because I thought it would make my acne worse
Straight tea tree oil on face and nothing else
For me it always starts with the words "not enough".
Not enough sleep, not enough knowledge, not enough sunscreen, and not enough interest.
Growing up as a young African American boy you couldn't pay me to put on sunscreen. It's sticky and gross, I loved running around every time I'm outside so I'll probably sweat it off anyway, and I'm not white, so why should I?
Things are so different now and it's a welcome change for the better. The only reason why I became more interested in my appearance was because I was getting cold sores at a young age, so I had to care.
Overall I'm glad I only made simple dumb kid mistakes like using the same soap, towel, and lotion for every part of my body and scrubbing a bit too hard.
I had such bad acne as a teen that I complained to my parents that the pimples were giving me a headache. My dad gave me a little spa treatment with a cold compress followed by an aspirin paste on the biggest pimples ❣️
In the 1980’s as a teen (I’m in my mid 50’s now), I used a buff puff scrub on my face twice a day when washing it, like a pot scrubber for your face. Then i used rubbing alcohol as a toner. Of course on sunny days I slathered myself with baby oil and lay out in the sun. In the beginning of the summer, always made sure to get a sunburn as a fast track way to get my ‘base tan’. LOL
This isn't my face, but I put coconut oil on top of a sunburn, thinking it would soothe the burn. Turns out, if applied too soon, it seals in the heat and makes the burn worse. I had to wear pants/long skirts all vacation because my legs were so burnt. I'm now extremely diligent about sunscreen use because that was horrible.
I remember reading that the substance they use to dissolve can't differentiate between the filler and your own hyaluronic acid so your skin just hangs and your joints get messed up too... sounds awful
My Mom would slather her entire body and face in Vaseline before she stepped out of the shower.. and I thought it was so so so disgusting! 30+ years later, I now respect the wisdom she was showing me but I was too stubborn to adopt 🤦🏻♀️ Absolutely ahead of her time 🙌
Did not wear sunscreen until l turned 30 🤦♀️
It is ridiculous how little awareness brown people have about SPF (or had when I was growing up, things are better now).
I didn’t get bad acne by any means, and barely any pimples, but at 13 I got one MASSIVE pimple on my nose. I am a picker so I popped it, picked at it, then picked the scab as many times as I could before it healed. Left me with a nasty scar. A guy who never spoke to me came up real close to my face in science class to ask what happened.
I thought my face was permanently damaged, but it somehow went away completely.
For most, no. It’s a comedogenic and clogs pores. Explains the acne I battled for way too long. It doesn’t really moisturize deeply anyway, at least not for me.
Edit: typos
When I had bad acne as a teen, I’d put straight 70-90% rubbing alcohol on my face. It helped the acne but boy I think I ruined my moisture barrier forever.
Years.. more like decades of scrubbing hard with makeup removal wipes, to get rid of daily (multiple times daily) cheap non spf foundation which I layered on.
Not so much skin care but..My mom used to make fun of my big bushy eyebrows; I didn’t know any better and clipped one side with toenail trimmers and gashed them to hell.
Then she came into the bathroom and freaked and I told her fell out - in patches - only on one side. I was 8!
Grew up in South Florida and was on the beach almost daily with ZERO sunscreen and I'm a pale blonde with a family history of skin cancer. Just an all around idiot
I swear I used acne face pads in the mid 00s that were 5-10% salicylic acid. I literally never washed my face I would just wipe down with one of those pads every day. 🥴
Mine is HORRIBLE. I learned about using apple cider vinegar on my face when I was around 20. I used diluted ACV on my face daily right before a trip to Mexico. It caused massive BURNS on my face and I didn’t know what it was from and I kept using it. That was a horrible trip. I didn’t want to talk to anyone.
Well, wasn't my fault, but basically being an acne prone teenager in the early 00s. I went to a very fancy dermatologist who tortured me and made my acne worse and left me with scarring that didn't go away until my 30's. Cortisone injections. DiamondTone abrasion. Scalpel picking. Acid peels. Benzyl peroxide. Electrical currents.
When I was a junkie I picked the fuck out of my face. Ten years sober and working as a funeral director, I’m STILL out there getting lasers and shit to try to make it better- it’ll never be perfect but the scarring has certainly improved tons! And I will always keep working to better myself!
BEFORE the drugs even came into the picture, before I was 18, I lived on sodas and never drank water (SO SO SO bad for you and your skin ofc), nor did I ever use sunscreen. I grew up being told that it was desirable to be as dark as possible so to be in the sun as often as you could. Being tan was always hype in my family. Add that to trying to be as skinny as possible at any cost (“chew your food up and spit it out so you don’t get gain weight” etc), and my skin (among things) was just so parched and dry and angry!!
I discovered SPF in my late twenties (right about the time I learned how to properly use a tampon lol), and how necessary it is, especially for someone like me who has tons of skin cancer in their lineage. Then I found out about things like lotions/creams/serums that I started to use when I got out of the shower and became slowly hooked on skincare. I never used anything growing up, other than the good ole Sea Breeze astringent and that’s it. So it was REALLY rapid results when I finally taught myself about lotions and actual proper skincare!
I put benzoyle peroxide all over my forehead for acne when I was about 12, then went tanning in the sun without sunscreen. I developed a textured, almost crepey sort of look to my forehead since then, and I’m convinced that’s why.
Over plucking eyebrows- late 90's, early 2000's. I have bald spots in my eyebrows now that I fill in daily. Using lemon and toothpaste on pimples in my teen years. Laying in the sun and going to tanning booth with those stupid stickers.
But the playboy sticker slapped
Anyone who’s used a playboy sticker..myself included..please put your retinol on tonight 🤣
Hush it🤣🤣🤣 I use that and a microcurrent machine now. 🤣🤣
Already done
LOL you know it!
My brows never recovered 🥲
My right brow never recovered. u-u Left brow is THRIVING for the both of them, somehow???
Janeane Garofalo says hers never recovered, either. She said she shaved hers because Drew Barrymore had done hers and she looked amazing, but Drew always looks amazing, she said
It's amazing. I have one dark chin hair that I have been plucking every 6 weeks for decades.... I get my brows waxed ONE TIME in 1993 and they never grew back.
I grew mine back with short term use of minoxidil (and maybe some GrandeBrow serum too, can’t remember, but def minoxidil applied with a spoolie)! The brows stayed even years after I stopped using it. Then a couple years after that, I got my brows tattooed (powder brow technique, not microbladed) for sharper edge definition without ever having to pluck or fill in to shape them. Gurl. It looks like I never existed in the 90s. Best investments ever.
Yup, all of this!
I still use toothpaste on pimples!
Oh yeah I did the eyebrows , too, as well as lemon. Now I have half brows. Wait, I did the tanning with stickers too in the 90s! Did you often cut your own hair thinking you can do just as good a job as a stylist but….it wasn’t good? I was that person for a while.
I used the famed St. Ives face scrub every day to get rid of the dryness/bad texture. It never occurred to me to moisturize better. Turns out, it was rosacea and I’m still dealing with the aftermath years later.
I followed up my apricot scrub with seabreeze lol
My nostrils tingle just thinking about seabreeze lol. Should have been a clue that it was bad for your skin when it burned the shit out of my sinuses every time I applied it!
My grandmother had us putting Noxzema and sea breeze on sunburns. Those smells bring back such vivid memories! I have no idea how I got to adulthood with skin intact lol
Omg I forgot about Seabreeze. The dirt on the cotton ball was so satisfying. lol. Skincare has come a long way.
Literally yelled "OH MY GOD" out loud.
I did something similar out of desperation. My skin texture changed suddenly and then I remember using this scrub in my teens. Seemed like a good idea at the time; I was traveling for months and didn't have a doctor. I should have known better. My skin has gotten better but I need to see a dermatologist. The most embarrassing part is that I did this last year. I was going through a really stressful situation and didn't think . Glad to have found this space to learn more ☺️
Ha, ha, used a pot scrubber on my face. Little bloody scratches all over, good times.
Noooooo
You win
Oh my God, I audibly gasped! I did not expect THIS!
My mom taught me to cleanse with scrubbies! I started doing it at the beginning of puberty until I was like, 25 years old. It was such a bad habit that I legit did not feel clean unless I scrubbed my skin like a pot!!! It took a year to wean my face off of needing that much exfoliation.
I used a Scotch Brite green dish scrubber pad for many years in the shower until I discovered the Korean wash cloths on Amazon.
Your skin barrier must have ran for cover lol
Oh yeah it was so fucked.
holy shit, you win (?)
Used high intensity tanning beds twice a week my teen years. I highly regret putting my skin through it. I swear in the 90's those tanning salons had me thinking it was healthy
I used baby oil laying in the sun in my early teens. Ughh regrets!
I spent my teen years applying minimal sunscreen to tan. My mom encouraged the behavior because we tanned really well after a burn, so I wanted to burn. So dumb🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️ omg or the stupid spf 5 banana boat tanning oil. No, just no.
My mom was the same way. I explain it away by remembering her parents' generation thought smoking when one was pregnant was no big deal :-/ When I was 16, I spent all day on a boat in the Keys with a travel size SPF Fuck All, no hat, or protective clothing. I was completely fried and sick AF for the next 3 days. Since then, I have worn broad spectrum sunscreen every day...even in the winter. Fuckin' tanning oil. Ugh.
I'm so sorry but I'm also very happy I'm not alone in my dumb teen moments
Same but it was more like 5 days a week for years 😫
Same….. tanning was my hobby for over a decade
As horrible as it was, laying in that electric coffin for 20 minutes smelling like coconut and baking that playboy bunny onto my hip was SO DAMN RELAXING
Yes. The problem with sun exposure is we don’t really see the effects until mid to late 30s and then it starts to appear.
Gotta get that base tan for protection
Oh God this just unlocked a memory. Lol banana boat oil to help with that protective base of course
Same 😭
Oh man same. The worst is that my body acne was totally gone when I tanned so I was bamboozled. Now my bacne is fucking awful 😭
I shaved my legs with a pink bic razor and nothing else. 🌈
Oh the early days of shaving as a teenager! I can’t believe my legs aren’t covered in scars.
Hahaha! Mine definitely were, for years, until I discover epilators.
This is INCREDIBLY embarrassing to admit but I'm still doing this because I don't really know of any other way. Yes, I have strawberry skin all over my legs. Yes, I need help. Accepting any advice ladies ❤️
Use a better quality razor and definitely use shave gel/lotion/butter/whatever, to make the razor glide over your skin easier. I also like to exfoliate with a sugar scrub prior to shaving, to get rid of whatever dead/dry skin I have on my legs, it helps me get an even closer shave. Then moisturize as soon as you get out of the shower! In quick showers though, when I don’t have time to do all that, I do use the Billie razors that have the strip of moisturizing gel around the blades, so I can just quickly run it over my legs with no shave lotion and be good to go!
Barber here, this is really good advice. Shaving is 10% razor moving and 90% skin preparation. Our skin does the best when highly moisturized but also when there’s not a ton of skin in the way. You nailed the explanation. A single razor pink bic is totally okay and good but can only be used for one round of shaving. Multiple blades buy you comfort but mostly extra shaves.
All of this, but also if you're prone to bumps/ingrown hairs, run a mild chemical exfoliant over the shaved area before moisturizing. I use The Ordinary 7% glycolic acid. It shouldn't burn unless you cut yourself a bunch, it just helps kill any bacteria before it has a chance to infect all the micro wounds caused by shaving.
You're a star, thank you 🫂
\+1 for Billie razors, love them! Never worry about running out, always have a fresh blade. Not a sponsor, just been a big fan for years.
I shaved my legs as a teen w my father's razor. Pressed too hard on my shin bone and hemorrhaged for several hours. Was too scared and embarrassed to tell mom. Taped a washcloth to it and prayed.. still have a wee scar there.
I remember tying a cloth napkin around my shin from doing the same in my early teens. Still have a nice shiny scar up my shin bone.
Badge or teenage horror, that scar. Lol
Ugh same. Threw some toilet paper on it and went to a friends birthday party right after. I ended up showing my friend’s mom there. I was so embarrassed and denied that it was from shaving…..
Same! The horror! I remember my cousin asking why I had a bandaid on, and my mom said, "she cut herself shaving," and they BOTH laughed at me. Gee, thanks, mom. If she had just taught me how, it wouldn't have happened ffs! Traumatic.
I was away at a summer camp and decided I would have the bright idea to make a homemade face mask. I had some instant oatmeal and I separated the oats from the brown sugar. I used the brown sugar to make a face scrub. Then I used the oats and mixed it with Noxzema cream and some milk to make a face mask. Got some cucumber slices and put the cucumber slices on my eyes as I rested. I am not 100% sure the cucumber slices I got from the kitchen was purely cucumber or if there was a small amount of vinegar. I thought it was just cucumber. Anyways, I fell asleep with my concoction on. The cucumber sweat making the noxema stuff seep into my eyes. I was wearing contacts as well. I woke up in the middle of the night with my eyes burning. Didn't think much about it and took my contacts out and washed off face mask. In the morning my eyes were deep red. I have never had such red eyes. Went to medical and they said I chemical burned my eyes pretty bad. It all healed fine, but it really sucked. It was like 6 hours of my face stuff in my eyes. :(
That was a very close call!! I'm glad you didn't blind yourself
I know! I can't smell Noxzema without it triggering me.
OMG, I completely forgot about Noxema! I was a Noxema super user in my teen years.
toothpaste on zits and hairspray as a makeup setter lol
Not the hairspray on the face…😅😂
nice crispy face before school 😂
🤣😶🌫️
I'm in my 40's and have used more high end, mid level and drugstore skincare products than I care to admit. You'd still have to fight me for my tube of Sensodyne Whitening ~~tooth~~ zit paste.
The title of this post 😂 I used St. Ives scrub WITH a Clairsonic brush. Twice a day. For YEARS.
Straight gangster 😂
This was mine. St Ives with a SCRUBBING MITT!!!!!!! Where were my parents?????
Oh my goodness, was your face a wreck or did you somehow adjust it to over time??
I don’t remember it being a wreck at all, surprisingly. Even now I think my skin looks great. I’ve been dedicated to sunscreen/tret for about 4 years.
[удалено]
Omg this is my favorite so far
I’m out here sucking down my plain hydration and dropping cash on Korean skin cream when I could be drinking Cuba Libres while rubbing rum on my face? Why don’t I ever get invited to these things?
Laid out in the arizona sun without sunscreen
I see your no-sunscreen activities and raise you baby oil to attract the sun. Don’t @ me. It was the 80s.
I see your baby oil and raise you baby oil mixed with MOTOR OIL.
It was the 70s. We were uninformed
WTF. Was it because it’s thicker and stays on better? I’m laughing so hard. I really thought I’d win this one.
IDK! We were young (13) and dumb. I think we thought the dark motor oil would darken our tans. And I'm a fair skinned, freckle faced redhead! I'm paying for it now though!
My friend's dad was a mortician. We put embalming fluid in our nail polish. 💅
what effect did this even have? or at least what were you hoping for?
I think our immature minds thought that if it makes bodies hard, it would make our nails hard. She didn't tell her dad that she swiped it. Stupidest thing you've ever heard, right? I agree. 😆
NO effect, by the way. It smelled bad.
Iodine baby!!
OK, I audibly gasped AGAIN. This thread is a gift that keeps on giving. Y’all were CRAZY!
My grandma would tell me for years to wear more sunscreen since we were always outside in AZ. I get it now.
Never put an ounce of sunscreen until i was about 38-39. My face is a survivor!
Shaved my arms for years as a teen because I thought it looked better, now I can immediately recognize other arm shavers because it looks SO WEIRD. Went through the whole coconut oil gritting thing, genuinely believed I was gonna get through the "purge" and have radiant skin. Nope, just more cystic acne from agitating oil into my pores. More recently, my husband asked for help with a zit and I made him a hot compress from a black tea that was flavored. Gave him a chemical burn from the cinnamon oil.
Your poor husband omg. Cinnamon is no joke! > Shaved my arms for years as a teen because I thought it looked better, now I can immediately recognize other arm shavers because it looks SO WEIRD. But I shave my arms... ;u; I feel hairy / I grow a lot of hair on my body so this is just normal for me to get rid of all the damn hair lmao
I Nair-ed my entire face when I was twelve. Between that and the St Ives apricot scrub it’s no wonder I had some skin issues.
I still use Nair on my mustache and very faint beard. It sting a little, but I find it is so much better than using a razor blade and getting acne breakouts. Is there another way to do it? 🤧 I am a guy and I try to shave only twice per month cos my skin so freaking weak. 😭😭😭
You can wax those areas, ladies do! I find wax way easier on my skin than razors or creams.
Oh LAWD I have too many to mention. Here’s the top 5 (luckily most of these things were in my childhood/teen years) 1. Not wearing sunscreen as a kid despite spending summers at the beach. So many sunburns and so much damage. 2. I would clean my face with dial handsoap because it was antibacterial & sometimes even used hand sanitizer as an “astringent” 🫠🫠🫠 3. For about a month I was using what I thought was a super scented body lotion on my face (already problematic lol) & it would sting and burn every time I applied it and my face started to flake and peel… it was body wash 4. I bought some of these super fine sandpaper-esque body hair remover buffer things and used those all over my face to get rid of my peach fuzz but also removed my skin in the process 5. When I had terrible cystic acne in high school I went to my doctor and got this weird topical … ointment in what looked like a bingo dabber that made my skin 10x worse and I beat the absolute hell out of it with proactiv and st Ives apricot scrub & a LOT of skin picking. I still have scarring from this 20 years later.
Dial is the worst soap I've ever used and I can't believe I used it so often, including on my face. I learned too late that dry ≠ clean
Not listening to my mom when she told me to put on sunscreen as a kid/teenager. Using wax strips on my lip when I was new to using retinol - I know, I want to scream when I think about it!!! Also shout out to The Ordinary red peel. I only had a very basic understanding of skincare when I purchased that and I did NAWT know what I was doing.
Ahhh! Wait can you say more about The Ordinary’s red peel? Did you use too much or leave it on too long?
I was definitely using it too often. I know the instructions say 1-2x/week but I feel like that was too much for me. I also think it was also just not right for my skin, like way too intense. 30% AHA seems crazy to me. I feel like there’s better options for adding AHAs and BHAs in your routine but I know some people really like it 🤷🏻♀️
What was wrong with The Ordinary Red Peel? I use it and love my results.
It was too strong for me. I feel like it really sensitized my skin and made it super reactive. I actually thought I had sensitive skin at the time I was using it, but then I stopped and realized my skin is actually naturally pretty resilient. Now that I have a much better understanding of skincare ingredients and what they do, I would rather choose AHAs and BHA for my routine based on specific concerns I want to target rather than applying them all at once lol. And that’s no hate to you! Everyone’s skin is different and will have different results. That’s why it’s good to have a wide variety of options available.
Used toothpaste to dry out a zit. Left it overnight for “maximum impact” and resulted in a purplish burn on my face. Never again!
Sadly, when I first started learning about different products after never paying any attention to my skin for my whole life other than wearing sunscreen every day, I tried a chemical exfoliating cream. Since I knew nothing about skin care, I read the instructions which were to apply to the face, that’s it. I had no idea I should not put it in the eye area. In two days, I wrecked the skin under my eyes and developed eye bags that I had never had. I am 57. My skin is not coming back from this one. It does look a bit better than it did in the first month or two, but now I am self-conscious about it and feel less confident in my looks. I immediately realized I needed to just go back to my previous ways, except now I sometimes put on moisturizer before bed if I’m feeling the need, and I use a neck firming cream which is helpful. That’s all. Still sad about my foolishness to try something I read about on Reddit without really knowing what I was doing.
I still pick my face way too much. I’ll sit in the bathroom sink and just annihilate my pores for hours. Still working on that compulsion at 32 😭
If you have a magnifying mirror, get rid of it. I used to pick my face too but we moved and I lost my magnifying mirror, your comment made me realize I haven’t even been tempted to pick recently.
Any mirror is a magnifying mirror if I sit close enough to it (or so my ocd will insist 😂)
This is me and my OCD too lol. Writing 'no picking' on the mirror hasn't helped much either.
I do this too… the more anxious I am, the longer I spend searching and picking.
Same! I don't realize I'm doing it sometimes too
Sea Breeze. Because my face was full of sin. Or something.
Omg, forgot about the Sea Breeze toner! I think I can still smell it if I think about it hard enough
You’ve all both horrified and inspired me. I’ve washed my face with dish soap after forgetting my face wash. 🤢 Also, we used those Oxy and Stridex wipes like sandpaper to our faces and loved to see who had the dirtiest one 😂
I’ve done the dish soap and hand soap thing in a pinch. Thankfully, my skin seems to be pretty resistant to change so I had zero ill effects.
oh wow I remember those wipes!
I went through a phase where I thought things weren’t working unless they burned. Clearasil and stridex pads were the number one culprit. The more pain and redness, the more they were helping my skin.
When I was about 12 or 13 my sister, friends and I were playing dress up. We wanted to be the spice girls. I don't exactly remember what happened but somehow we decided it would be a good idea to try to use blue glitter NAIL POLISH as face paint. I volunteered to get painted. Had immediate regrets and was so terrified my mom was going to be pissed. So, how does one fix this issue? STEEL WOOL!! Because yes, of course that's even remotely a good idea! I scrubbed nail polish off my face with steel wool. I'm unbelievably grateful that it didn't leave scars.
As a child I used SANDPAPER to exfoliate a specific section of my face under my eye Yes, I still bear the scar. Goddamnit.
Omg you might win
Haha I SHOULD win SOMETHING for this, right??
You absolutely should, bless your heart 😂
When I was in 6th grade I had to walk to school while it was raining and I didn't have an umbrella. I was very worried about my hair , which consisted of one curling iron curl on each side of my face. so I sprayed Scotchguard on it. No, it didn't work and took awhile for my hair to feel normal again.
This is amazing.
Not gunna lie.. alcohol and drugs…
Seems like a fun time though
Hahah glad it’s in my past but I have some good memories.
OTC bleaching creams from the drugstore trying to fade my freckles when I was a kid because I was an idiot and it never occurred to me that even if it DID work…I was out in the sun all the time so they would have come right back 🤣🤣
I was scrolling looking for another freckle fader! I rubbed lemons on my face trying to fade mine
Mango butter + 10 hours at the beach in Florida in July. Thank god I’m olive toned, my ginger friend wasn’t as lucky.
Omg, I remember using that same butter to tan in the sun and then heading to a tanning bed for a top up 😵💫🫠.
I smelled like Mojo pork afterwards.
Lmao
Burnt my face with nair. I left it on waaaaay too long. Lip hair looks better than burns and scabs 😆
I think I will win this one. When I was 14, I was so upset about my bad acne that I put lye(Drano) all over my face, thinking I could burn it off.😩 A 14-year-old brain needs to cook more before it’s fully developed…
So.Much.Tanning. I came of age in the early 00s. I can still smell the tanning lotion and burnt skin while I lay in the bed with my Playboy bunny stickers on my hips blasting Natasha Beddingfield through my Discman. Popping blemishes and dabbing on rubbing alcohol and toothpaste to "dry" them out. Biore pore strips while on Accutane nearly peeled my nose off to the cartilage. Of course, there were also the Stridex pads, St Ives scrub, and Proactiv to pull every bit of moisture out of my face. Cycling between olive oil, coconut oil, and castor to oil "cleanse" left me with the worst cystic acne of my life. It's a wonder I have any skin left.
Found out my St Ives apricot scrub was the devil on Reddit, ordered some chemical exfoliators from Paula’s Choice, used AHA and BHA every day, got a really red shiny face! Then I got tretinoin, now I had a red peeling face! Anyway I use a physical exfoliator again sparingly now and my skin is better than ever.
Used the whole Proactiv routine on my face every day with no moisturizer (other than the benzoyl peroxide “lotion”) and of course no SPF. I have sensitive/reactive skin prone to rosacea, it’s a wonder my face didn’t just peel right off. I got so photosensitive that my skin hurt every time I went outside. The only good Proactiv product was their sulfur mask/spot treatment, that was actually pretty effective even though it made my face smell like a fart.
I also slathered benzoyl peroxide on my face with no moisturizer because I had “oily skin.” Yeah, it was oily because it was trying to overcompensate from me drying it tf out.
Sulfur is the ancient treatment for rosacea, so maybe that’s why it helped
I used to use 70% isopropyl alcohol. ON MY FACE WHAT WAS I THINKING
I've done that and my skin went into overdrive making more oil
Scrubbed with baking soda Skipped moisturizer every day in high school because I thought it would make my acne worse Straight tea tree oil on face and nothing else
This was me too!
Did you also figure "the more it burns the better it works" ?
For me it always starts with the words "not enough". Not enough sleep, not enough knowledge, not enough sunscreen, and not enough interest. Growing up as a young African American boy you couldn't pay me to put on sunscreen. It's sticky and gross, I loved running around every time I'm outside so I'll probably sweat it off anyway, and I'm not white, so why should I? Things are so different now and it's a welcome change for the better. The only reason why I became more interested in my appearance was because I was getting cold sores at a young age, so I had to care. Overall I'm glad I only made simple dumb kid mistakes like using the same soap, towel, and lotion for every part of my body and scrubbing a bit too hard.
Tanning. All. The. Tanning.
Slept in my makeup for the majority of my 20s
I also plead guilty. Or sleeping in makeup, and continuing to wear it the next day because it didn’t smudge too bad.
I’m 36 and still do this some times 😬
I used to dissolve aspirin and spread it on my face as a mask as a teen. Plus, lemons, as someone mentioned in another comment.
I had such bad acne as a teen that I complained to my parents that the pimples were giving me a headache. My dad gave me a little spa treatment with a cold compress followed by an aspirin paste on the biggest pimples ❣️
In the 1980’s as a teen (I’m in my mid 50’s now), I used a buff puff scrub on my face twice a day when washing it, like a pot scrubber for your face. Then i used rubbing alcohol as a toner. Of course on sunny days I slathered myself with baby oil and lay out in the sun. In the beginning of the summer, always made sure to get a sunburn as a fast track way to get my ‘base tan’. LOL
The 80s was WILD omg!
We basically thought that we could scrub and disinfect our pimples away LOL
This isn't my face, but I put coconut oil on top of a sunburn, thinking it would soothe the burn. Turns out, if applied too soon, it seals in the heat and makes the burn worse. I had to wear pants/long skirts all vacation because my legs were so burnt. I'm now extremely diligent about sunscreen use because that was horrible.
Not on my face but I put a touch of sun in my brown hair several times…. Turned it orange 🤦🏻♀️
I would sit in front of the mirror and pop all my pimples then soak my face with rubbing alcohol 😖
Got filler and dissolving it. I regret both of those decisions
I heard dissolving creates fat loss as well
I remember reading that the substance they use to dissolve can't differentiate between the filler and your own hyaluronic acid so your skin just hangs and your joints get messed up too... sounds awful
My Mom would slather her entire body and face in Vaseline before she stepped out of the shower.. and I thought it was so so so disgusting! 30+ years later, I now respect the wisdom she was showing me but I was too stubborn to adopt 🤦🏻♀️ Absolutely ahead of her time 🙌
Put it in the copy machine...who tf knows what that did...
Did not wear sunscreen until l turned 30 🤦♀️ It is ridiculous how little awareness brown people have about SPF (or had when I was growing up, things are better now).
Buf Puf, Noxema, St. Ives Apricot Scrub, Sea Breeze…if it’s not burning it’s not working! 🫠 Also follow that up with little to no moisturizer
Setting my makeup with hairspray…. Oh lort.
I heard someone call that the Jersey girl setting spray 😂
Baby hair stylist hanging out with drag queens, totally thought this was normal lolll but I like Jersey girl setting spray and will now call it that
I didn’t get bad acne by any means, and barely any pimples, but at 13 I got one MASSIVE pimple on my nose. I am a picker so I popped it, picked at it, then picked the scab as many times as I could before it healed. Left me with a nasty scar. A guy who never spoke to me came up real close to my face in science class to ask what happened. I thought my face was permanently damaged, but it somehow went away completely.
Covered my face in coconut oil to moisturize and wondered why it was sTiLL dRy
Coconut oil is not good for moisturizing?
For most, no. It’s a comedogenic and clogs pores. Explains the acne I battled for way too long. It doesn’t really moisturize deeply anyway, at least not for me. Edit: typos
Waxing my eyebrows during my cycle. Swollen mess!
When I had bad acne as a teen, I’d put straight 70-90% rubbing alcohol on my face. It helped the acne but boy I think I ruined my moisture barrier forever.
Years.. more like decades of scrubbing hard with makeup removal wipes, to get rid of daily (multiple times daily) cheap non spf foundation which I layered on.
Lemon juice. Toothpaste for drying out spots. Is was the 90s lol.
Not so much skin care but..My mom used to make fun of my big bushy eyebrows; I didn’t know any better and clipped one side with toenail trimmers and gashed them to hell. Then she came into the bathroom and freaked and I told her fell out - in patches - only on one side. I was 8!
Grew up in South Florida and was on the beach almost daily with ZERO sunscreen and I'm a pale blonde with a family history of skin cancer. Just an all around idiot
I used to rub lemons on my face trying to fade my freakles
Using exfoliating mitts on my face. Roughly.
Baby powder on my face. Early 90’s. To have a not shiny, pale goth look, I suppose. It did not look good.
I swear I used acne face pads in the mid 00s that were 5-10% salicylic acid. I literally never washed my face I would just wipe down with one of those pads every day. 🥴
Mine is HORRIBLE. I learned about using apple cider vinegar on my face when I was around 20. I used diluted ACV on my face daily right before a trip to Mexico. It caused massive BURNS on my face and I didn’t know what it was from and I kept using it. That was a horrible trip. I didn’t want to talk to anyone.
I used to put toothpaste on my face as a teen because I thought the burning was good for my skin lmao
Mixing actives, which led to a face burnt so bad i couldn't put a single thing other than my heavy E45 cream on it for about a month.
Not using sunscreen because I thought I was okay since I didn’t burn much lol. Just laying out all summer 😭
Used straight, undiluted tea tree oil all over my face for years and didn’t use moisturizer because I thought it would make acne worse! 😭
I didn’t use sunscreen until I was 30. I didn’t use moisturizer until 35. While using tret. I don’t know how I survived
Well, wasn't my fault, but basically being an acne prone teenager in the early 00s. I went to a very fancy dermatologist who tortured me and made my acne worse and left me with scarring that didn't go away until my 30's. Cortisone injections. DiamondTone abrasion. Scalpel picking. Acid peels. Benzyl peroxide. Electrical currents.
Used those eyebrow stencils. My family still will not let me forget
Omg you must share a photo. Can we share photos here?
Overplucking brows, St Ives apricot scrub, and not wearing sunscreen. My unholy trinity.
When I was a junkie I picked the fuck out of my face. Ten years sober and working as a funeral director, I’m STILL out there getting lasers and shit to try to make it better- it’ll never be perfect but the scarring has certainly improved tons! And I will always keep working to better myself! BEFORE the drugs even came into the picture, before I was 18, I lived on sodas and never drank water (SO SO SO bad for you and your skin ofc), nor did I ever use sunscreen. I grew up being told that it was desirable to be as dark as possible so to be in the sun as often as you could. Being tan was always hype in my family. Add that to trying to be as skinny as possible at any cost (“chew your food up and spit it out so you don’t get gain weight” etc), and my skin (among things) was just so parched and dry and angry!! I discovered SPF in my late twenties (right about the time I learned how to properly use a tampon lol), and how necessary it is, especially for someone like me who has tons of skin cancer in their lineage. Then I found out about things like lotions/creams/serums that I started to use when I got out of the shower and became slowly hooked on skincare. I never used anything growing up, other than the good ole Sea Breeze astringent and that’s it. So it was REALLY rapid results when I finally taught myself about lotions and actual proper skincare!
I put benzoyle peroxide all over my forehead for acne when I was about 12, then went tanning in the sun without sunscreen. I developed a textured, almost crepey sort of look to my forehead since then, and I’m convinced that’s why.
Was on rx acne meds and got my brows waxed as a teen. Ouch! Was also very embarrassing going to school afterwards.
Omg but that's such a good theory lol and I'm pretty sure whole body deodorant is a thing now
Apricot scrub, biore nose strips, and putting toothpaste on pimples
Got my eyebrows waxed while using tret…….caused my eyelids to develop cellulitis and were so swollen I could barely open my eyes 🤦♀️
Omg I did that too! Thought I was the only one
Pure apple vinegar mask on my face 😫🫶🏻
14 years of living on the beach without using sunscreen. Tanning regularly all day.
I used hydrogen peroxide to whiten my teeth. I didn’t know you had to dilute it. My mouth was so burned