Hello everyone, and welcome to my little skincare loving corner of the internet! My name is The Masked Bunny, or just ‘Bunny’, and I’m a skincare and K-Beauty enthusiast in Australia!
My skincare journey started in my early twenties, after gliding through my teenage years with relatively clear skin, adult acne hit me hard!
I had cystic, inflammatory acne and it went from 0-100 pretty quickly! Painful, red, swollen lumps under my skin, or deep pustules that gathered around my forehead and cheeks. If I didn’t pick them, they’d scar. If I did give into temptation and pick, they’d scar anyway. I had new pimples forming on top of red and purple post inflammatory scarring, leaving my skin bumpy, textured, and looking like I had a severe case of the chicken pox.
It was easily one of the lowest times of my life, mentally and emotionally as well, as I absolutely hated my appearance and was disgusted by who I saw in the mirror. I didn’t want to go to work, be in photos, see my friends, or leave the house at all. I constantly apologised to my boyfriend about the state of my face and, despite constant reassurances, I felt insecure 24/7.
I was desperate for solutions and so, like so many of us, turned to the internet for answers. Another common experience is, I’m sure, being overwhelmed by information! How do I identify my skin type? How do I know what type of acne I have? Do I use a toner or an essence first? What serum should I use for my skin?
I cycled through hundreds, maybe even thousands, of dollars in my pursuit for clear skin. I tried out online skin quizzes and subscription services. Personalised routines from websites, in store advice from Mecca and Sephora, buying every chemical exfoliant on the market to see if burning off the top layer of my skin would help (spoiler alert: it doesn’t!)
So much money, all wasted, as every product burned my skin, or didn’t give me instant results, and I’d move on in frustration. I had gradually less and less money, and absolutely no knowledge and nothing to show for my frantic efforts. That’s when I decided to sit down and do my research! I’ve always loved diving deep into projects back in school, so I threw myself into the skincare side of the internet.
I experimented with my skin type, looking up symptoms of each to try and match my own (oily/ combination), and then working out how to keep the oil at bay. Going further I learnt that oiliness can be caused by excessive dehydration due to a damaged skin barrier. Ta-da! Now I knew why everything burned! More research into skin barrier repair led me to ingredients to help! Centella, green tea, Hyaluronic acid, glycerin, aloe, etc.
A month later, I stumbled across a Korean beauty pop up shop in the city and, armed with my new knowledge, I purchased an innisfree green tea seed serum and an iunik green tea gel moisturiser.
The effect was almost instant! My skin DRANK up the products and there was no burning! It felt so soothing on my irritated skin! I’m not going to claim that my acne was fixed the next day, because that would be a lie. Skincare is a journey of trial and error, and every now and then I would make a mistake and introduce something my skin didn’t like, and it would be back to the drawing board. I am using very different products now from when I started, but that was a turning point for me.
Slowly but surely, my purchases became smarter and more intentional. Through research and diving into ingredients, I carefully curated a routine for MY skin and MY issues, and four years later (yes four years!) my skin is at a place I am happy with! Is it perfect? No, but that’s because skin perfection isn’t real! Everyone has texture, redness, pores, sebaceous glands, y’know, normal skin things! But the point is that my scarring and the things that made me so insecure are managed!
If I had only learnt all that I know now earlier, I would have never had my concerns get to the awful place that they did…but that’s good news for all of you reading this! If you’ve made it this far, your story might sound very similar to mine! Constantly buying and trying, overwhelmed with the information around you and asking ‘where do I start? How can I get something that will work for ME?’ Here’s where I hope to help!
My biggest ambition behind this blog is to stop the cycle of misinformed spending, and self loathing of our own skin when ‘nothing works!’ I want to share my knowledge with all of you! I’ll be posting reviews of products that I try, and who they might work for, as well as tips and tricks to understanding skin type, types of skin concerns, and how to tackle them! As well as how to decode ingredient lists and WHY that miracle product might be working for you! Need something a little more personal? I’m here for that too!
Drop me a comment, an email, or subscribe to my newsletter and let me know what you are struggling with! I’d love to help you through your own skincare journey as I have done for many of my own friends and family already.
I can’t wait to come with you all on this journey, learn together, and help you become a certified expert in your own skin!
Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to apply your SPF today!
⁃ The Masked Bunny
