If there’s one thing collegiettes™ can relate to – it’s acne. Since high school, we’ve caked on layers of moisturizer, foundation, and blush to conceal our blemishes. But what if you wiped clean all of that makeup and photographed your bare face for the world to see? For some girls who struggle with acne, that might seem unthinkable, but one model did just that.
Cassandra Bankson, a 19-year-old aspiring model from California posted a video with a bare face for the internet to see the severity of her acne.
“I hope this helps you if you guys have acne, or even if you don’t have acne and you just want really pretty skin,” she said in the tutorial video.
She confessed to struggling with severe acne, which covers most of her face, neck, chest and back.
“It took me a month to post. I thought I was going to get the same hate as school for my skin,” she said in an interview with Good Morning America that aired yesterday. “I thought if it helped one person, one girl or even one guy who was in the same condition, it would be worth it.”
But Bankson, a model, appears to have flawless skin in her photographs. How does she do it?
She demonstrated her daily makeup makeover, expertly hiding the extensive blemishes, in a before-and-after YouTube video that’s had more than 2 million views. Because of her routine, she’s able to book modeling jobs, and made the video as a means of reaching out to other teens to help them with their own skin troubles.
“I am the most self-conscious person about my acne … taking my makeup off is one of the most insecure things that I could probably do, for me,” she said.
She said she was most surprised by the support and overwhelmingly positive comments made by viewers on her video.
“It’s been overwhelming,” she said. “It really is an eye-opener. I never knew that for men, for women, even for adults, it’s such an epidemic. Yes, it’s cosmetic, but it goes deeper than that. I think that’s something that’s a little bit of a misconception.”
Bankson, who got her first pimple in the third grade, has a powerful message for other teens who
are suffering with acne. “I know exactly where you are, I’ve been in your shoes and there is hope,” she said. “Someone else has been there and there is a way for you to feel confident. You just need to kind of search around for what it is that makes you lighten up.”