Skincare has always been something I loved to learn about. I have been through every skincare phase there’s been since 2012. The face masks, the intense exfoliants, the Lush phase, Mario Badescu, I’ve seen it all. I grew up on the beauty YouTubers telling me exactly what to do and when to do it when it came to my skincare, and for most of my life, it worked surprisingly well.
Naturally, as I’ve gotten older, I listen less to influencers and more to the experts or the research I conduct myself, but then CeraVe was trending on TikTok non-stop, I had to see what the hype was about. To give some background, my skin has never been perfect. In middle school, I struggled with my skin a lot. I had cystic acne and struggled a lot with dark spots.
Like many other girls in early high school, I started taking birth control, and it really cleared up my skin, thankfully. Fast forward to my Junior year of college, and my skin has been very clear for a few years now. I had a skincare routine that was working, but I was also very lucky in the way my skin had grown up with me. So when I saw that CeraVe was trending on Tik Tok, I thought, “why not?”
I started using the CeraVe Renewing Cleanser late in 2020 and also one of their moisturizers. A few weeks into using them, my skin started to break out very quickly and very randomly. My skin had reverted back to what it was like when I was young. Being an adult now, it’s hard because even if you don’t want it to, acne has an effect on self-confidence. At first, I didn’t put two and two together. I was so confused as to what had happened to my skin and why it was happening right now.
I googled every day, searching for an answer. I woke up every day with a new cystic pimple, a new red patch or dark spot. It was extremely discouraging because nothing was working, and I had no answers. Until one day, I was scrolling through Instagram, and I came across a girl’s story. In her story, she spoke about the exact same products I was using and how they gave her very bad cystic acne. I was shocked and beyond confused because, for months, I saw this skincare at the top of every list. I went to Reddit, and sure enough, so many other people had the same experience.
I’ve started using products now that I’ve done thorough research on, and my skin is definitely on the mend. Fad culture comes and goes in many different ways, I learned my lesson the hard way about listening to my body and not just doing something because it works for other people. My review on CeraVe is not great; if you struggle with acne, read what the experts recommend and don’t trust the TikTok tweens.