Healthy skin is a big deal. It’s like the key to maintaining your fountain of youth. Yes, this post is about getting your skin so glowing that you easily have 5 people compliment you, but let me warn you now: what I’m about to say is neither easy nor the most conventional. Just like how there are 8 limbs of yoga with asanas comprising of only one part, beauty products are only one of my keys to great skin.
“Your skin looks AMAZING!”
I never thought much about skincare when I was younger since I had always gotten compliments back then. But as I approached my late thirties, everything started changing: I couldn’t smile without seeing crows feet, pores seemed to have come out from nowhere, tightness around the cheeks, sun spots everywhere, sagging skin around the jawline. Ugh, everything that sucks about aging was happening.
Lately (and when I say lately, I mean within the last month) I had five people whom I’ve known between 5 to 35 years tell me that my skin looks AMAZING. I finally realized what a big deal it was, so when I heard, “your skin looks like glass!” or “how do you have no pores?”, I soaked it alllllll in, just like how my skin soaks up hyauluronic acid.
Compliments From A 60-Year Old Uncle
To illustrate why compliments feel different now than they did in my twenties, here’s an extreme example: My family was having dinner at a restaurant, and a Chinese relative in his sixties not only gave me the culturally expected “not bad” compliment on my skin, he actually walked up from their table to ours to tell me I looked like a Korean pop-star. Mind. Blown. When he started walking over and called my name, I thought he was going to deride me for something or other. Why else would a Chinese elder get out of their seat, other than to yell at you?! Anyway, I was shell shocked for a while. Simply couldn’t process that info.
Kind Words From My First School Friend
In another instance, my friend who I’ve known since the first day of kindergarten, asked me how I keep my skin looking so good. Having known her for over three decades, this was the first time we ever really talked about beauty or skincare. Maybe because crossing over into our forties has wreaked so much havoc on our skin there’s no way we can’t avoid talking about it?
My Skincare Journey Began… Because of Health Benefits
This year, I basically made it my job to heal, without knowing that was the goal. The original intent was just to use up as many health benefits as I could, since this was the first time in 6 years our family had double coverage! I went to nearly 70 health appointments and saw these therapists more than I did all my friends combined, but I was on a roll and I just wanted to max it all out. I even signed up for dance classes to use dance as movement therapy to get out of my head and more into my body. So this general health care spilled over into caring for my skin too.
Anyway, here are the 5 things (some unconventional) I did in the past year that have really helped my inner worlds and outer beauty that ultimately resulted in such meaningful skincare compliments. I hope sharing my journey with you helps you see that skincare (and general well-being) is a long game. Like any investment, the sooner you start, the sooner you’ll receive compounding interest.
Are you ready to put in the hard work?
1. Use The Right Beauty Products—Regularly!
Alright, the reason why you’re reading this: what beauty products is she using?! Spoiler alert: this is just the first (and possibly easiest) step.
I’m a marketer by trade, so I used to be skeptical that all products beyond moisturizer were a gimmick. For decades, I’d apply creams to my washed face, but it was always flaky. I just blamed my dry skin, thinking there’s nothing I could do to help. It wasn’t until a good friend gifted me with gift card to buy Korean beauty products and receiving a free sample of hyaluronic acid from Shopper’s that I learned I needed to use more water-based products to prime the skin for the heavier creams. So I went from a skincare minimalist (less than 3 products) to pretty much a full-blown 10-step skincare evangelist.
I’m not saying the following is an exhaustive list of products you need, but it’s a rite of passage to do the online research yourself. I avoided adding products to my roster because I didn’t have a lot of disposable income for the longest time, but I *wish* someone had taken a big sister role and told me I needed to round out my skincare routine, but I guess that was the friend who gave me the gift of K-beauty!
What I did for skincare this year:
- facial acupuncture & red light therapy x 6 sessions
- weekly at-home microdermabrasion
- weekly-ish at-home clay mask
- Hydrafacial x 1 session
- cleansing my face with a face towel (vs just bare hands)
- gua sha (sporadically while watching TV)
- List of products I use daily (or frequently enough) in the following order
- toner
- essence
- Vitamin C + ferulic acid (daytime) OR retinol (evening)
- hyaluronic acid
- serum stick (collagen, ceramides, shea butter, Vit C) – occasionally
- facial oil – occasionally
- eye cream
- moisturizer
- Sunscreen (daytime) – a MUST!
- Vaseline (evening)
This was my first time trying facial acupuncture an I’ve gotta say: IT WORKS! I noticed a difference immediate after the first session, probably because my skin isn’t acne-prone or has rosacea, etc. It’s recommended yo start with 6 sessions with a regular frequency (every 2-3 weeks) then in following years you can do maintenance every few months. What I love about facial acupuncture over microneedling or even medical-grade facials (like the Hydrafacial I did) is that it goes DEEP. You’re working to stimulate collagen at a deeper level, and it might take longer to see the gains, but again: skincare is a long game.
The other thing I highly recommend is using an at-home microdermabrasion wand. During a facial session at Formula Fig, the aesthetician said the at-home kits were about the same effectiveness as the ones in spas, the biggest difference in effectiveness is that people just doing like doing it themselves at home. Every week when I do this, I get a pretty thick layer of dead skin removed hehehehe
*Note: I’ve deliberately left out the brands (aside from Vaseline) because I know what works for me won’t necessarily work for you.
2. Do Things To Feel Like Your Younger Self
There was a research study that got men to place photos of their younger selves in their environment and asked them to act like they were X years younger. A couple of weeks go by, and the researchers photographed the men and asked strangers what their ages were, and the responses they got were at least 10 years younger or something like that. (Don’t ask me for details. I listen to too many podcasts, don’t research the studies, and can’t remember fine details!)
At least for this one study, it shows that if you feel younger, you’ll look younger.
For the first time since having two kids, I started feeling like my body is mine again. Breastfeeding was a beautiful but horrifying experience. This fall, I started decorating myself again: shopping for clothes (even socks!) that I’ve avoided buying for 5 years, cut my hair short and dyed it blonde again, started curling my hair, started doing my makeup regularly (brows, blush, eye shadow, eyeliner, no foundation), painting my nails. It feels great! For the first time since having kids, I feel (and look) like myself again. I feel creative again. And I think people notice that, even if they just pick up the general vibes.
Remember How You Used to Express Yourself
So I encourage you to do things for yourself, whether that’s experimenting with your hair, nails, clothes, makeup. Or even pick up the activities you loved doing before whether it’s dancing, skiing, pottery. It’s important to make time for your spirit. It’s not frivolous or superficial. People have been beautifying themselves as a cultural thing since the dawn of time. It’s a gift of self-expression humans get to play with, so don’t look down on it. Why else did ancient humans squash berries to make body markings, or Indigenous tribes decorate with earrings or feathered headgear? If what they’re doing isn’t superficial, then how you dress yourself up isn’t either.
A piece of wisdom I picked up from the YA Netflix series, Dash & Lily, one of the characters says, “Clothes are your insides on your outsides” 🙂
3. Work On Your ‘Inner Beauty’ (aka Mental Health)
Even with all these outward changes I’ve made, I think the real secret to my skin looking ‘AMAZING’ actually comes from within. This year I made it a point to use as many extended health benefits as I can. Aside from facial acupuncture, I also committed to counselling sessions every two weeks. I’ve been in and out of counselling since my early twenties but never did it consistently – the most frequent would be once every 3 weeks. Probably never saw any counsellor more than 10 to 15 times. Just hearing stories in the media or in passing, it seemed like people saw their therapist once ever week or two. I always thought that was overkill and if I got to that point, like I didn’t want to be seen as a helpless person who needed therapy. That, and I used to only have $300 to $500 in extended health coverage, which covered no more than two sessions a year. But having access to a much greater amount now, I decided to ‘trust the process’ as they say, and committed to biweekly sessions.
What the Naturopath Helped Heal
I also found myself finally seeing a naturopath a friend had recommended years ago. It was one of those situations where modern medicine wasn’t the answer I was looking for; I needed to get answers from within my body. And with manual therapy, she helped me uncover layers I’d been too used to hiding behind. The physical touch somehow—I don’t know how—allowed me to think and feel things I’d never allowed myself to. Of course, staying in one’s little box and not venturing to other possibilities will lead you to depression if that’s all you allow yourself to believe. Self-help stuff “you create your own situations” sure as hell didn’t help. Between talk therapy and this naturopath, I made breakthroughs after decades of stuckness.
Additionally, instead of stressing out whenever I had leisure time (that could be potentially optimized with productivity, commercial activity, chasing opportunities) it occurred to me that I just needed to calm my nervous system. Do something NOT productive – go fill out some lines in a journal with prompts that no one will ever read or read fiction. Done. Or take a nap when I feel the need, vs overriding it with “I can power through this!”
So, please, if you have any mental health coverage, please find yourself a good counsellor. It’s a grind finding the right one and I know you think you don’t need one. We might look okay on the outside, but until we work on calming whatever fears, anxieties, poor self-coping mechanisms we have, people won’t see that inner beauty shine through.
4. Give Grace to Your Friends, Family & Career (aka Relationships)
Now that you’ve done all the work on the inside and outside, it’s time to focus on the energy between you and other people. Relationships are such a big part of what could potentially bring you joy or unnecessary stress. And stress will show on your face, so don’t skip this one. Something I learned in counselling not too long ago was that we should never let anything be “too important” or “too unimportant.” It was her way of saying don’t overdo it, nor avoid it. I grew up with the belief that the norm is to overdo, so this was particularly hard for me to learn.
Letting Friendships Settle
For example, if friends didn’t reach out to me for a long time or decided to stop talking to me, it was a tough pill to swallow but I accepted it as their choice. No longer would I hold them hostage, trying to make myself more important in their eyes. I started seeing my mom differently, and I went from going off the rails after hearing a 30 second voice mail to being able to talk to her on the phone for 12 minutes, then 25 minutes, without feeling being in a freeze state.
Stop Over-identifying With Work
Only when I got to the point that I realized I could walk away from a job did I start standing up for myself at work, just saying what I needed to say and not withholding for fear of being fired. My counsellor said this was a result of not seeing managers as “too important.” Then I realized that how my employer valued me does not determine my value as a person. But neither does the success of running a business or this blog. I stopped over-identifying with work as worth, asking too much of it, and making my career “too important.”
Halfway through my naturopath sessions (around three), because I had some great breakthroughs, I noticed my eyes looked bigger. I mentioned it to both her and my counsellor and they agreed. My eyes were always small, but mostly because I felt uneasy, a defence mechanism. Ever since I was a child I always had my guard up, scrunching my eyes to scrutinize potentially dangerous situations (ie. insults) because, again, I had made my family’s judgements of me “too important.” Happy to report, that’s no longer the case.
There you have it, your relationship with people and things will have a physical affect on your outward appearance. Treat each interaction by not overdoing things or avoiding the situation. You’ll know it’s the right decision if you feel lighter in your mind & body afterwards.
5. Know That You’re A Good Person (aka Self-Love)
This is an extension of #3 (Work On Your Inner Beauty). I think deep down we all know and act as if we’re good people. (Why else would there be ‘terrible’ people in the world if they didn’t think they were doing good?) But we let self-doubt and some ‘norm’ dictated by society (and yes, we’re at fault for perpetuating it too) to let us believe otherwise. So we’re always in some tug-of-war with ourselves: am I a good person? Am I doing the right thing? This is precisely how we get in our own way. If you keep your stuck feelings inside, how are you supposed to get a glow up and let that inner beauty shine through to get good skin compliments?! Even if people do say nice things about you, you won’t believe them. That’s the tragic part. As Sheryl Lee Ralph said in her Critics Choice Award acceptance speech, “People don’t have to like you, people don’t have to love you… but when you look in the mirror, you better love what you see.” So this is why I’m writing this as step #5. When you finally get your “whoa! your skin looks AMAZING!” compliments, don’t let them go to waste. You gotta believe know it’s true.
“People don’t have to like you, people don’t have to love you… but when you look in the mirror, you better love what you see.”
– Sheryl Lee Ralph
What Do You See When You Look In The Mirror?
For as long as I could remember, I could never look at myself in the mirror without cringing then looking away immediately. For the brief moment, I’d look at myself thinking I’m only pretty if I cover myself up. That’s why fashion was so attractive to me. It wasn’t self-expression, like everyone likes you to think. Decades ago, I met Canada’s premiere fashion journalist, Jeanne Beker at a book event. She shared with the audience that having interviewed the greats like Marc Jacobs, she noticed one similarity in all designers: insecurity. That’s what drives them to create, season after season, never stopping the grind, barely coming out enough to bow at the end of a runway show. That’s the same destructive thing that drove me to continually consume, keep up an image. For decades I truly believed that all hell would break loose if I wore the same thing within a two-week period. It wasn’t just clothes, I’d find comfort in bold lipstick shades, cutting my hair short, going from deeply pigmented black to the lightest shade of blonde possible without completely damaging my hair. All that work for you to notice me, but not to truly see me.
Your Eyes May Change: How They Look And What They See
I hadn’t realized that things weren’t actually bad, that I wasn’t a bad person until I had those breakthroughs. This negative view I had of myself for nearly my whole life had pulled a dark veil over my eyes and made my eyes heavy like iron gates, ‘mole eyes’ as my family called me. Thank goodness I had the help of my mental health team. I now look at the same things and it truly feels like I have a new pair of eyes. My eyes look bigger, social situations don’t appear as threatening, life doesn’t seem so bad, and even ‘toxic’ people.
Knowing you’re a good person means you love yourself, and you’re open to compliments or changing for the better. Maybe you’re super confident and really just needed to hear my list of skincare products. Either way, I hope something from this long a$$ piece has resonated with you.
It’s Hard Work, But Your Skin Can Look Amazing Too!
And that’s why my skin looks like glass, my eyes wider, my smile bigger. Yes, the beauty routines and hair styling is super high-maintenance and plays a part. But the core of my enhanced beauty did come from the inside. As you’ve just read, not the kindness-as-beauty definition, but the internal-healing-to-self-regulation-as-beauty type.
If you’ve experienced childhood traumas, body image issues, dieting, never feeling good enough, don’t try self-help books. You can’t jump from drowning to achieving. You’ve got to get back on the ground and breathing (literally) at least. Don’t try unrealistic affirmations or Law of Attraction garbage. It’s seductive, I know, I’ve been there. Do the hard work of self-regulating first. That’s your first inside job that I know will one day physically manifest on your outward beauty.
xo, Miranda
Full disclosure: like I mentioned, I was only able to supercharge this healing because I had enough extended health coverage for the many treatments I had. The total ‘retail’ price was around $10K.
