I was just 12 years old and my whole life had just changed without me even knowing it. His name was Dr Patel, he wouldn’t be the last dermatologist/skin specialist to transform my skin and fuel my passion for skincare.
Hello, my name is Mazvita and l am utterly obsessed with skincare.
What does “SELF-CARE” mean to you? pause for a second and really think about it. . . .
You know how that fresh manicure makes you feel or the joy deep in your stomach after a gym or workout session? Remember how it was the first time you took a whiff of that heavenly new fragrance or the nostalgia you felt having lunch with old friends and the complete peace after meditating or praying. These are all acts of self-care because being able to balance the internal and the external aspects of who you really are at your core, fosters a strength that can make the impossible possible.
Skincare is definitely an important part of self-care and does not even come close to being associated with plain vanity in my humble opinion. Caring for our skin is not just about it making us look good physically but it’s also our body’s largest organ therefore in essence quite essential to do so. Our skin as strong as it is, it’s also vulnerable, quite the paradox, right? So it needs a lot of love, care and protection because it deserves that and more.
Insecurity in any form stunts your growth in more ways than one, a lesson I should have learnt early in life. Prior to developing allergies in my pre-teen years, skincare to me was my mother’s mandatory weekly Dettol baths with a true African pumice stone plus loads of Vaseline afterwards. Then came the terrific teen years where after several visits to a dermatologist I started paying close attention to my skin a lot more as well as having an awareness of skincare ingredients. I never really had acne as a teenager so that was never a true concern at the time so I focused on maintaining clear and even skin which involved drinking a lot of water, using fresh aloe vera masks, mealie meal & sugar water masks, lemon juice treatments and a few other family secrets (stay tuned, wink wink!).
Protex Soap and Ponds Vanishing Cream opened up the world to my first encounter to the very matte “no makeup-makeup look” of that era (worth recreating right?). I also remember begging my mother to buy Bio Oil when I was about 16 because I felt very insecure and unsure of myself due to stretch marks, the myths in the society I grew up in regarding stretch marks made it even worse and unbearable as a young girl going through puberty. Fast forward to 2011ish, I was a 20 something year old woman with extreme acne and dark spots and it felt like I was back to being the young 12 year old girl with a skin disorder. “They are looking at my skin, I look horrible” ran through my mind all the time so l learnt to avoid socialising unnecessarily, I barely had friends, I felt very unattractive and just hopeless.
The second time in my life l consulted a dermatologist l was in my late 20s and this time l had extensive hormonal acne due to a change in the type of birth control l used. It definitely was a long and painful journey to healthy skin, which turned out to be the final nod I needed to share my experiences, start my own skincare brand and a career as an aesthetic nurse which is a whole other story in itself. All in all, knowing what l know now it’s all a bit clearer why all the ingredients, techniques and products in the skincare realm work or sometimes do not work at all and l want to share that with you all.
In this section of the blog, every month going forward we will get right down to the bare skin basics all the way up to celebrity as well as dermatology secrets and how we can access that fountain of youth and glow on a smart budget with a few DIYs for good measure. Of course genetics and nature play a huge part in the overall look as well as health of our skin but trust me Beauties, even mother nature appreciates a bit of a hand with “perfection”.
The next post will be the beginning of a tremendous journey into the science and art of becoming our own skin specialists. If you have questions or topics you would like covered please fill in this contact form or send me a DM on my Instagram page BeautyParadox_Official where l post new content everyday.
Take care beauties and God bless.
Mazvita xX