Alicia Keys is on TV, in a video my husband plays from YouTube. She is performing live in the middle of New York City, and the song is “If I Ain’t Got You” — a classic. Briefly I watch with awe at her commendably mad skills on the piano and her singing, but soon the only thing I’m noticing is how she is rocking an apparently no-makeup look, her skin giving off a healthy shimmer that I’ve never seen on anyone before. Who cares about John Mayer’s sudden appearance in a show-stopping duet, just look at her cheekbones!
Looking into it afterward is the epitome of going down a rabbit hole. I must admit that it’s the first time I’m hearing the words skincare routine and glass skin. That there are such things being done when and after one washes their face in the morning (and at night!) in no less than five steps, that the sunscreen advice from that famous hypothetical commencement speech hadn’t been a joke. I didn’t think they meant that advice for outside of the beach. My skincare routine, if it could be called that, involves a simple drugstore scrub cleanser. A literal dab of moisturizer in the winter when my cheeks get dry, and maybe a nice-smelling face pack when I remember and feel like it. I purposefully avoid the sun with an inherent madness stemming from the Filipino culture that values the mestiza complexion. Apart from the occasional pimple, I have been blessed with agreeably quiet skin, even during the throes of puberty. But after Alicia Keys, I am made aware of its unevenness, the lacking oomph of a fairy sparkle.
My initial research brings me deep into the underbelly of various skincare subreddits, Asian beauty brands that are predominantly Japanese and Korean, and trends involving a ten-step regimen. Soon things have been added to cart, beginning with what I consider to be a modest, four-step routine to get my feet wet. The effects of simple hydration and moisturizing are immediate and I get hooked on this feeling. I can do much more to reach Alicia. In the subsequent weeks and months, I spend more time in the bathroom mushing products onto my face than in all the years of my life combined; I become intimate with cosmetic ingredients like niacinamide, hyaluronic acid, retinoids; and my husband can no longer kiss me on the cheek once nighttime routine has concluded. I do not have the indifferent shimmer of Alicia Keys’ glass skin yet; I have instead a face with so many layers of hydration and sealing lipids that I become a walking reflective hazard. My coworkers must wonder what’s going on with my face but I’m grateful that they’re kind enough not to ask.
What they don’t tell the uninitiated, the skincare rookie, the new recruit, is that there are many, many products, never mind pakegai. That I will want to try them all, and I do, and that it will feel like something that might need intervention later on if I continue in this same direction. Week after week a shiny new product arrives in the mail to replace something else I’ve already grown tired of, add a new step in the routine, or simply for fear of missing out, that the cupboard under my bathroom sink turns into that dreaded closet that stores one’s skeletons, lined up with half-finished toners in frosted glass, luxurious serums, photophobic dropper bottles. I have never identified as self-indulgent or narcissistic, never have I looked at my reflection so much, in every room mirror and car window, but this new hobby is able to successfully tap into that sleeping giant.
When the acne comes, it’s a mere unwanted visitation. A small, regular reaction — until it isn’t. I go through five stages of grief with an intent focus on denial, wherein I don’t believe it’s caused by my applying a slew of rotating skincare products on my previously virginal skin. The Internet has many things to say about it: that I haven’t acclimated my skin enough, I’m doing too many active ingredients, I’m allergic to this (and then that), that product is all wrong for my skin type. They do nothing but dig the hole deeper in my unharnessed addiction to buying more skincare products.
The acne starts to come with staggering frequency and deep, vengeful fury. They are huge and unsightly; painful. They take forever to heal and even before they do, a new one is already setting up shop elsewhere. They begin to cluster, a mix of rearing whiteheads and scabbed ruins. The problem then becomes my towel, my pillowcases (is it not silk enough?), the hair on my face, my husband’s beard when we kiss. At one point I even believe it’s the tofu I eat, because it must be everything else but my precious products.
I no longer go outside, if I can help it. I skip on family gatherings. When I absolutely have to venture out, I’m fortunate that after COVID, wearing a mask is commonplace. I also make sure the exposed part of my face is peppered with hideous pimple patches of which I also have a slew of and believe are magically invisible to everyone but me. My sunscreen stings my eyes; the sun reflecting on my shiny forehead is enough to light up an underground Egyptian tomb in The Mummy. I am miserable, but we must endure. For beauty. For the coveted glass skin.
The final killing move comes in the form of a sheet mask. I’ve had many, though my personal gripe with them is that the cutouts never fit my face perfectly. I will remember the name of this one to the grave: Minon Amino Moist, in the pink box. As with most disastrous things we come to regret, my misfortune begins innocently, as sung by The Killers:
It started with a kiss,
how did it end up like this?
It was only a kiss.
It was only a kiss.
It’s just a sheet mask. Only a sheet mask. So how come my face is swelling up like a blister? How come my eyelids are shut? How come I need Benadryl?
Gio offers the most helpful advice I could never give myself: “How about we stop with the skincare?” We, or rather he, removes the array of products terrorizing the bathroom counter and places them somewhere I can’t see. I am only allowed to wash my face with water. After my face calms down I introduce the most barebones, most boring cleanser, then a moisturizer, and nothing else. A few weeks pass and my skin is still having regular acne, and so Gio says I should consult a doctor.
“It’s most likely hormonal,” replies my doctor at the email of my summarized woes and embarrassing close-up pictures of my acne. “It might be the birth control you’re using.”
Stating for the record, I am a medical professional. And yet, somehow, this possibility, this natural order of things, has never crossed my mind. I have entered my 30s, on a birth control pill that I’ve been using since the dawn of time (23), and never considered that these are causing an administrative mess at a chemical level. With not enough time to mourn over my ever-advancing age and its concomitant side effects, I begin a new birth control pill. The traverse back to my usual clear skin is nothing short of miraculous. My hormones are set to order and returned to a neat line, even fixing other things I haven’t noticed about my body that are problems, but more importantly superficially, exorcising the remaining acne while halting the production of new ones. The doctor also starts me on an adapalene prescription, a cleanup crew of a milder retinoid, to dust off the remaining marks and even out everything else.
As characteristic of my sudden, all-consuming hobbies, the skincare game gradually loses its novelty. Even though my folly has been cellular and was not entirely caused by products, I’ve gone to “hell” and back and I’m now bored. Still, it’s been a learning experience. I’m leaving the subreddits behind, knowing my skin better and how to take care of it through daily moisturizing, sunscreen, and a leg-up from a simple exfoliating toner. The rest of it have their place, a step in someone else’s routine, but no longer on my bathroom sink. As much as it pains me to admit, I am actually too lazy most days to perpetually sustain such exhaustive, multi-stepped regimens that I used to have or the Internet says I should have. Oh, I may never get to have the skin of Alicia Keys — though some days I get pretty close — but I am, at least, back to my unremarkable, prosaic normal.
TINY WORRIES 