The Skin Care Secrets You Need to Know - What I Wish I Knew As a Teenager

You have tried the lotions and potions, squandered your money on products promising you skin so perfect you may as well have walked off the cover of Vogue. Heck, you probably tried desperately hacking at those zits with tweezers once or twice. We have all been there—bad skin sucks.

If you haven't suffered bad skin, then the rest of us hate you.

As someone just escaping the horrid years of adolescence, the nightmare of hormonal imbalances and litres of concealer appear to be almost over. I've picked up a few tips and tricks along the way, though, and I will bless your face with them now. Here are, my own version of the do's, and a few definitely-do-not's, just for you and your pussy, porous face.

1. Be pernickety about ingredients, but DIY facemasks can be legendary.

Your skin is very delicate on your face, which is why it tends to be more common to break out. Keep this in mind when looking up recipes for homemade face masks—watch that what you slather on your face is actually helpful. If it burns, WIPE THAT CRAP OFF. If you do the right ones, you are in for epic smooth skin.

So, whether you have greasy skin, really bad skin, clogged pores, dry skin or whatever, never, I mean NEVER do the ones that are pretty harsh and involve strong acid/alkaline products. For example:

• Lemon or lime
• Baking Powder
• Sometimes honey
• Tomato

Some examples of ones which are awesome are recipes including:

• Egg
• Avocado
• Banana
• oats
• coffee/cocoa (but don't leave it on too long)

You have been warned, and advised. Get that gunge on your face, and slap on some cucumbers while you're at it, baggy eyes.

2. The Do-ish Don't: Exfoliate

Once a week, maybe twice, a light exfoliator is good, but please, enough of this harsh skin treatment! I have had disastrous skin for a long time, and my response was that I must take disastrous measures to fix it. I was wrong—in reality, your skin just needs a little loving. Exfoliating strips away all the natural barriers and good oils in the skin, leaving it exposed and spots raw, which leaves it susceptible to infection and breakouts. You're digging yourself deeper into a hole... or pore.

3. Behold, this will be your skin saviour.

Moisturise, moisturise, MOISTURISE. Don't worry about your expensive moisturisers, harsh chemicals, and all that jazz. This here is the bomb. Slather a little blob of this on morning and night to keep yourself smooth and supple. I have oily skin, so if that is you too, don't neglect moisturiser. This will actually help you out big time, because it helps balance the oils on your skin and acts as a protective barrier. For those of you with very dry skin, Nivea has a heavier moisturiser which I hear many-a-skincare obsessionist rant about.

4. Get out the toothpaste, the baking powder, and zit creams, tie them to a rock, seep it all in gasoline, set them on fire, and throw them into shark infested waters in the ocean where they will sink into an underwater volcano.

To those who choose to put harsh acids and alkaline products on their faces, in the hope to "burn" or "dry out" their miniature volcanoes, no. Just no. Talk about poking a sleeping bear or whatever the phrase is. You might as well kick a beehive. Step five is your magical solution, coming up.

5. Do: Get your a** to Amazon and buy this, pimple face.

This right here is the secret ingredient to tackling those bad breakouts. Because, what is a breakout, I hear you not ask but pretend that you did. BACTERIA, GREASE, GRIME. Well, that's the cause of it. Those spots get yucky and exposed, which is prime time for bacteria to come around for a cup of tea. What do you get next? Not a small spot, but a big red one that takes up half of your face. So, enough with trying to bust and burn those away because you are making it worse. You need antibacterial cream. This stuff is for healing cuts too, etc, and open or inflamed spots could do with that. I just continue throwing this bad boy on icky patches and it keeps them all good and healing super fast. Buy it.

6. Consistency is key.

So, a little tip I wish somebody had told me: If the bottle of stuff you are using is working for you, stick at it. It sounds pretty simple, right? But we all have the tendency to go to Tesco and buy ourselves something different for our faces each time. It takes a few weeks, a month or so for me, for your skin to adjust to whatever cleanser you are using on it. I didn't realise that until I figured it out myself. When you get another bottle of face wash, it's different stuff you are smothering your face with twice a day and it is going to need to readjust. This can mean breakouts, dry skin, oilier skin, you name it. So, my advice? If a certain cleanser is working for you, continue buying that one.

7. Limit the makeup, give your face a break, and my goodness, take that crap off at night.

This one is obvious enough. If you choose to look like an orangutan due to the insecurities pressing on you because of your lumpy gunky skin, that's okay. But take that mud off before bed, and limit its use because some day, you will wake up and realise that you still need makeup because your face is ugly even with perfect skin. (Joking, you're beautiful.)

8. Do the basics. Don't be a minger.

You know the drill. Wash your face day and night (gently, with an equally gentle cleanser) and moisturise, etc, etc. Just be generally clean. Eat healthy, drink water, exercise, blah, blah, blah. And hey, love yourself no matter what is going on with your skin. These are some pointers to help you out, but your image is not the be-all, end-all. Just look at that flawless personality you've got. ;)

All the best on your quest to less-ugliness.

*Mic drop.*