In high school, I was very lucky and did not suffer from acne. I would occasionally get a pimple or two, but that was it. It was not until this year, my first year of university, where I started to break out a lot more. I mainly think the cause of my acne is stress, however I am yet to meet with a dermatologist and actually figure out the cause. In all honesty, I don't think I'm even going to meet with one because my acne still isn't as bad as other people I know who have acne.

Even though my acne isn't extreme, whenever it starts acting up I get very self-conscious. If there's one thing I want to tell everyone, it's that you should not worry about your acne. Everyone gets it, and majority of the time people are more concerned with themselves and how they look than to be concerned with you and your acne. Leading from that little "tip", please try to give your skin a break. Don't cover it up with makeup and just go on with your normal day. I understand that this is a difficult thing to do, but sometimes you need to get out of your comfort zone to improve. 

Anyways, moving on to the actual topic of this post. As my breakouts have started to become more consistent, I realized that my high school skin care routine wasn't going to be enough to actually help keep my skin clear and healthy. After a lot of research, I decided to give Origins Clear Improvement Active charcoal clay mask a try. 

After using it almost twice a week for an entire month, I've noticed a lot of improvements with my skin. The first and most prominent thing I noticed was how bright my skin looked after consistently using the product. Perhaps because I do have a darker skin tone, I'm more able to notice the brightening of my skin from the charcoal as I've had some friends with lighter complexions tell me that they never saw any difference in their skin in terms of brightening. Other than that, my acne has started to fade away too as the mask cleans and tightens my pores. Although I still have a few acne scars left now, this mask also does a good job in helping those scars fade away. 

I've also found that using this mask as an overnight spot treatment is a great way to utilize the product. Whenever I feel some acne coming or if some has newly formed, I like to dab some of this product on my problem areas and let it dry then go to bed with it on. I found that the next day the swelling of my acne has reduced greatly and is at the stage of going away. 

I understand that this product may not work for everyone, but this clay mask has become an essential in my skincare routine (I will be sharing my full routine in another post so stay tuned). I only use the mask twice within a week as I don't want to stress my skin out. If you're on the fence about purchasing this mask, I recommend trying a sample size before committing to the entire bottle as I've talked to some people who got no results from this mask. Definitely do your research and educate yourself on what exactly you are putting on your face. 

I am always interested in trying new products. Feel free to recommend me other masks to try out because I have not tried many.