Back to the Beginning: How a (truly epic) acne breakout reminded me of my why.

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Ah, the good ole' days; I miss them. Now, I'm not feeling nostalgic for the way things were in a time sense, as I'm looking forward to the good things soon to come. IYKYK. But I am nostalgic for this.

The good old days of clear skin - noticeable even with my foundation on.

Clear skin; blemish-free skin. Skin that I've worked very, very hard over the past ten years to achieve. Unfortunately, over the past month, I have been dealing with a truly horrific breakout, the worst I had ever had. Now, if you've never dealt with an exceptional acne breakout, then you are not familiar with how...emotionally debilitating it can be. Especially when you've felt like you've scaled that mountain and left it behind. It hurts. Not just physically. Your confidence takes a hit. You're suddenly very self-conscious of your face. Every tingle you feel in your jaw or chin brings a wave of sadness because you know...here comes another one. Another cyst. Another whitehead. Another scar waiting to happen. The once-smooth skin that you've craved and finally achieved is now...gone. Now, let me explain HOW this happened, in hopes to help someone not deal with this kind of pain - again, not just physical. I have been on a hormone-balancing journey since December. It's been wonderful. I've lost almost 20 pounds and have about 15 to go. That's a celebration right there. In my quest to balance and lose, I started taking green tea fat burning pills. Along with that, I drink a collagen-protein drink in the morning where I also add raw cacao. Then one day I decided to do a coffee enema instead of a warm water enema (no judgement - it's healed a lot of my health issues but that's for another time). Now, what do all three - the green tea, the cacao, the coffee, have in common? If you guessed caffeine, you are correct. What a trifecta. My skin exploded into this:

I'll admit, I've wept a few times over this breakout.

And believe it or not, it got worse. Large cysts appeared on my right side as well. My face hurt. And I had no idea what it was from. I had cut out so much from my diet as it was, what could have possibly been the cause of this? My mind went back to caffeine. And how much I was taking. How green tea always broke me out. Coffee always broke me out. Cacao is high in caffeine. Because all three of these were so concentrated, my body couldn't handle them together. So now, lesson learned: I cut out ALL my caffeine and will give my body three months to heal. But let's get down to what is good, right? What Imma take from this. And even better, how it will benefit YOU. When I started LYONYS /Mineral29 Organics, it was to heal my wounded face. To fade blemishes using as clean of ingredients as possible. But once my face healed and scars faded, I moved away from that focus to makeup. Now, I love my makeup and it's been saving my confidence since this outbreak. However, as I researched what to use to stop the purging of my skin, I realized that there is a lot of products out there but not a lot of confidence in those products. There are a lot of ingredients used, but some of them have made people break out more or just didn't do anything. One thing I appreciated about my skincare products was that they did the things that I needed them to do. And because of that, I got compliments constantly on my skin. No one would know that I'd battled acne for YEARS. So this built my appreciation for my formulations, once again. And made me realize, I need to bring some of them back. So starting end of April, my skincare line will return. The products offered will be as follows: LYONYS Rewind Serum LYONYS BB (Blemish Banishing) Serum LYONYS Silken Soap LYONYS Honeysuckle Dew Serum LYONYS Exfoliator LYONYS Earthen Mask (this list is subject to change)

I will still offer powder foundation, mascara/eyeliner and lippies. I will no longer offer blush or eyeshadows. My shop will also be open one full week each month. Stay tuned for when that will be! But honestly, while my skin is healing, it has helped me appreciate the beginning. How hard it is to start that skin healing journey. Where to start. What to use. How to use it. Will this make my acne worse? is a constant question. But I plan on taking you on this healing journey with me, and I will post updates and the products I used to heal, tone, brighten - just make my skin, and me, happy. So if you wanna come along for the ride, please do. I'll appreciate the company.

Hi! My name is Billie, owner and CEO of LYONYS Beauty Collection. I'm an acne warrior and fighter for all things healthy. I'm also a junior chemist who loves to formulate and create. Thank you for following and/or listening to this blog post!