I’ve talked A LOT about dealing with acne and the scars that came after over the past few years on this blog. And I’m constantly looking for new ways to improve those imperfections and feel better in my own skin! So today I’m sharing with you all the treatments that I’ve been trying lately and absolutely LOVING!
But before I get going, I definitely recommend checking out these posts:
- Conquering My Acne – I share my month to month experience with accutane
- My Skincare Routine (Acne, Lasers, Dermaplane and More!) – I talk about all the products I use, the prescription I am on now to help with acne, makeup I wear, and treatments I do regularly such as dermaplane, BBL Broadband light, ProFractional, and botox
- My Experience with Microblading (aka permanent makeup) – I share my experience with microblading and how much I LOVE it
Ok, now that you checked all that out, let’s talk about what I’m loving the lately! One of my most recent treatments I’ve done is the Venus Viva laser. The Venus Viva helps with wrinkle reduction, acne scars, texture improvement, skin tightening, and facial rejuvenation. My esthetician Shawn (if you are in the Colorado area, contact her at 720-459-7960) says that it gives your skin a airbrushed look and I definitely think it does after doing it! After your skin is dermanplaned, she numbs your skin for about 30 minutes then your skin is cleansed before the treatment. The treatment takes about 15 minutes. It’s not comfortable. I thought it was rather uncomfortable, honestly, but not near as bad as Profractional (which I will be doing again soon). Afterwards your skin is red and slightly swollen and you have some dryness and flaking for the next few days, but nothing too dramatic. This picture below is probably 4+ years apart, right when I started accutane to now, after I healed from the Venus Viva treatment. The only makeup I have on here is some concealer under my eyes, a little bronzer on my cheeks and forehead, and I put on my mascara and filled in my brows.
I posted this photo a couple days ago and I had many people ask if the change in my skin has to do with eating paleo and it definitely has to do with that, but it’s also many factors. Working out less (the hormones fluctuations messed with my skin), going on accutane, cutting out eggs and nuts (still eat both on occasion but not regularly), going on spironolactone, using Vivant skincare products, and going to see my esthetician months. So it wasn’t JUST paleo, it was many things and lots of hard work to get my skin to where it is now. And I hope it continues to improve over time! Again, it you are in Colorado, you MUST see Shawn (303-956-8887). She truly works miracles. I feel so lucky to have met her!
Ok, let’s talk about my next treatment I tried recently! After getting my eyebrows microbladed and absolutely loving the results, I talked to my wonderful permanent makeup specialist Lea Curry (contact her if you are in the Colorado area – 720-252-3182) about getting permanent makeup for my eyeliner. She numbs your eyelids for a while then uses this pen type instrument to draw on a super thin line. Recovering from it is super easy compared to microblading, you just have to stay away from eye makeup for a bit and steer clear from rubbing that area. I honestly thought this hurt more than microblading. I didn’t find microblading very painful, but this is uncomfortable because it’s SO close to your eye, which makes it rather uncomfortable. Lea makes it very minimal to begin with, which just makes your eyes pop a little more! At first, I thought I may want a thicker line but I’ve liked how it’s healed over time and I like that it’s not an obvious thick line that we think of when we think of permanent eyeliner. In the photo below you can see my first eye that was done before the other!
When I do full makeup, I still put eyeliner over it because I like the thicker look when I’m getting dressed up, but I love it when I have no makeup on! My goal since I had acne was always to feel great without any makeup on, which was why I did even tried permanent makeup, and I’m SO glad I did it!
Last but not least, lash lifting! So lash extensions are all the rage right now. Almost all my friends have them and love them. But I’m just not into it. I don’t want to keep up with them, I don’t like how they look when they start falling out, I don’t like how you can’t put mascara on so once you put eyeshadow on, it makes your lashes a lighter color. I’m just not into them. No offense to anyone that is, again, most of my friends have them. So whenever I go out, I just put on fake lashes because I don’t mind that. BUT one day while I was doing the normal instagram explore feed stalking, I came across something about lash lifts. I had never heard of it and quickly did a google search and watched this quick video. So lash lifting is pretty much perming for your lashes. You can see the full how-to video here. They cleanse your eyes of all makeup, tape your lower lashes down so they don’t curl up too, then they put these silicone pads on your eyelids and pull the lashes up onto the pad then use a perming solution to curl them. This is left on for 20 minutes or so before they remove it then she also tinted my lashes. It is totally pain free, no burning occurred. It was simple and painless. In and out the door in probably 40 minutes!
Below is a photo of my lashes before, then right after (with no makeup on), then with mascara on. I seriously have LOVE the results!
And here is a photo from the side so you can see how the lashes turn up!
I didn’t know anyone who did lash lifts, so I simply hopped on yelp and looked up lash lift and found Lashology which had awesome reviews and they were great and super professional!
{UPDATE ON LASH LIFTING: I went back in after 5 weeks since my lashes were beginning to drop just slightly. This time I had a different person than the first time and she TOTALLY f*cked up. Instead of “perming” then part of the lash at the lash line, she permed the entire lash so my lashes completely turned in instead of just up. So curly that I couldn’t even put mascara on or fake lashes. So I called the manager and she had me come in to try to fix it. It’s better now but still a tad too curly. So going forward, I won’t go back there or probably get them done again. I LOVED it the first time, but they f*cked up bad the next time around. I honestly wouldn’t recommend going there now, sadly.}
I’ve seriously loved all these treatments lately and would recommend all of them! If you have any sort of questions, feel free to ask them below! And if you are in the Colorado area, check out these amazing people and companies:
- Shawn at Cherry Hills Facial Aesthetics 720-459-7960
- Lea Curry at 720-252-3182
You should look into eyelash growth products for the false lashes look. I use Royal Lashes which is about 2 bottles for $50. Latisse is about $100 per bottle. One bottle lashes me about a month. My lashes are constantly getting complements. Mine aren’t very curly so I may look into a lash lift myself.
Do you have any problems with broken blood vessels? I have them all over my face and nose. My dermatologist performed V-beam on me but the side effects were pretty bad for a whole week. I am waiting for a long holiday weekend before trying to perform again.
I had one question. Is there a reason you use the Vivant Vitamin A products as opposed to the prescription Vitamin A products available since you regularly see a dermatologist?
Your permanent eyeliner looks soooo much better than another girl’s I saw before. They did the top of her lid and it wasn’t completely flush with her lash line and it drove me nuts to talk to her! I just thought she was kind of bad at putting on eyeliner then I found out it was permanent 🙁 So your story makes me a little more intrigued about getting it.
Also thanks for being so candid in your beauty posts!
What kind of under eye concealer do you use? I’ve been shopping around and yours looks great!
i link the exact brand in my makeup post (https://paleomg.com/my-skincare-routine-acne-lasers-dermaplane-and-more/) and share a tutorial here (https://paleomg.com/beauty-vlog-how-i-do-my-makeup/)
I’m assuming since you’re naturally blonde that your brows are blonde too, so how does that work with the microblading? Do you have to just be super vigilant about dying your brows so that you don’t look like a leopard with light and dark patches? Or are you just that lucky duck with naturally dark brows (in which case, I am 100% envious).
yep, they are lighter in color just like my hair so i dye them just as often as my hair!
Haha I literally was at lashology today for my second lash lift & tint appt! Symone is amazing! I went back after 4 weeks (didn’t do the math right…) anyways I definitely could’ve held out a lot longer. This time she gave a shorter curl, which made them really pop this time around! I will say for those looking to try it out… it’s best if you have long lashes to begin with since it’s just curling what you have. Plus they are a heck of a whole lot cheaper than extensions and you can treat them like you normally would aka no hiding from water! Love your beauty posts! I find all the different treatments out there interesting! I also went through a round of accutane in college and it was like a miracle worker for me and cleared me all up!
it really is such an awesome treatment, sooooo much cheaper and quicker!! i made an appt for 5 weeks out, not sure if it should be a little longer out, but i also wasn’t sure how they would look once they grew out haha, so we will see!
Hi Juli! I had a lot of the same skin problems as you growing up, and I’ve finally manged to get my face cleared up, except for the occasional pimple on my jaw-line, but I still have really gross blackheads/dirty pores all around my nose and leading into my cheeks. I was wondering if you had any products you could recommend? I use biore pore strips but they barely skim the surface, haha. Thank you!!
i talk about my favorite skincare products here: https://paleomg.com/my-skincare-routine-acne-lasers-dermaplane-and-more/ and i would highly recommend the skincare line i talk about. it has completely changed my skin and no black heads either
Oh my gosh this is so awesome!! All my friends have been getting eyelash extensions, and I didn’t want to b/c why ruin the ones I already have?! I have never heard of the lash lifting, but I will totally be trying this now! Love your beauty posts. Thank you!!
Love this post! I recently had a microneedling treatment done to try and smooth out my acne scars, and it sounds pretty similar to the laser treatment you had! It was insanely expensive, but hopefully worth it!
I really want to try the lash lifting now! SO cool!
–Roxanne
http://glassofglam.com
First off, I’m eating your pizza spaghetti pie right now and it’s amazing.
I love these posts! They make me wish I tried more treatments when I worked at a plastic surgery/skincare center. Have you tried Latisse? I also hate eyelash extensions because I sleep on my face, but Latisse worked wonders. I even used it on my sparse brows, but now I’m convinced I need to get on that microblading.
I’m also curious about eliminating eggs. I’ve had such a bad flare up the past year that I suspect is hormonal/stress/lifting but I don’t want to stop lifting 3x a week! I’ve made many eliminations (dairy, soy, most grains, refined sugars, shitty oils) but I’m curious how you figured eggs were the culprit? I googled egg allergy and it was WebMD extreme type symptoms. We buy bougie pasture raised happy eggs, so hoping those are better!
Looking forward to hearing more about the lasers! I tried a VI Acne Peel over holiday and loved the results. Just not the peeling like a snake.
someone on IG mentioned that eggs were causing their skin issues and i had never thought of that before so i immediately cut them out and my skin cleared up in that week!
Woah! Well there’s a good excuse for me to experiment with more of your egg free breakfast recipes and see how that goes!
Hi Julie … First … I’m a big big fan … been following you for a couple of years (not in the creepy way) … I live on the baked spaghetti! I wanted to put in my 2 cents today because of the subject matter … acne … I am 54 … Acne has been a living nightmare for me allllll my friggin life … probably a little worse than your pics … till about 5 years ago … the poison I dumped from my life??? ASPARTAME … standing in line at the grocery store reading part of an article about it … I didn’t get the chance to finish it standing there so I went home and looked it up … even a sip or a bite of that crap will set it off. As the last few years have past my skin has almost completely healed itself. I am poor and can not afford a bunch of professional work … so my routine is very simple … basis soap 2 times a day and DermaE in the morning and at night … my scars are all but gone. Not only has my skin cleared but that horrible crap was also keeping my joints inflamed … so watch for it as it in an amazing amounts of different things. I’m a “lable crazy person” I don’t put ANYTHING in my basket without looking for that! … Oh ya … I think you are AMAZING!!! 🙂