I'm going to be honest. I am a Skincare founder with Problem Skin.
My skin and I are not the glossy, photoshop perfection of typical beauty brands. I don't have naturally beautiful skin - so why should anyone trust my products? Truth is: I have and will always have, rosacea. It is a skin disorder that has no medical cure. No amount of advertising claims will change that. But this is the skin I am in and although it took me a while, I've learned to manage it and more importantly, to love it.
Allergies, eczema, conjunctivitis, rosacea, sinus - I've spent years plagued with issues, with some so severe I ended up having surgeries. Doctors think that its mostly genetic/ immune-related in my case. Today, I'm happy for my scars. They each tell a story. For example, the one on my neck was a surgery to remove a tumor that had grown to the size of an egg. It left me with a slightly uneven jawline and damaged nerves on the side of my face, but I came out of it a new person - one determined to find only solutions.
I have smaller scars across my cheeks and chin. They tell you about how I started Snow Fox Skincare. *Note - none of the below photos have edited except for cropping to size.
What Rosacea looked like on me:
It may sound strange, but I found my problems with skin were the hardest to deal with. Harder than surgery and biopsies. Because having highly visible problems that lasted for months at a time was an erosive, slow type of suffering. I was often anti social for weeks at a time, too ashamed to go out. It really hurt my self esteem when people made comments. And they sure did - in one particular case, I was told by a make up counter staff to go "see a doctor because makeup isn't going to help you". Ironically, I had just left a dermatologist's office and was desperately looking for something to cover up. Another time at an airport, the customs officer (after looking at my passport photo) asked me outright, "What happened to you?"
My condition is best described as "Papulopustular Rosacea, Subtype 2. " Seen here: (courtesy of www.rosacea.org)
As you can see, Subtype 2 is characterized by red, inflamed skin with grainy little pustules that resemble acne. My T zone was really oily, but my lower cheek and chin area were dry, flaky and itchy, with most areas bright red and hypersensitive. Antibiotics, creams, facials, products, lasers, chemical peels, dietary changes and naturopathic treatments didn't fix the problem. It would always come back without warning, like a curse. Some treatments made me worse or gave me horrible side effects.
Blood tests have not indicated much and specialists think that it could be anything from stress, food, environmental allergies to weather change. (Pretty much, life.) Unfortunately, I know firsthand, the impact of a visibly bad health condition has on self esteem. You can't hide all your skin. But you can learn to manage it. Like I do.
Skin with Snow Fox: Still my Skin.
These photos above are a much happier me in recent times. Now I enjoy being accused of having genetically good skin (the irony). There are still days where it gets a bit dry or red, but I don't mind - it's nothing like before. This is more than just a business to me, I actually depend on Snow Fox each day to manage. It still makes me cringe a little to see how bad my old photos look, but the improvement feels great. There's no shame in the truth.
According to the National Rosacea Society (www.rosacea.org), there are around 16 million people in the US that suffer from it. This is not including people with cystic acne, hyper-pigmentation and other issues. If I can run a growing company, have a baby, fly all over the world between opposite climates - without triggering severe rosacea like I did in the past, I'm confident that Snow Fox Skincare will continue to help others like myself.
Each day, the Team and I continue to passionately research and create new products to help a diverse range of skin and skin problems.
Phoebe Song
Founder
Snow Fox Skincare
IG: @phoebe.spamonkeys