Why Am I So Insecure About My Skin?

Josh Felgoise (00:00.206)

Welcome to Guy's Set, the guy's guide to what you should be talking about. I'm Josh, I'm 23 years old, and I'm here to find all the tips, advice, and recommendations for guys in their 20s. Let's get into it.

Josh Felgoise (00:17.902)

Hi guys, welcome back to guyset, the guys guide to what should be talked about. Today's topic is definitely one that guys should be talking about and one that I haven't heard a lot of conversations around, especially from guys in their twenties who are experiencing it currently or have experienced it recently. And that thing being acne and pimples and really bad shit all over your face that makes you feel like a terrible human being. So.

This episode is going to be all about my experience with acne. My, one of my closest friends throughout high school that I never liked, never, never had a good time with very toxic friendship, if you will, very toxic relationship and pimples and just dealing with it all throughout high school and in college and now, and how it has affected my mental health throughout high school and in college, how I've treated my acne, how I've

how I've dealt with it. like, it's, as I said, it's relationship that most of us know, it's relationship that literally none of us wanted or asked for. And a lot of us have to deal with and go through and figure out how to live with and treat. So I wanted to talk about that because I feel like a lot of guys aren't talking about acne and their skin and skincare and mental health around your appearance and how you look at yourself and perceive yourself. But

I dealt with it and I'm on the other side now to tell you about it and I hope you are too. So let's get into it. I first want to say that I am not a medical professional. I have not been a medical professional and I probably never will be a medical professional. So take all of that with everything I say like with a grain of salt basically because I'm really just sharing my experience with acne. I don't claim to be a dermatologist and I never I probably won't ever be. I did reach out to my dermatologist for comment and she did not respond to my email.

So, I won't be having her on, but I will have somebody else on my old dermatologist when I was in high school, but I will hopefully be having somebody who can talk about skincare and all this stuff on soon to kind of supplement just my conversation here. But I wanted to just kick off this conversation here by talking about my experience with it, because if you have dealt with acting before, you know, that's one of the most debilitating debilitating debilitating debilitating things. When you see yourself in the mirror and like.

Josh Felgoise (02:39.06)

You're looking at your phone constantly throughout the day, knowing that you have a huge fucking pimple on your face and you're taking pictures of your with your Snapchat or your front camera and just like looking at it from different angles and like trying to see how everybody else perceives you with this huge fucking thing on your face. Even though they're not paying attention to it as much as you are. mean, some people are obviously like, let's not be let's not lie to ourselves and say that people aren't paying attention to the acne on our face. Like they are, they see it, but it's not like it's not living rent free in their head like it is on our on our face. It's literally like the biggest house in the fucking neighborhood on our face.

But to them, it's like not that big of a deal. They see you have pimple. They're like, OK, he's dealing with that. Like that sucks. But they're not like disgusted and like deterred from talking to you. But to you, it feels that way because he feels like you have this mountain on your face that's ruining the day and has already ruined your mind. He's just like sitting rent free. So I'm already off topic. But you probably are like, Josh, you had bad acne. What? You? Your beautiful face. You had acne on your face. Yes, I had like

such bad acne, ninth grade, 10th grade, that, as I said, was like so debilitating and it made me feel so bad about myself. Like whenever I walked down the halls, I knew people were looking at me because they saw the acne and like, you already feel pretty terrible leaving for school, knowing that you look the way you look. You've already seen yourself in the mirror. You've already picked at your face or your pimples, even though you've been advised not to try and get rid of them, taking, as I said, all these pictures of yourself and like knowing that everybody at school is going to see you like this.

that girl you have a crush on, she's gonna see you with this huge red disgusting lump on your face and all of your friends are gonna notice it. And it's just like, it's a thing. Like it's the not talked about thing on your face that you can't hide. And you can do all you can to put your hand over it and turn to the side and like try and be all like quirky and like look to the side and like try and avoid. But at end of the day, you have a massive pimple on your face and it's gonna be there. In my case, it was a lot more than just one big pimple.

Now, nowadays I feel like I get like one and it's the weak ruiner for me. But before it was like all over, I feel like I would have a lot of my chin and my cheeks and they call this the T zone, the part like under your eye on your nose. Like it was pretty bad. And it just made me feel so bad about myself for no reason. And like, I'm sure if you've ever dealt with acne, you know exactly what I'm talking about. If you haven't, you're a lucky son of a bitch. And I've always been jealous of you and I always will be. But otherwise it's just like, it's shitty. So yes.

Josh Felgoise (05:04.632)

To answer your question, I have dealt with pretty bad acne. And I tried literally everything. I used to go to this dermatologist at home that my mom would always take me to. And my sister had gone there and my brother had gone there. It's like, if you know anything about acne, it's a pretty familial thing. What's the word? Like it stems from your parents and your genetics. It's a genetic thing. So pretty much everybody in my family dealt with pretty bad acne. My mom never did.

So the acne stem from my dad's side, dad, if you're listening, thank you very much for that. I appreciate it. And then my sister and brother had it pretty bad as well. And then I was, I was the next one. So I got, I got lucky enough, similar to them to also have pretty bad acne. And I would just try everything. So I tried all the over the counter creams. I tried all the, every ad you see, you've seen that ad with Adam, Adam Levine, where it looks like he's holding a penis, but it's actually his finger pointing to the proactive bottle. It's so funny.

I've tried all that shit. tried literally everything there was to try. And then at the dermatologist, they would give you prescription creams and you would try that and it would dry out your face. And they would like there was all these steps you had to take and like, don't do this, do this. You have to put this on every single night. Put this one in the morning. I used to like label my creams like one, two, three, and like the order I was supposed to put it on. And I felt like I was like washing my face and doing all this from a pretty young age. Whereas a lot of guys aren't doing any of that stuff. That's probably where a lot of my

skincare routine stemmed from. also had a have a sister. Thank God she's still here. I also have a sister and she also set me up pretty well with like a skincare like I give her all the credit for all that stuff. I probably would have never known about that otherwise. And if you don't have a sister or a sibling to have like shown you the ropes in that respect, that's what I'm here to do today. So if you have no idea you're supposed to have a skincare routine or know that you're supposed to be washing your face every night, hey.

You should be washing your face every night. We'll get into that, but you should be washing your face because we have skin like girls do and we don't prioritize it like they do, but we should. So we'll talk about that. But, I had the, as I was saying, the worst acne, I tried everything. And then the final result, like Saul, the final stage is to take this thing called Accutane. And it's a prescription medicine that is super intense. And it has like some pretty bad side effects of

Josh Felgoise (07:23.182)

hair loss and lips. my fucking God. You have not seen chapped lips like I had. my lips would go down to my chin. And if you've seen the Dark Knight, if you know who the Joker is, you definitely know who the Joker is when he's like, where is she? Like, where's Rachel? That is literally how I looked. And I've said that before and I will always say that. Like when I would go to school, my lips were falling off of my face, like into my lunch. It was so gross. And...

I have so again, like I took so many pictures of my face, like trying to see what everybody else would see because they did like they all saw me like this actual fucking Frankenstein monster walking through the halls. My lips would go down to my chin. They would be cracking. They would fall off. They were on the floor like it was so nuts. And to this day, if you watch this episode right now, I have pretty bad chapped lips in the winter every time. But I think it's also just one of the side effects from taking that.

I don't know if that's how side effects work that it stays with you forever, but I feel like it did for me at least. And I now use Aquaphor like it is my job, not sponsored. I wish it was, but that is like the thing that I was recommended to by my dermatologist and I've never gone back from there. And it's this, it's a lip treatment like ChapStick, but it's more intense and you like globs this thing on it. It looks like you're wearing lip gloss at all times of the day. If you ever drink from a glass, your lips will be imprinted on that glass because of it.

But that's my way of life now since I've been on that, since I was on that medication, I think it was like a one time period. But again, there's also really other bad side effects from that medication, like hair loss. I've talked about that before. Like I lost some of my hair like here and here on the sides of my head. And that really sucked. They told me that that was a possible side effect and like everybody gets, gets it pretty different. It just depends on how your body reacts to it, but you have to take blood work every month basically. And they

have to like make sure your your blood tests are good so you can continue doing it for girls. I think you have to take like what's it called birth control girls have to take birth control with it. They can't get pregnant. I luckily didn't have that problem when I was taking it because I can't get pregnant otherwise and there's also like you can get pretty depressed on it. You're not supposed to drink on it. A lot of people do but you're like really recommended not to. It was out of the sun.

Josh Felgoise (09:38.38)

because you get insanely sunburnt, which is another shit side effect of it. I was always sunburnt and always like chapped lips. I literally looked like a monster. Like I felt like a monster walking around. I looked like it and like, it's so sad. Like if you're in that position and you have really bad acne and then the treatment leads to these other things that like make you look even worse. Like I was getting rid of my acne, sure. But then I had all these other side effects that I was like, I fucking look like a cyclops. Like this is so terrible.

so if anybody's in that position right now, if you're listening, or if you know somebody in that position who has really bad acne, let them know from me that it does get better. There are treatments and there are fixes. I mean, it truly, truly depends on each person. Some people get fixed much easier and some people like don't have to go to that final straw of Accutane, which is this like crazy medicine that has all these really shit side effects, to get rid of your acne. But I mean, my skin is really clear now. I'm so thankful I did it when I did it because it was, I was like late high school, so I wasn't really like.

drinking or doing all the things I was going to do in college that would have all these really shit side effects with it. So feel like I did it at a really good time. But at the time it was like the worst thing in the world because all these people saw me every day in high school and high school is also just one of the hardest places to be. I feel like in general. But luckily I came into college feeling good about my skin because it was pretty clear at that time. So that's kind of my experience with acne. It's not it's not a good one. It's pretty bad. I feel like nobody has a good experience with it but.

Some have it better than others. I definitely fell in the category of not good, not a good experience. But I got to a place now with my skin where I feel really good about it. That doesn't mean that I won't randomly have like a really bad pimple and it has the same debilitating effect as I had in high school. I had one two days before my birthday this year and it was like smack dab in the center of my cheek. And I sometimes feel like one pimple can be worse than a bunch because it's like, that.

Mount Vesuvius has erupted on your face. Happy birthday. Like that's how I felt walking into my birthday because every you're saying hi to everybody and you have this huge fucking thing on your face and I had done everything I can to get rid of it. But I also don't like popping pimples because then they can lead to a scar or a little like divot dent in your face. So I really stay away from that. But my whole birthday this year I was like that that was on my face and it fucking sucked and they come at the best times they really do. So my birthday I had a really bad one it was like

Josh Felgoise (12:01.198)

An important week at work a while back when I think I was giving a presentation and I had one on my like right below my lip and I was just constantly trying to like cover my mouth with like my like cup or like I felt like an actress in a TV show trying to hide that she was pregnant. Like you're like walking around hiding behind like flower pots and holding baskets like that was me the entire day trying to the whole week trying to like hide this huge fucking pimple on my face. Excuse me. And every time

somebody would come up to me, I'd be like, Hey, just letting you know, like, this isn't herpes. And I feel like I had to like, preface that maybe they didn't even notice it when I said it. And I was like, or I would try and bring it up before they could. And I feel like I always did this in high school too. Where I like, I would like make like a joker joke and be like, where is he? Where instead of somebody, I didn't sound that crazy, but I would like in conversation, bring it up. So there was no like elephant in the room of a really bad pimple. So when somebody, when I talked to somebody knew that day, I'd be like,

Can you believe this guy? Like make like a really shit joke about the pimple on my face that like they probably didn't even notice, but it was sitting so rent free in my head that uh, that I would always bring it up first. And whenever I brought it up, they'd be like, I didn't even notice it. Like, why are you like, why, why did you draw so much attention to it? Cause now it's the only thing I can focus on. That's the only thing I can think about is that huge pimple on your face, but otherwise I was not thinking about it. So if you're in that position where you feel like you have like two fucking huge pimples that everyone's looking at.

They're not. mean, as I said, we're being realistic, like they're noticing it, but they're not focusing on it, focusing in on it like you are. And it's not living rent free in their head. So just know that. And then I want to talk about what I do now with pimple. So I said every once in a while, like my birthday that week, I get like a really bad pimple. I really try and leave it alone. Like I know some people pop it and there's pro pimple poppers out there. That's not me. you do whatever works for you, but I just haven't been that guy. Cause I just don't like doing it.

Cause as I said, feel like it leaves scars. don't even know if it does or not, but it's happened to me before and I don't want to do it again. So I'll usually leave it, or I'll do like a cold compress or something, which basically is a washcloth that you put cold water on or hot water on hot, hot compress, not cold, and try and like bring it down from where it was before. so I that a lot for my birthday this year. but it's like, just like a waiting game. I also have found that, what's it called?

Josh Felgoise (14:25.166)

There's a there's a pimple cream that I really like hold on let me get the name hold on okay I'm back, and I found him it's called different It's different gel and it's over-the-counter and you can find it at like any CVS And I found that this really works for pimples so if you have like one or two bad pimples It's like basically a spot treater So it's not for like your entire face if you have them all over your face And you're probably have to go for something different like I had to for all of those years But this is great for like one or two big pimples

And I feel like it works pretty well. that's my recommendation for like a one or two, it's called different D I F F E R I N again, not a doctor. So don't, don't take, take us with a grain of salt. If it, is like not doctoral doctorate advice, uh, just Josh advice, guys said advice. Uh, this has worked for me. Also everybody gets pimples. So like, you're not, if you have one or two once in a while, like, okay, yeah, that happened. And like all good. Everybody gets pimples. Don't, don't, don't worry so much.

Especially now that I'm getting older, I'm realizing that like once in a while, everybody has, I feel like everybody has like one bad pimple. There's stuff people with like really great skin who know, who don't deal with this. But if you're in that boat, try this or that hot compress situation, but do it works for you. And then I want to talk about my skincare routine because I feel like a lot of people, especially a lot of guys don't have a skincare routine because we're just like, like we don't have to take care of it. Like we'll shower and then go to bed or.

brush our teeth and just go to bed. And like, that's crazy because there's so much oil and shit on your face from the day of like sweat and all this stuff. And I feel like for a while I would just like wash, put my hands under water and just like splash myself like in a vino commercial and as if that did literally anything. So this is my note to you to try and start a skincare routine, which is basically two steps. It's all you really need is two steps. The first one being face wash or cleanser, they call it, special name for it.

It's just face wash pretty much. think, I think again, not a doctor. then second one is a moisturizer. I don't know why it's those two things, but it is now I sound dumb, but, I should have done some more research on that. I know those are the two steps that most people have in their skincare routine. So I went through a lot of ways to find my stuff that works for me, which can sound really annoying and very hard to decide what to buy first, but I would really just like look at what's.

Josh Felgoise (16:48.224)

Recommended online. I feel like a lot of the recommendations are good. I'm just gonna pull up like a list right now I'm just gonna put like best face wash for guys and see what comes up and then just read through them I use this one. It's called dr. Dennis gross. It's kind of expensive So I'm probably gonna not use this one forever But this was one that I got a deal online from like Black Friday and my sister uses it as I said She like get all of her shit from her but there's a lot cheaper versions and like if you're just starting out you don't have to go so Intense here men's health comm the 16 best face washes according to expert

which I am not. let's turn to the experts. They say there's a Cetaphil Daily Cleanser. think you could start there. There's a gentle. there's also like what works for your face. So there's gentle and there's not gentle. There's also a Akeel's one, KIEHL, Method Men Face Wash, CeraVe Face Wash. I think you can go to CBS and just like pick one out. I don't think it is that big of a deal. And then once you get

I'm looking at also on to GQ's website. Hold on. They have more experts. The best gentle one is called the ordinary best face wash for dry skin. They have best drugstore face. Watch is the Neutrogena Neutrogena Hydro Boost. That's another really good one. I've also used La Roche L L L Roche R O C H E Posey P O S A Y. That's another good one I've used. It looks it's like a blue bottle. So I would start there. think Neutrogena La Roche Posey

or any of the other ones I said, feel like would all be really good places to start. You don't need something so expensive and you can just find something over the counter that you're happy with, walk into a CVS, this like Neutrogena Hydro Boost one I think is a good one. Just getting yourself on the train of starting to wash your face at night instead of just not doing it or washing your face with water. We have so many oils and gross shit in our skin at end of the day, so this is a good thing to do before you go to bed.

I do it before I go to bed, don't do it in the morning. I don't know when I'm supposed to, maybe I should research that as well. And then a moisturizer. I don't always use a moisturizer. I feel like I also probably should. And I would do the same thing for like best men's moisturizers and go from there. I'll put together a list of the ones I recommend on my Instagram. I'll do a post. If you follow me, it's called at the guys at T H E G Y S E T. So I think that's a good place to start there. But

Josh Felgoise (19:09.142)

If you want to, think you should start getting into a like skincare routine. It doesn't have to have that label on it. You can just wash your face at night. That's cool too. but Google like best face wash for men, best moisturizer for men and start there and like read some reviews, get comfortable with what you're going to buy. read the directions of it on the back. It usually is put water on your face. I use cold water. I don't know why, but I always do, use cold water and then wash, not wash away the water, cold water.

And then put on the moisturizer on your hand and like, I usually put a little water onto it and then rub it into my face and not to go so aggressive, just like get it in there and then wash it off with cold water. And then, Ooh, this is big. Don't use the same towel you use for your shower, for your face. Okay. Because who knows where that towel is going. We're putting that towel. I mean, you know where that towel is going. I know where that towel is going. Do you really want that on your face as well? No, no, you don't. So

Use a separate towel for your face than you do for your body and your showers. Because again, we know where that towel is going when you're drying off. Do you want your face in that same spot? Do you want your face in that same spot? That's where I'm to leave you. That's where I'm going to leave you with that piece of advice. for a while I was doing that and I was like trying to find the place on the towel that I didn't, you know, wash that part of my body. And then I was like, I don't know where I've, you, you, you dry yourself off so fast. You don't even know what you're using. So

Definitely use a different towel and this is a reminder to wash your towels I feel like I'm in a lot better a place than I was before especially in high school and those times when I was taking all that medication and Dealing with it and in that like pretty debilitating place. So the things that I did really worked for me They don't always work for everybody. Everybody has a very different situation and different scenario with their skin but if I could leave you with anything it would be to try and start a face wash and moisturizer routine at night

instead of just going to bed. And I feel like guys don't talk about this a lot. We don't talk about skincare like ever. I just wanted to be like open and honest with you guys about my experience with it because it's so shitty and we all go through, a lot of us go through it. Not everybody, as I said, but a lot of us go through it. And I feel like it's a conversation I've never had with friends. It's always been a conversation in my mind and in my head only and about how I'm feeling about it and how shitty I'm feeling about it. So the fact that I now have a place where I can talk about this openly to whoever wants to hear it.

Josh Felgoise (21:34.786)

This may not be the most interesting episode I do, but I think it's really important to talk about this topic. This is one of those big topics I wrote down in the beginning of starting this show where I was like, this one needs to be talked about because I've struggled with acne a ton, struggle with my mental health around acne. As I said, I talked pretty badly to myself about my acne in my own head and you're always your worst critic and your worst enemy in that respect. Like nobody else is thinking about it as much as you are. And you can get yourself to a pretty shitty place.

when you're always thinking about how bad you look and how everybody else must perceive you. And acne and like your physical appearance has a pretty direct interaction with your mental, your mental health and your mental space and how you're thinking about yourself. And when you're talking to yourself so negatively, it just gets worse and worse. So it's pretty easy to kind of downward spiral in that respect. So I'm happy I'm now in a place that I'm a lot better with my skin and mental health around my skin. I hope you are too. And if you're not,

Just know that it does get better or if you're not there right now, just know that it does get better and your skin will clear up with whether it takes eight treatments, whether it takes one, whether it takes one medicine or one cream or you start washing your face and moisturizing and that helps too. another thing, change your sheets. I noticed that changing my sheets is also a really big part of helping get rid of my acne. My pillowcase is like changing them pretty often, whether it's once a week or every week and a half, two weeks.

So change your pillowcases often is another tip that I have for you around acne. But just know that it does get better. And like, I'm here to tell you that I was in the worst position ever in high school with acne. And now I'm here talking about it and able to reflect on it. I never thought that day would be able to come that I would sit here and like talk about it as it was in the past. It's not always in the past, of course, as I said, like I'll get one or two pimples every now often. But the place in my life where my face was covered with it is hopefully knock on wood always in the past.

so that's, that's my experience with it. I hope you had a better experience than I did. And if you didn't hear, I am to tell you that I had it too. So thank you so much for listening to this episode. I really hope you liked it and I hope it made you feel seen or heard if you're, if you ever had that similar experience. if you this episode, I really hope you did please like subscribe, follow the podcast, leave a review, leave five stars on Spotify, Apple podcasts, wherever you're listening to this.

Josh Felgoise (23:51.574)

sent in any questions, advice, things you me to talk about, things that should be talked about like this, like acne for guys to my email, josh j o s h at guyset.com, g u i s e t.com, or to my DMS at the guy set T H E G U I S E T. And I will be sure to talk about it and answer your questions and emails. or on the website, there's a little section on guyset.com, g u i s e t.com for you to put all that stuff as well. And thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope you liked it and I will see you guys next Tuesday. See you guys.