Trying to Delay the Inevitable with Self-care

6 min readSep 7

“Apply generously on face and neck”

I read aloud to myself.

Course they want me to apply generously, it’s how they’ll get me to use more of their product and get me to buy another tin, init?

I never really had a skincare routine when I was younger, but growing up I was very conscious about how my face felt. My strangest habit would be that right after I have a shower and get dressed I have to wash my face in a random sink in the house (usually the kitchen), before I go on my way. Additionally being Sri Lankan I am blessed with melanin rich skin that has held itself for quite sometime. Till I was 30 the only visual facial mark is a scar from chicken pox I had when I was a child. Now that I have crossed the threshold I have slowly started to crack.

Last September a few short weeks of my birthday I made the mistake of looking at myself in the mirror while tripping on LSD. I watched my face age slowly, getting all wrinkly and loose before it melted off my face. I quickly looked away, took a deep breath and looked at myself again. I knew I was tripping so I didn’t freak out. But I did decide to take better care of my skin, of my body, of my temple, of my prison.

Protect the Money Maker

The first habit I started with, was a face wash. Usually it’s something everyone does in the shower with whatever soap their using to wash the rest of the body. But nope, studies and (mostly) marketing will tell you that you need to wash your face with a special cream every morning and night. I decided to go ahead with Spa Ceylon’s White Mint Facial Cleansing Foam as my weapon of choice to fight the oil and dirt that covers my skin after a day out in tropical Sri Lanka. I don’t really notice a major difference but a face wash in the morning kickstarts me for the day and a face wash at night relaxes me before bed.

Still not me — Photo by Tadeusz Lakota on Unsplash

I also apply a sunscreen plus moisturiser if I happen to step out of the house to protect my skin from the harsh Colombo sun and dirt. I picked it up from a 7–11 in Thailand which has kept me safe from…