Condition My Condition Is In

I have been thinking a lot lately about the god-awful condition my skin is in.

Recently, I read about how Cetaphil (Dermatologist recommended) contains potentially cancer-causing parabens. Immediately after reading this, I tossed my half-used jar of moisturizer under the sink into the land of forgotten beauty products. As a replacement, I picked up an previously tossed aside, unopened bottle of jojoba oil.

But considering the condition my condition was in... I took it a step further and ordered a sulfur mask from Sephora and a cleanser+toner from Bliss.

To add to this last attempt at skin normality, I started up taking zinc again. Luckily, past me - whose immune system took a nose dive after taking too large of a dose over the course of three weeks - broke all the pills in half for future me.

Now, I'm pondering a ridiculously hard diet change. I just read an article on dairy and sugar causing acne. The dairy bit doesn't make sense to me personally, because I didn't really drink milk/eat cheese until college. I do, however, take in a lot of sugar.

Here is a list of everything I have eaten today:

Leftovers from V-day dinner, Sauerbraten (marinated beef and spaetzle)
Salami
Pickles
Chinese food, Beef and broccoli with chicken fried rice and egg drop soup
Cheez-its
Instant pudding
Sweet Tea

Here is a list of the items I have eaten today that do not contain sugar or dairy:

Pickles
Egg drop soup

My impending diet of egg drop soup and pickles reminds me of a joke.

Patient: Doctor, do you think that I shall live until I am ninety?
Doctor: How old are you now?
Patient: 40
Doctor: Do you drink, gamble, smoke or do you have any other vice?
Patient: No. I don't drink. I don't gamble. I don't smoke. I have no vice.
Doctor: Then why do you want to live for another fifty years?

I don't think it would be miserable to not eat my favorite foods... I just don't think it's a step I'm willing to take... today. I don't know what tomorrow will bring. My aunt once subsisted on peanut butter and banana sandwiches. A hearty diet of nothing but plants, water, rice and personally cooked meats wouldn't mean the end of days.

For now, I'll keep up with doing the sulfur mask once a week, washing twice a day with the Bliss cleanser... taking zinc at night and rubbing jojoba oil frantically on my combination skin while sacrificing a goat to Lucifer and promising to be a better, more generous person to God. If all this nonsense doesn't work out, I could move to an even colder climate and wear a ski mask all hours of the day OR move to a tropical climate and be constantly sun-burnt as a way to distract from acne. The lobster look is trending.

If only.