A DISTRAUGHT mum-of-two says an agonising skin condition left her looking like she had “permanent sunburn”.
Bethan Jones says her face erupted in angry red bumps so severe she’d cry after seeing herself on Zoom.
The 33-year-old aesthetician was hit with a painful skin condition after the grief and stress of losing her grandad triggered a dramatic flare-up.
She said: “It was as if a light had flicked and my skin just blew up.”
She suffered from papulopustular rosacea, which turned her skin bright red, cracked and painfully bumpy.
Bethan, who works in the beauty industry, said her confidence was crushed.
For two years, her face was in constant turmoil, leaving her terrified that clients were staring at her skin.
She revealed: “The condition impacted my day-to-day life as I worked in the aesthetics field myself, so it made me feel like I wasn’t credible in my own job.
“It made me extremely self-conscious. I always worried that people were looking at my skin.
“I thought, how is anybody else going to trust me to help them with their skin if I look like this?”
The mum-of-two from Maesteg in South Wales sadly said she would cry about how her skin felt and looked.
Even video calls became a nightmare, with Bethan often in tears over her reflection.
Family comments about how “sore” she looked, however well-meaning, only made things worse.
Desperate to disguise the redness, Bethan plastered on make-up, but the dryness and sensitivity left her stinging and stuck in a painful pattern of masking her condition.
She said: “I was in a vicious cycle of trying to cover it up and making it worse with make-up.”
“I have spent hundreds on treatments, used other medical-grade brands, been prescribed medication from the GP that would only temporarily help until the medication was stopped and then it would come straight back.”
Pregnancy made matters even worse for her skin thanks to the hormonal changes in her body.
She experienced her worst flare-up yet, with her face becoming so sore it sometimes bled.
While hunting for new solutions, Bethan eventually came across a skincare range, AlumierMD, that finally started to calm things down.
Bethan can now pinpoint her triggers, she said: “For me, it’s alcohol or too much sun exposure.”
“They give me breakouts, but they’re not severe, I don’t get that full flare-up across my face that I did previously,” she said.
“Of course, you can never completely get rid of rosacea, it’s a chronic condition,” she added.
“I used to cry every day, looking at my skin and wondering if it would ever get better.
“Now I finally feel like myself again, confident, happy and proud of the skin I’m in.”
