#ClearProof Acne System Review

 

      It seems like, lately, my acne has been uncontrollable. Or so it seemed. The skin clearing products that I had been using for months just did not appear to be doing anything for my skin. I constantly had spots appearing, specifically around my jawline area. I eventually went back to using my Neutrogena Wave, which seemed to help slightly, but not to my hopes. The ClearProof acne system, however, has surpassed my expectations and I honestly look forward to washing my face every night.

     The clarifying cleansing gel is the first step to my skin routine. I use this as my face wash when I am in the shower. Am I the only one who washes their face in the shower? I just like to give the cleanser a chance to set into my skin before I move onto the other steps of my skin care routine. This stuff does a great job at getting deep into the skin and removing any extra dirt or makeup that makeup removers tend to neglect.

   
     The blemish control toner is the first product that I use once I am out of the shower. I put a small amount of this on a cotton pad and pat it all over my face, focusing on problem areas. In my opinion, this is the product that seems to do the most work for me. When I put it on acne areas, I can feel my face start to tingle, which is normal. This is an acne medication, so it starts working the second it reaches spots. It has done wonders for that area on my jawline, though, that I mentioned earlier.

     I use this acne treatment gel as a spot treatment. I use a very, very small amount of this product, yet it has still helped tremendously. It has definitely reduced the size and visibility of my spots and, hopefully (since I can't predict the future,) will prevent the return of these spots. A little bit surely goes a long way with this.

     The last product in this line that I use is the oil-free moisturizer. I actually use this product in the morning before applying my makeup and I have been really pleased with it thus far. It is not a heavy moisturizer by any means so those of you who struggle with oily skin, this is definitely for you! This is definitely the best moisturizer I have ever tried and I use a small amount of this as well so it should last me a long time (lucky me!) Not only does it moisturize the skin, but it also allows foundation and concealer to go on smoother and blend quicker.

     This is by far the best skin care line of products that I have ever tried and I recommend it to anyone who has similar problems that I mentioned above (having those stubborn spots that seem like they just will not go away!) If you wish to try out these products, here is a link where you will find a trial set of smaller products. http://www.marykay.com/en-US/Clear-Proof-Acne-System-The-Go-Set/10058968.partId Good luck, and goodbye acne!

These products were sent to me for consideration and feedback. All opinions are my own. :)

Feeling Grateful...

     I've been thinking about a lot of things recently that I believe are so important and I think all of you should be aware of. There are so many teenagers, adults even, that take so many things for granted. I am 110% guilty of this. There are a list of such simple yet such important things that I take for granted on a daily basis and I'm sure that my readers do this too. It's so important to be aware of everything that we're blessed with because there are so many people on this Earth that are not as lucky. A lot of discussions in my classes this week have been reflecting on this subject and it just inspired me to write about it. I'm not going to apologize for this blog post being so long because that's exactly the point. It needs to be long. I'm thankful for so many things. When I came up with the idea to write this post, I thought about waiting to post it until Thanksgiving, I'm sure you understand why, but I can't wait. We're not guaranteed tomorrow and these are things that need to be said.

My family has been with me through everything and I know that they are always my biggest support system no matter what.

I am convinced that I have some of the best friends in the entire world. They've put up with me for years and I still don't really understand why, but I'm so thankful for that. They've all been with me through a lot, we've laughed together and cried together and I have so many amazing memories with each of them. We're each other's therapists and I love them so much.

Music is something that I use as an escape, a hobby, and something that is definitely very important in my life. It astonishes me that somehow songwriters can paint pictures of every emotion imaginable in lyrics. It's beautiful. I'm so thankful for the concerts that I've been to and the ones that I'm going to in the future. Concerts are very hectic and stressful but they are also amazing experiences. I love seeing thousands of people coming together for a few hours singing along to their favorite songs together and supporting an artist that they all love.

I'm grateful for John Green's works that have had such a huge impact on me. No other author's books that I have read have had the impact on me that John's has had. His stories have truly changed the way that I look at life and I'm so happy for that. He is also part of the reason that I'm writing this post. And the reason that I hope to make an impact on people with the stories that I hope to write.

Of course there's the little things that I take for granted on a daily basis. I'm grateful that I wake up every day with a roof over my head and food to eat. I'm lucky to have a closet full of clothes to be able to wear. I'm grateful for the days when it gets chilly in Florida and the days when the leaves are on the ground. I'm thankful for Christmas time, staying inside with hot chocolate and Elf on repeat. I'm thankful for summer time when I can relax and don't worry about school work. I'm thankful for the teachers that I will never be able to forget as long as I live. I'm thankful for my YouTube subscribers and blog readers that never cease in making me smile. I'm thankful that I've woken up every single day for 17 years whether the days are good or bad, I'm thankful that I have the privilege to live them.

Last Year Of High School

     I can't believe that as I'm sitting here typing this, tomorrow is my final first day of high school. Yes, I am a senior and no, I am not as excited as I should be. I'm kind of almost dreading it. I don't know what it is I just haven't felt as upbeat and positive as I usually do. Which makes me really upset. I don't know what exactly I'm going through right now but I'm really hoping it ends quite quickly. Part of me just feels like I want my future to start now and just start the rest of my life. I know I need to enjoy my senior year to its fullest potential, and I intend to. Who knows how many of these people I will ever see again after these 180 days come to an end.
     I don't know why I'm in such a sad mood. Maybe part of it is because I'm uploading a vlog from my last fun day of summer. I just can't help but be upset that starting tomorrow I won't be able to see my best friends or boyfriend as much as I'm used to. I thought this would be my easiest year of high school but instead I'm anticipating it to be one of my hardest. I don't know what to expect with my classes as I don't know many of the teachers and I don't know of anyone who has the same classes that I do.
     If any of you are going into your senior year of high school, please try to enjoy it. I keep telling myself that I shouldn't be upset about things that I have no control over. I need to make as many memories in high school while I still can. I don't want to look back on my senior year and remember being sad all the time. I want to have fun memories with the very few friends that I have at my school.

Bloglovin'!

You guys can now follow me on Bloglovin' if you want to keep up with my blog and know whenever I upload a new post! It would mean a lot to me if you took the time to press the follow button :) Just click here if you would like to follow me.  Love you all!

Reflecting On The First Half Of 2014

     As it is now the middle of July, I thought now would be a wonderful time to reflect on all of the things that have happened in my life so far this year. In case you didn't know I finished my junior year of high school this year and in about a month I will be starting my final year which is kind of surreal to me. Hopefully it doesn't come too fast though as I'm enjoying the summer and don't want it to end.
     This year has been a very busy, up and down year for me so far. At the beginning of the year, the two beautiful children that my aunt and uncle were fostering went home to their family which was a very hard adjustment for my entire family considering they lived with my aunt and uncle for about a year.

     As the year progressed, things became more dramatic. I still don't want to discuss the situations out on the Internet but it's okay because everything is better now. I'm extremely happy with my life right now and I couldn't want anything else. (other than maybe a guinea pig and clothes. Clothes are always nice) I finished up my junior year, went to prom with my amazing boyfriend, somehow managed to pass my History End Of Course exam, I turned 17 and took a week long trip to Ohio to visit my wonderful family last month. In some ways my summer has been uneventful, but it's also been very relaxing which I am very thankful for. I'm looking forward to starting my senior year (I will be making a separate blog post about how I feel about that) and taking on the stressful but fulfilling journey that will come with my final year of high school. 

     I am so thankful to be blessed with an amazing family and a wonderful group of friends whom I hope to remain close with for the rest of my life. They are part of the reason that this year has been so great.

To finish out this post I will leave you all with some of my favorite pictures from this year so far.

Love you lots!

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Behind A Username

     I just filmed a video today about this subject but I am a lot better at saying what I really want to say through writing. When I'm speaking I just start rambling and lose track of what I'm really attempting to convey. It basically just becomes a jumbled mess. This is where I draw the line between my YouTube channel and my blog. I realize that not all of my blog readers are subscribed to my YouTube channel, if any of you are at all. Therefore, a lot of subjects might be repeated. So if you happen to be both one of my subscribers and readers, I hope you still find a way to enjoy both of my interpretations of certain subjects.
     Cyber bullying is a very important subject that I decided needed to be discussed as much as possible so of course I felt the need to include it on both of my most important communication devices (basically a fancy way of saying social media networks.) To me, cyber bullying, as well as bullying in general, is something that's hard to understand if you haven't experienced it. It just doesn't make sense to me why people feel the need to tear down other people, especially people that they don't even know, for absolutely no reason. A cyber bully is just someone hiding behind a username tearing someone else down. Why? What does it gain them? Does it make them feel better about them self? I'll never understand. Maybe I don't even want to understand.
     Putting myself on the Internet as I do is very risky. If you're someone who wants to start doing YouTube videos or writing a blog, I don't want this to scare you, it's just something that you need to be aware of. There are going to be people who love and support what you do and there are going to be those who do the opposite. I don't think there will ever be a person that walks this Earth who is truly loved by everyone that knows them. The world is filled with ignorant and judgmental people and unfortunately, I don't believe that will ever change. People aren't going to understand how your hobby can be the Internet and they will be quick to judge you for it.
     About a year ago I uploaded a rant video talking about a song that I thought was completely over the top and disrespectful. In the video I discussed how disgusting and obnoxious it is that people make false, offensive, accusations and think that it can be counted as humor. Well, this video was shared onto the Facebook page of the guy who wrote the song. He was criticizing me on the caption that he put with my shared video and I didn't know about it until one of my subscribers brought it to my attention. I then went to his page to find out that he shared my friend's video with disrespecting words for her as well. I stupidly started scrolling through the comments on my video and I was absolutely disgusted. The things people were saying about me were terrible and just despicable. Apparently, according to some lovely commenters, I started the Holocaust. Maybe it was meant as a "joke," but that is something that should not even be joked about let alone made as accusations. I received these Holocaust comments for at least 2 or 3 months after deleting the video.
     I deleted my video because after the songwriter shared my video, the comments started coming to my channel and other videos. I tried to report the songwriter on Facebook, and of course, Facebook did nothing about it. At first, I laughed at the ignorant comments but after the comment number started turning from hundreds to thousands, it just got to be too much. For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to read through every single comment searching for the few good comments from my subscribers (my subscriber count was low at this time so this was difficult.) When the good comments became harder and harder to find as the negative comments kept multiplying, I had to delete the video.
     Luckily the comments from that video have ceased but there are still occasions in which I get comments from people either putting words in my mouth or just completely misinterpreting something I've stated in a video. This is going to happen; you have to accept it if you want to do this kind of thing. I hope none of you go through an attack like I did, but you're going to have comments where people misunderstand you or they just want to insert their opinion. Basically, whenever you come across this, be the bigger person. If someone is being rude in a comment to you, just calmly respond to their comment and don't be rude back. Try to avoid the drama as much as possible. I didn't make my YouTube channel for the rude people. I made it for myself and I'm continuing it for the little group of almost 500 people that I absolutely adore. With every rude comment there's about 10 other wonderful comments that can make me smile no matter what.
     Though it may be difficult sometimes, don't let words get to you. Just keep your head up and continue doing what you love despite the opinions of others. Unless doing what you love involves illegal activities, then that's not really recommended and you might want to listen to the opinions of others. On a serious note though, if any of you are currently struggling with any situation of cyber bullying or if you deal with it in the future (although I hope you do not) I am 100% here for you. We can talk about it on Twitter, YouTube, anything like that and I will try to give you the best advice that I can because I love each and every one of you.

A look inside my mind at 1 A.M.

   

     It's probably not very "professional" to start writing a blog post with absolutely no idea in mind of what I want to write; but who says my blog has to be professional? I don't get paid for this. I'm very tired right now, but I have things to do. Things to write about. Videos to edit. I don't do this very often, the whole staying up late thing. My choice of bed time usually ranges from about 10:30 to 11:30. I am an 80 year old stuck in a 17 year old's body.
     I wish that I could be one of those people who says "What's the point of sleep? It's just more hours of your life gone to waste." Although I do love sleep so much and part of me wishes that that is what I could be doing right now, I do, in some instances, agree with that state of mind. But in my honest opinion, if I didn't have anything productive to do at this hour, I would be too bored to stay up this late. While during the day I watch my fair share of Zoella videos for the 10th time and try and catch up on the episodes of Gossip Girl that I am literally years behind on, I would be too bored to have those as my only options to do in the night. Listening to Ed Sheeran's beautiful voice will just make me even more tired so that's not even an option for me.
     Is this post strictly about sleep? Wow, okay. I really don't even care if anyone reads this, this is strictly for my own entertainment at this point. Well my video editing for the night is gone and now it is 2:18 in the morning so I think it's time for me to go to bed. Thank you for reading my random thoughts. I promise my other posts will be more exciting. Well, we can only hope.

"Our Little Infinity"

   

     Hello everyone. I hope you haven't forgotten about me. I planned to catch up on Pretty Little Liars tonight, but I like my choices of sitting down and writing for you guys so much more. I've been in a really deep and inspirational mood lately and I don't know if it's because I've seen The Fault In Our Stars twice in a span of about a week or not, but I'm sure that has something to do with it.

     I didn't intend to make this post about The Fault In Our Stars, but I guess in a way it kind of reflects on it. I'm not going to talk about the story, I'm going to talk about the lesson. Everyone, I'm sure, has their own interpretations and ideas about the book/movie. The obvious lesson is that love can survive even when we do not, but what I think about the most after reading the book 3 times and seeing the movie twice, is that we only get one shot at life. That might seem kind of harsh and scary, especially if you're Augustus Waters and fear oblivion, but oblivion is inevitable. None of us are going to be remembered by everyone.
     Whether you're loved by 5 people or 500 people, you're still loved by someone. And in some really sad cases, I know there are some of you out there that feel like you're loved by no one. If you are one of those people, then I can assure you that that is entirely false; because I love you. This is the part where you think to yourself "You can't love me, you don't even know me." But I do love you. I love you because you're taking the time to read my blog. If you've discovered my blog because you're subscribed to my YouTube channel, then I love you for watching my videos AND reading my blog. While I may not be able to love you completely, I love something about you. I love you because there's not enough time in the day or month or year for me to do anything but love you.
     That's another thing: time. John Green says in The Fault In Our Stars that time screws everybody. But in my opinion, it's just the opposite. Time is a gift. You never know how much time you have left. As much as I hate to say this, and as much as it scares me, none of us are guaranteed tomorrow. I can make a lifetime of TFIOS references, and trust me, I will try, but all of us are grenades. One day all of us are going to blow up and obliterate everything in our wake and we're all going to try to minimize the casualties. I can assure you that there is no one that I love who I ever want to see hurt, but it's unfortunately going to happen, and it pains me to say that. Hopefully it happens a very long time from now, but it's inevitable. We have to make the most of the time that we get and we can't spend it complaining that we want more time. Again with a TFIOS reference, but I think I finally understand what Van Houten means. "Some infinities are bigger than other infinities." Each and every one of us has our own infinity. We won't know how large our infinity is until we get to the end of it. We have to make the most of our infinity because nothing is bigger than infinity, except for other infinities.
     If someone asked me if I would rather be loved by 1,000 people or by 10 people, I would choose 10. Some of us strive for fame and fortune and while that's the ideal dream in some cases, the story of Hazel and Augustus have completely changed my opinion on that. I would much rather be loved deeply than loved widely. When someone is loved widely, it's more like a mass of people love the idea of you. But the feeling of knowing that you're loved deeply by just a selection of people who mean the world to you is, to me, a feeling that can't be replaced.
   

Living in Wanderlust

     "Oh the places you'll go. Today is your day. Your mountain is waiting so get on your way." If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go? Who would you want to see or who would you want to be by your side traveling along with you? Living in wanderlust, my mind tends to wander. I often think about all of the different places that I wish to travel to and the sights that I wish to see. I've fallen in love with long car journeys and I anticipate the moments of staring at the window listening to music; creating my own soundtrack to each passing moment.
     Maybe I'll never reach my imaginary, ideal destination, but nothing can stop me from dreaming. In my dreams I'm standing in the middle of Times Square or waking up to look out the window to see the Hollywood sign. While I'm sure nothing can compare to the reality of being in a big city, daydreaming allows you to create your own reality.....without all of the traffic. You could be walking and turn a corner and something amazing can happen. You would never know what to expect. It seems magical.

Hi there

   

     It seems like many people say that starting something new can be a little scary; and I agree, sometimes it can be. But why would I be afraid to broadcast even more of my life onto the Internet? I've been doing YouTube videos regularly for nearly a year, but I've been doing dumb, cheesy videos with my friends for much longer than that. As much as I love getting to talk to my 430 subscribers, although I like to think of all of us as friends now (my greatest appreciation and recognition to a little website called Twitter), I feel much more confident and intrigued to express my feelings through writing.
     At this point some of you might be thinking "Don't you have a Tumblr? Why do you need to make a regular blog?" Tumblr is a wonderful thing and I love it dearly, but I'm one of those people who pretty much only reblogs fashion and Louis Tomlinson. I am 100% shameless. While I know I am given the opportunity to post my own thoughts on Tumblr, I wanted a blog that was all mine. My goal for this blog is for this to be a place that a reader can come to feel uplifted.
     It might not be happy, uplifting posts 100% of the time, as I am a teenage girl, (#highschooldoe) but I do want this blog to act as my diary that I would start and then stop continuously when I was younger. I want it to reflect what I'm feeling yet still be relatable to all of my readers. If you're one of my YouTube subscribers, thank you for being such an important part of my life, and of course coming over to read this blog. If you're just someone who enjoys reading blogs and happened to stumble across mine, hi! I'm Melissa. I like long walks on the beach, I like hugs, and I like you.