From bad skin to skin care business…

So I actually did it, my indecisive arse has only gone and started an actual skin care business. As incredible as that seems to me, the really awesome part is that people are actually ordering and loving my products! When I had the idea to start this business all I wanted was to provide people with a brand that caters all skin types no matter what age or gender you are.

My desire to start a brand that focused on skin care was as a result of my own personal skin problems that I had growing up. It’s always kind of been a sore spot for me to speak on this because I remember it causing me to be a very very unhappy and insecure child. I suffered from terrible eczema (eczema is an autoimmune disease in which your body develops patches of dry, itchy skin that turn into rashes as they are scratched, and at their worst can cover the whole body almost from head to toe). At times my eczema would flare up and get so bad that I would beg my parents to let me stay home from school for fear of people staring and making fun of me – some of the older kids at school used to tell me I looked like I had scales or like I was a burn victim. I was in constant pain from the open wounds on my skin, the inflammations, sores and itching would drive me insane. We literally tried everything, honestly, my dad used to drive all across the country because he had heard from this person or that person about some cream or drink or herbal remedy that would relieve my symptoms. Of course, nothing worked.

Thinking about it now I still get tears in my eyes – I’m such a crybaby so this is not out of the ordinary in any way – but as I got older I began to block out memories from when I was young and my skin was at its worst. In fact, when no one was home I would look for pictures of me as a child and rip them up so that I would never have to look at myself. As I got older the eczema got better on its own but it never completely improved. Certain foods, creams, soaps or environmental conditions would trigger an awful flare up which would mean it was long sleeved shirts, jumpers and another trip to the GP for the latest prescription of unhelpful medication. I tried every steroid cream, emollient and lotion that I could ever find, at times they would provide some relief and then my skin would get used to them again and it was back to square one. The ongoing use of these harsh creams and steroids began to take their toll on my skin and I was left with uneven areas, dark patches, awful scars and hyper-pigmentation everywhere.

Eventually as I got older I started to research other ways that I could treat my eczema, and I stumbled across a brand called “Aveeno”. I will sing and shout from the rooftops and tell anyone who will listen, that Aveeno skin care absolutely changed my life. I initially started using the Aveeno Bath and Shower Oil as my research had led me to believe that soap is so bad for sensitive/rash prone skin – which it is! It dries out the skin which leads to itching and then inflammation – and my skin immediately started to get softer, brighter, less irritated and look better in general. I then decided to dedicate my life and sell my soul (lol jk) to Aveeno products. The difference I have seen in my skin is magical, people began complimenting me on my skin and complexion, my family immediately noticed the difference – in fact, we were recently going through some old family pictures and my brother pulled out an old picture of us, I couldn’t have been any older than 6 but the sight of my skin literally made us all reel in shock, my brother couldn’t believe that my skin had ever looked so bad!

Another thing that really helped me out was changing my eating habits, I had never been much for eating healthily, in fact I was a beast when it came to junk food and sweets. Those with eczema tend to suffer from a range of other auto-immune illness such as asthma and being prone to allergies, and unfortunately for me I had both. Luckily my asthma went away on its own which meant that I only had my allergies to deal with and let me tell you something, that was not easy. I became a very picky eater because I feared eating something that would aggravate my eczema or cause me to have an allergic reaction – at times I would unknowingly eat something I was allergic to and end up with a swollen throat/tongue or break out in awful hives. So it was difficult for me to stray from my unhealthy eating habits because I like to stick to what I knew I wouldn’t react to. But online research showed me that I wasn’t the only eczema sufferer that experienced this and I found some really great recipes and meal plans that enabled me to change my eating habits, cut down on the junk food and find alternatives to the sweets that I loved so much. The reason this helped so much was because my immune system got stronger, which in turn decreased the frequency of my flare ups. I still go for junk food for time to time and there are sometimes weeks when I can’t be bothered to cook so I binge out on Caribbean or Chinese food, but for the most part I stick to my good eating habits and my body and skin have never looked or felt better.

*side note – Hello Fresh has been amazing! I get the Classic Meal box for 2 people that contains enough meals for 5 days. I chose this plan because it means I can cook enough food for dinner and then pack the rest for lunch at work the next day, its been great and the meals don’t take long to cook at all.

I genuinely have never had a bad flare up since then – sometimes I still get some rashes creeping up but I keep some steroid creams in my house that I literally only use for a few days every couple of months. Once I had conquered the hard part, which was getting rid of the eczema, the next step was to sort out my complexion and even out my skin tone. Seeing as I was over using harsh chemicals and wanted to heal my skin naturally, I took to research once again.

Here are a few things that helped me sort out my overall skin tone and complexion:

1. The Ordinary Rosehip Oil (or any Rosehip Oil)
2. The Ordinary Alpha Arbutin
3. Indian Healing Clay
4. The Glow Pot Black Clay and Liquorice Face Mask
5. The Glow Pot Acai and Goji Berry 2 in 1 Microdermabrasion Mask and Scrub
6. The Glow Pot Cucumber Cleanser 
7. The Glow Pot Vitamin ACE moisturiser
8. Body scrubs I made at home which were 1 part honey, 1 part sugar and 1 part olive oil (worked like magic to exfoliate and even out my skin tone)
9. Twice a week tumeric face masks which were 1 part tumeric, 1 part manuka honey (this thing is a heaven send – it has antibacterial and healing properties) 1 part oatmeal and 1 part greek yogurt – the yogurt contains lactic acid which removes layers of dead skin from the face, oatmeal soothes the face and helps reduce inflammation and tumeric is great for evening out the skin tone
10. SUN SCREEN!!!! A lot of the time uneven skin tone is hyperpigmentation caused by UV rays from the sun which are present even when its not sunny. So if you want to even your skin tone and are not using sun screen then you are truly playing yourself.

I noticed that although there were a lot of natural remedies online, there wasn’t one place where I could find products that contained no harsh chemicals, were hypoallergenic, good quality and weren’t just targeted at treating one kind of skin problem. So I thought to myself “why don’t I just create one?”, and I decided that I would. It sounds a lot easier than it was and I have really shortened the sequence of steps that I took lol but I had the idea when I was 18 and did not have the capability to create the brand until I was 23. I’ll talk more about my business in another blog, but I hope this information helps someone out there and gives you hope that your skin problems can be solved!

So yeah, this has been my journey from bad skin to a skin care business. Please feel free to check out my brand – http://www.theglowpot.com – or follow us on twitter, facebook and instagram @theglowpot

For any help, advice, tips, tricks or whatever, feel free to contact me via twitter @BigFoams and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my long winded and waffly blog post xoxo

Coming back from the edge.

TW: Post is about suicide and contains detailed descriptions of suicide attempts – please read if you are considering taking your own life, hopefully this helps you. Also, this is going to be a really long post but I hope it is worth the read.

I was 14 years old the first time I tried to take my own life. It’s weird that I’m writing that in this blog post because I don’t think I have ever told anyone, not even my closest friends. Clearly, I was unsuccessful and I am beyond grateful for that but at the time I thought that surviving was the worst thing that had ever happened to me. Not going to go into so much detail because this is a really sensitive topic for me – but I try to be as candid as I can when sharing my experiences, otherwise what is the point of sharing them, right? My suicide attempt was a result of many factors that affected me both long and short term.

Growing up with severe eczema really took its toll on my self esteem, I would look in the mirror and be absolutely disgusted at what I saw. I hated my face, my features, my skin, my skin colour, it got to a point where I couldn’t name a single thing that I liked about myself. I attended an all girls school throughout my secondary and sixth form education and at the time the friends I had weren’t the best, so I was unable to trust them, speak to them, open up about what was going on at home or any of my insecurities. Granted, I was a really mean and rude kid because my self esteem issues and toxic home environment created a storm of negative emotions that, unfortunately, reflected in the way I treated others. I felt like an outcast and like I didn’t fit in anywhere, not at home, not at school, nowhere.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, my best friend passed away suddenly when I was 12 and at the time it felt like she was all I had, so losing her really shook me to my core. The final straw came when I was sexually assaulted at a party, somehow everyone around me found a way to make it seem like it was my fault which resulted in me being branded a “hoe” and called every name under the sun.

One night I went home from school, sat in my room and cried. I thought long and hard about my life and decided that it was worthless and that nobody would miss me when I was gone. I had bought a pack of paracetamol on my way home from school so I sat down and swallowed about 11 or 12 pills at once. I went to sleep and for the first time in a long time I felt at peace, I knew it was going to be the last time I went to sleep and that all my troubles would finally be over. By some miracle, I survived, I wish I could describe the devastation I felt at the time but I honestly can’t.

Sitting here today and actually being able to share my story is really overwhelming, I went from crying every morning when I woke up, praying all day long that God would just take my life and put me out of my misery to being the happiest I have ever been in my life. I thank God every day that he saved me from myself and I truly appreciate how far I am come both personally and mentally.

Survivor stories*

About a week ago a made a tweet asking people to share their suicide survival stories with me for this post, the aim of this was to show those who are contemplating suicide that there is a way back for you. As well as asking them to share their stories, I also asked to give me some words of advice for anyone who is considering taking their own life. Please read some of the stories submitted below, I wasn’t able to share every single story I received because I was sent a lotttttt of them, but I truly truly am grateful to everyone who trusted me enough to share their survival stories with me and I want you all to know how strong and amazing you are.

*All stories are anonymous, any names have been changed and edits have been made to correct any grammar or spelling errors. 

Story 1:

As a young black queer Muslim woman I can share my story & maybe someone can relate. I’ve had social anxiety from ever since I can think..at the time I wasn’t diagnosed or anything as I was too small and my parents were way too ignorant to consider anything like that. Growing up I fell into depression as all of my worlds started to clash. I was 16 when I discovered that I was bisexual. Religion, Culture? No one would ever accept me as an African gay girl. My mother is a very religious woman who’d drop and disown her children for religion so there was no way I could come out to her, ever. During that time I also realised that I didn’t believe in Islam. Leaving Islam results into death penalty, did you know? Basically they would kill me. Not literally since we live in the UK but I would be dead to my mom. I was failing school, I wasn’t eating, I wasn’t on track with anything. I was abusing drugs, I ghosted from all of my friends and the only way I could keep myself sane, my pain hidden and my hatred for my parents to a minimum was to be constantly high. I was high everyday, everyday I tried to drown myself, my problems and most importantly my pain.

My moms hostile behaviour and narcissistic self made me hate her so much, I couldn’t stand to be in the same room as her. The one time I broke down in front of her, she used it against me to try and say that she was a good parent. That day I thought I was all alone on this planet, God hates me, my mom thinks I’m a failure and so does everyone else. I was so lonely. So so lonely.

I saw a packet of expired paracetamol and swallowed LOTS of it. I passed out an hour later and my brother found me on the bathroom floor. I was rushed into Hospital and got my liver or stomach I can’t remember pumped out and started taking therapy. Truth to be told, I’m still not okay. I have a lot of anger, sadness and more anger in me but I’m trying to let go and start new. Maybe one day I’ll be able to live the life I truly desire, but for now, I’m trying. 

Their advice to anyone contemplating suicide – What eventually got me not to try to take my own life again was loving myself. Learning how to let go of all toxic people & environments. Today I can say I’m a good person &I I deserve to live. I deserve to have a good life and have good people around me. I’m still learning But I’ve made progress and I’m really proud of myself because I really could’ve died that day

Story 2:

I think my breaking point in life was that I’ve had a very difficult few years and I just feel like no matter how hard I try I just keep collecting Ls. Like God? Do you hate me? What have I done to deserve all the things I’m going through? Is it not enough? I am tired. I am tired of friends who are not really your friends. In this life, I tend to mind my own business and there’s always trifling people who want to destroy you. I’ve had people betray me in ways I didn’t think possible. I’ve had people publicly humiliate me and still expect me to be a doormat and a mug and stay friends with. I stopped trusting, I stopped socialising. I got anxious a lot because people judge me before getting to know me all cos of a common perception and because I am very vocal and brutally honest I always end up in a fight.  

I am tired of being labelled the outcast of the family because I am perceived to be this rebel child. I am the problem child. The issue of the family. When I’m not. I spent 2 years of my toughest years alone because my family stopped  talking to me until I was 21. And during this time my uni fucked me over and kicked me off my course. I didn’t even know why cos I passed. They didn’t even inform me until the week I was about to start. By then I had my 3rd year timetable, I got a uni house for the year etc. I asked for my transcript so  I could transfer and they refused. And I had no family to go back to because nobody bothered to check If I was even alive or existed for 2 years. And I just paid for a house that now I couldn’t afford to be in if my student loan didn’t drop cos of uni. And I wasn’t get paid from my work till late.  I was effectively homeless.

There was times where I couldn’t eat I was just grinding. My sister has always had this sort of hate at how close me and my mum used to be and she destroyed it. I felt so betrayed by my mum especially because we was close and during secondary school days it was only me and her… my sister as in uni. My sister wasn’t there when my mum wanted to kill herself. She wasn’t there when our dad harassed us and wanted to beat the hell out of us.. They both equally fucked me over and disowned me in ways where when I had to spend Easter and Christmas holidays at my uni house. My heart became cold.

Everything I have done and worked hard for I have done it all by myself. I am tired of men bleeding me dry, using me, soul destroying me and only looking at me as a sex object. I am tired of a toxic relationship that almost destroyed me for 3 years. This guy knew that in my previous relationship I’ve been beaten up etc and he still did the most. The emotional abuse was one of the most unbearable things I’ve experienced and I will never feel that again. When I’m not mad. When I finally got out of that situation the guy kept bothering and it just got too crazy so I finally shut that down last year. I really had no desire for a man. I hate them. If there was a game on killing men I would have a serious high score.

But one day I got invited to a house party, I thought maybe I should go i need to stop being so anti social and guarded, sometimes socialise take your mind off things and just enjoy yourself. Big mistake. The host of the house party is someone I know, but a group of boys gate crashed this party because one of the boys baby mums was there and he wanted to make her jealous. I was his target. I was high and zoned as I usually am. Chilling in my corner minding my own business. In short, this boy tried to lock me in the kitchen and tried to rape me. As in he pinned me to the table. I managed to get out. The girl who was hosting the party managed to save me when she realised what was going on. When I got home I cried. I never felt so dirty in my life. Although it didn’t get that far I still was distraught. I just started to think, ‘Is that the only thing boys see when they look at me?’, I felt sick. I was angry at myself for even going out like I’m even about that going out life lol.

I am tired of bad things alway happening to me, this year somebody has cloned my identity and was taking out loans etc in my name. The bank didn’t help me, my account and savings was left empty. And the bank didn’t give me anything back.  I went into a violent rage and I had a break down. I ran into the road the car should have hit me. But it didn’t. It managed to stop in time. I’ve now shut down, I didn’t speak to anybody for months. I was referred to a 12 week counselling programme.  Like I just gave up on myself. I would have gone into detail so you would understand better but I thought that it would be too long and because you don’t really know me I didn’t want you feel uncomfortable. 2013 till present was very horrible for me. I had no self worth or love. I hated God, I ended smoking a lot more now than I used to. Smoking weed kept me calm and zoned because I hated my reality and no matter how much control I wanted to get on my life it just didn’t happen.

If it wasn’t one thing it was the other. I got one absorbed in darkness it became my safe heaven. I didn’t want anything or anyone around that would hurt me. And I hate showing when I’m weak, my hood mentality doesn’t let me I hated and was scared to share with my friends how broken I am.  Didn’t know how they would react, wondering  if it would scare them off. So i distanced myself from all of them and they just didn’t understand why I needed the space. But I am grateful to my best friend and my my friends who I’ve known for years cos I really did realise this year that they are really ride or dies and I found comfort in that once I was able to speak up. I didn’t share a lot but the little I did I know that they are pure and their intentions for me is always in a good place. 

My advise to people is to put yourself first. This where I failed. I spent years but everybody first so when things took a huge left by then I was already too drained to help myself.. I didn’t’ know how to. And when I did put me first at first I felt selfish. But when I got used to it I to reintroduce myself to myself in order to reconcile with myself start the healing process. It is not easy, i’m nowhere  where I need to be but the thing is I’m trying and that’s a start.

Do not indulge in self doubt.

I am now a mental health rep at my workplace. I get involved in a lot of workshops regarding suicide awareness and the social stigma regarding mental health.

Story 3:

Growing up I was always the ugly friend or just the ugly one in general. At first it did not really effect me until I got to secondary school then it was not just ugly, it was now ugly fat and hairy. As you can imagine this was so traumatising for me. This then caused me to spiral into depression and anxiety. During my secondary school times I was so unbelievably depressed I used to self harm with a knife, a lighter. The people I had around me did not help either, but me being the young naïve girl I was I did not realised that these friends also contributed to my depression and also my insecurities as they often singled me out and made me aware that I was fat and hairy.

Fast forward now my depression has been going on for about 3-4 years now. And then one day I had enough, I just wanted to die. I was just tired of everything. I had hit rock bottom. I took a bunch of pills and nothing happened. I tried slitting my veins that was serve but I was still alive. I was now closely approaching the end of secondary school year. So GCSE time. I finally found friends who made me happy, who would laugh with me instead of at me. Take care of me, make sure I was good. Like genuine friends, I begun living my best life. We went everywhere together. My depression and anxiety had subsided. It was there but it was under wraps.

Fast forward again to sixthform, the friends I once loved and cherished had all become a nonsense this greatly affected me. My depression and anxiety had started in full force again. I managed to hide it. Fast forward for maybe the last time looool, I am at university now. And all was well you know living my best life. Then a guy had made a comment about my appearance and it was like I was in secondary school again. Thoughts of suicide came back, I was so scared of my own self. I was so scared that I was no longer in control of my body. I was so close to drinking bleach and just getting it over and done with. But thank God, for God and the friends I have met at uni. My friends at uni are the reason I am even to type this email to you they are such a biggest blessing honestly.

Surrounding yourself with people who make you happy has the biggest impact you would not believe it and also my relationship with God. My friends at uni give me hope, love and peace. They remind me everyday how much I am needed in their lives. Honestly if you had told me in secondary school that my life would be where it is right now I would not have believed you. From wanting to kill myself , not being able to even speak to a shop keeper because of anxiety. To going to a uni and being a socialite, going on holiday with people I met at uni to even finding a husband and many more things I have being able to accomplish due to those around me and God.

My biggest advice to anyone battling suicide, depression and anxiety. Will be to not let the devil win do not let the enemy win. He wants to come and scatter your whole life do not let him. And pick your friends wisely, trust God. IT GETS BETTER, trust me it does I am a living proof.

Story 4:

I was 14 when I tried to take my own life and it really came down to not being able to cope with life and being alone.

When I was 12 my Dad took his life for similar reasons and not dealing with that took me to where i ended up two years later. I was in year 7 when this happened. Surrounded by new friends and really taken aback by what had happened and how it had happened, so I didn’t tell anyone anything other than he had passed away. As I didn’t want any sympathy or questions around why it happened how it did.

I didn’t exactly hysterically cry or mourn him how I was expected to because to me it was all bizarre and weird and all the attention it brought me gave me really bad anxiety, so I went on to supress a lot of what I could have allowed myself to feel when it had happened and at the time and for most of the time that followed I was fine with that. Because people die and at that age I was aware of that and okay with that, so I tried to avoid the whole pity party that came with the news.

The mourning and condolences lasted about a month until everyone went back to their every day lives and life just continued to go on as it does. Our immediate family pretty much went on to never speak on the fact he took his own life and I was only aware of this because I had googled his name days after it happened and came across an article written about him by a member of his church.

When I had first seen it, it was days after he had passed and that made it harder to mourn because he had caused this pain on us and I was too crossed between numb and sad to feel anything more than I felt. And as life continued to go on, I was just fine with it going on. I had friends, cousins and we still lived in the same home we had always lived so nothing much had changed after all was said and done. And with my Dad not living with us for the past 4 years it made it that touch easier just to go on with life.

Fast Forward two years, I had cousins, no friends and my house was no longer a home. And at that point I realised my Dad was no longer around and this nightmare was really my reality.

Immediately after life had started rolling again my mums life got harder and it took its toll of our relationship but being that I was at school 5 days a week and around friends who had unknowingly made my life easier to bear. I let what was going on at home only play a small role in my life so it was easy to supress the trauma I was going through and be who I wanted to be at school and not who I really was if I was to live the life I was actually going through and not the life I was paying attention to (If that makes sense).

However, following several disputes with friends at school I was no longer in the circle I had been in for the past three years of my secondary school life. Which at first was fine, because following the loss of my Dad I had subconsciously used that as a measure of bad things and to me nothing could be worse than your Dad taking his life knowing he would be leaving you behind? So, I let bygones be bygones with those who I had lost and continued my school life with those who had remained.

At first things were fine but as each week went on and life at home was getting harder and life at school was not getting any better. I began to feel the left turn my life had taken and I began to come to terms with my reality.

I began to mourn my Dads death in the worst way possible. Driving myself mad every night with the thoughts and questions in my head, regularly crying myself into states of panic, going days without talking to people and just living completely in my sadness.

It got to the point where I started taking days off school without my mum knowing because it was too exhausting living a lie and trying to interact with people when I knew I couldn’t talk to them about my problems. I found myself in a cycle of crying myself to sleep, falling asleep and waking up even more tired and drained and then going back to sleep.

My Dads funeral was the first time I had the chance to see him in 4 years and as the family was called to the casket I began having a panic attack which prevented me going up at the time. Sadly, by the time it had passed, and I was ready to see him, my mum told me it was too late, and I couldn’t. This was a driving force in my depressive episode as I couldn’t fathom how MY life had turned out and how this was it and nothing can change. On top of going through what I was going through at school and at home, with all parties unaware of what they were putting me through and what the other was putting me through (mum not knowing what’s going on at school and those at school not knowing what I have to come home to). I began to resent my mum even more for not trying hard enough to let me see my Dad that one last time but at the same time questioning why he did what he did to us.

I never wanted to hurt myself, I was never angry at myself or wanting to inflict pain on myself I was just beyond sad and hurt that this is what MY life had come to and this is what was happening in MY life. So, I overdosed.  I had got the point where I had nothing left to say or do so I wanted to sleep and just let it be. I had lived through every emotion I was able to feel, and I had waited to see a change, and nothing had come to pass. I was Just tired of having to feel everything and that’s what was hurting me the most. I had passed the sad stage so long ago and unknowingly I was so deep in depression that nothing mattered anymore.

When I woke up I was both sad and a little relieved. It was a weird feeling. My attempt was kind of like a heads or tails move. I accepted that plan didn’t work, and I wasn’t going to do that to myself again. So, I went back to dealing with life.

Not much changed in my life afterwards but I was enrolled onto an anger management course in school shortly afterwards (for past behaviour) and a few months after the attempt I ended up just telling one of the mentors what I had done. Which led to my mum being informed and all that protocol. By this time, I was dealing with myself better and not mentally abusing myself at night and making the most out of what I could in life. Simply because I was very shaken after coming to terms with what I tried to do to myself after things started getting better. Although I didn’t want to hurt myself, after things at school began to settle I realised I tried to forcefully stop my heart functioning and all that jazz, which brought me to another state of panic based off my actions and what could have been as I began comparing myself to my Dad and drove myself into another depressive episode. However, when that episode ended I promised myself to not hurt myself again because I knew better, and I never wanted to let anything drive me to that again.

It took about 5 months for things to get at school and when they did I just felt some sort of peace come over me. Things at home were still hit and miss and that still rocked me mentally, but I was able to find peace at school, once more so I was back to my old ways of repressing what I could and embracing what I want. Which helped bring me away from the point I was at when I wanted to leave.

Being that all I went through I went through alone it was much easier to rebuild my life after things had passed. My mum and I went on to never speak about it again as I felt she was very inconsiderate and selfish, being that she failed to change her ways and failed to take responsibility for the trauma she put me through and continued to put me through following her awareness of my attempt. I went 6 years without telling anyone because I didn’t want my downfall to be maliciously passed around and I didn’t feel the need to let anyone know me that well after I had just seen people I considered friends turn on me the way they did.  I went back to measuring things against the death of my Dad which helped me deal with things I went through and not fall back to the point of suicide during my depressive episodes as I was aware that everything has a silver lining and if it doesn’t then its fine and I shouldn’t intervene with life.

Fast Forward 7 years and I am here, that’s all I can really say. I am here.

It has not been easy at all because after that happened, I have spent the past 7 years in and out of really bad depressive episodes which at their worst have led me to have suicidal thoughts but being that I promised myself to hurt myself, at times they have played out over months at a time. I became really vulnerable to sadness and life, susceptible to depression with small things ticking me off which would eventually spiral into bigger things and carry themselves on for a number of days, weeks and months at a time. The last two years my anxiety began spirally out of control which contributed more to my depressive episodes. I found myself isolating myself more during hard times.

Just a lot really, a lot of things have just come to pass with me not dealing with my childhood issues that led me to attempt as I didn’t speak about anything during, before or after. Especially afterwards as with hindsight I feel a lot of things that followed, most importantly my depressive episodes. Would have been better dealt with if I had learnt to deal with them before instead of taking myself through years of pain and suffering and self-teaching myself to let them run their course which has been a traumatising experience I must say.

Currently I am 4 months into my clean period (clean mind, body and soul and working towards leaving behind my depression for good. As I have just seen the end of one of my worst depressive episodes which lasted over 9 months (my longest up to date) and drove me to points I never want to go again in my adult life as so much was put at risk and lost during that time.

I am overall just learning myself again and learning to deal with myself again as I had lost so much of myself in that time and so much has changed with me in the last year and a bit. Learning to be healthy in mind, body and spirit. Learning to do better and the best by myself and learning to be genuinely happy and at peace with life.

If there is anyone that is going through suicidal thoughts, all I can say is that somebody out there needs you and that’s that.

As much as you may think you don’t need to be here or want to be here. Somebody needs you around and until the world takes you, you have to refrain from taking yourself because it will come to pass and if it doesn’t then wait a little longer. 

As much as it hurts, it is your story to tell the world and not those you leave behind. But you have to be around to tell your story.

Story 5:

Yeah general poor mental health runs in my family like bare institutionalised and also drug addiction problems. Me I take some drugs I try not to overindulge but I do go on binges ATM I’m clean from everything but usually I just smoke weed and the other stuff I’ll only binge when I’m in a depressive state. Just got out of one and was legit on flipping ket pills coke lean xans and lowkey an alcoholic Binge drinker so I can control it but I overdo it in those states anyway I was in a four year abusive relationship. And dude chipped away at me I found it hard to talk to people make eye contact I felt like everything I said was dumb and irrelevant etc. And that plus I was unemployed for a bit after uni was broke it was winter. 

A lot was going on with family and basically just didn’t eat for some days then drank myself silly and tried to overdose. And he took me to hospital and I was fine. Went home and had an interview for a job literally two days later was shaking whole way through but got it. Started working and exploded everything to my brother who basically saved me he also gets depression and deals in the same way. And erm the dark spot I had this year I wasn’t trying to kill myself I just felt like life was meaningless I wasn’t chasing death I just wasn’t too bothered. I’m cool now. I have lots of love and support I am very lucky. Also left that bitch boy a year ago and discovered myself. 

My tips may sound controversial. But if they are searching for a reason that life is meaningful and relevant and can’t find one, don’t stress trying to find it because you may never. What you should do is accept that this is a negative and unhealthy way of thinking and rather than reject the thoughts and feelings entirely, do your negative shit allow yourself to be negative without guilt be as graphic as you want be on your bullshit but make sure you’re safe. Try to cry bare and release through writing even if you’re shit sometimes I literally cry and write bare then never look at it again. Tell somebody who isn’t judgmental and isn’t gonna be chirpy and tell you things like “life is beautiful” or somebody who would like get you sectioned but somebody who will be honest with you and tell them what you’re going to do if you’re drinking bare or whatever tell them so that they are aware. Also try to be in nature corny as it sounds but getting out of bed is a must and trying to be around animals and green stuff helps me.

The art of being sad.

Over the period of my short-ish life I have experienced many types of sadness for a wide range of reasons. When I was 8 I was sad because we moved from our old area and I was gonna miss my friends. When I was 12 I was heartbroken because my best friend passed away suddenly. When I was 15 I was sad because after years of being told by my mum and older sisters that my boobs were going to fill out in time, I realised they would not. Not long after I started to experience a different kind of sadness. It wasn’t like the normal everyday sadness that you get when things go wrong or when you’re having a bad day, it was a lingering feeling of sadness. Over time I came to find out that I was suffering from depression as a result of some trauma I had been through. I want to highlight that this post is NOT about depression, that is a more intricate and delicate topic that I don’t feel I am ready to advise people on so I won’t.

The first thing I want to say is that sadness and depression are not the same thing. From my personal observations and experience I believe that the main difference between being sad or upset and being depressed is the way that you feel them. Sadness is a surface emotion, you can feel sad for a while and before the end of the day so much has happened that you forgot you were upset to begin with. Depression, as I stated above, is a lingering feeling. No matter how good your day is or how many positive things happen to you, depression swallows up your joy and happiness like a black hole. The lines have become blurred between depression and sadness and a lot of people are unable to distinguish between the two. It is actually quite dangerous to lump these two very different emotions into one thing, depression requires proper treatment, time, care and therapy – so this means it is very important for us to be careful how we define our emotions and what actions we take to mend ourselves.

Back to the matter at hand – sadness. In my opinion I feel that there is a lot of stigma surrounding being sad. Sadness or unhappiness is often unduly equated to being ungrateful for what you have. The other day I wrote a tweet about a phrase that truly irks my spirit, “Don’t be sad about what you’re going through because someone out there has it worse”. The first time I was ever faced with this quote my initial thought was “and? So what?”, quotes like these are quite harmful for a number of reasons. The first reason is that IT IS PERFECTLY OKAY TO BE SAD!!!! Sadness should not be seen as ungratefulness or wallowing in self pity or making yourself miserable for no reason, it is a perfectly normal human emotion that we ALL experience and are very much entitled to feel as and when we please. The second reason is that comparison is a thief of joy, if you are using the fact that “other people have it worse” to make yourself feel better, then using the same logic you really shouldn’t feel happy or proud of anything you achieve because “other people have it better”, right? Not only that, but there is something a bit sadistic and wicked about using the misfortune of others to cheer yourself up.

Some days I wake up and I just feel a bit sad and shitty, sometimes there is a reason for it, other times there is not. What I have learned to do over time is to not beat myself up about it, I get sad but for the most part I am a very happy and content young woman. The fact that my life is going well and I have “no reason” to be sad doesn’t mean anything to me, I have learned that I am entitled to feel however I want, about whatever I want, whenever I want and I owe no apologies for it. Sad days have helped me become more appreciative of my life and my happiness, at the end of a day when I have been sad and probably cried (crying is basically my part time job), I lie in bed and reflect on my life. My reflections help me see that whatever I’m sad about is so small and insignificant compared to all the things I should be happy about, of course some people have it better than me but they too are battling their own demons and facing their own struggles. Life is hard, the weather is bad, the economy is tight and waking up early to go to work literally sucks ass, and these are all valid reasons to be sad. So my advice is learn to embrace your sadness, don’t ever feel guilty for feeling the way you do but just make sure that you use your sadness productively rather than allowing it to fester and grow into something more dangerous. I hope you all have a great day and that positive things happen to you today, but if not, just shake it off and try again tomorrow x

Glowing Up … how it all began.

 

Being a notoriously indecisive person, I was beyond shocked when I actually managed to start my business. I can honestly say that it has been the best and worst (in the best possible way that something can be the worst :S) experience of my entire life and it’s still only the beginning.

This blog post is going to be me giving you guys a bit of insight into my journey, how I started, where I am now and what advice I would give to others who are thinking of starting a business.

In my previous post, From bad skin to skin care business… I wrote about my struggles with eczema and skin damage and how a lack of existing products that contained natural ingredients that repair skin without any harsh chemicals, inspired me to start my own business. And to be completely honest, this was a much simpler sequence of events than what happened in reality. I’ll be the first to say it, starting up a business is hard as f**k. You need time, MONEY, patience, planning, determination and perseverance and even then success is never really guaranteed.

When I decided that I wanted to start up my business, I was sitting at home on the phone to my friend and it came to me. I’d had other business ideas in the past, and have even been involved in running businesses before but each time it was just never really right. When I decided on skincare it felt like something that fit like a glove, like my Cinderella “foot in the glass slipper” moment. So I scoured the internet for hours on end, wrote down all these amazing ideas, called my cousin Kenny – who is literally one of the most brilliant minds on earth and the best person ever – and started bouncing ideas around. For like an entire week I was super motivated and inspired, I couldn’t stop talking about the business and brainstorming ideas and looking into different investment opportunities. Then, I stopped. Yup, you read that right. I literally just forgot about it because in reality, I didn’t have the capital to start a business, I had rent to pay, a job to go to, travel to pay for, groceries to buy and obviously a fleek to maintain – all of which left me with little disposable income to start up a skincare business (it is literally so expensive to start up any business).

For a long time, the business idea just became like a lot of my other ideas – forgotten and pushed to the back of my mind. I had a life to live and things to do and I managed to convince myself that it was just a silly dream that was never going to come true, or maybe something that I would do in a few years when my life was more “together”. I went back to the daily grind, but the whole time I maintained my interest in skin care and healthy skin so it’s as if it was always at the back of my mind.

In July this year, I was on the phone to my best friend Debbie and we were talking about some money that I had. It wasn’t a massive amount of money but it wasn’t a small amount either, my plan was to use it to buy some designer bags (lol) and pay a couple months ahead on my rent. But she made a suggestion that changed everything “why don’t you use it to start up your skin care business” and thus – check me out – The Glow Pot started coming together. I jumped into the deep end, got straight to work and I haven’t looked back since.

The Glow Pot 

At The Glow Pot we believe that natural products are the key to soft, even and glowing skin.

 The Glow Pot is a premium skin care and cosmetics brand who are all about making your skin beautiful the natural way. Our products are made from natural and organic ingredients, without any harmful synthetic chemicals*.

​Our skin care is focused on giving you the skin you deserve and the tools to achieve this, by not only providing the best quality products but also by giving you our well-informed advice on which products suit your specific skin type.

​We cater to all skin types which means that our products are free of most common allergens and contain no harsh chemicals, so that you can have peace of mind that your skin is in good hands.

​*All our products are 100% cruelty free and vegetarian friendly.

If you are interested in finding out more, please check out my website – www.theglowpot.com

Here is some advice that I have for anyone who is currently running a business or is thinking about starting one:

1. It is a journey, not a race: You are not in competition with anyone, do not compare yourself to anyone and don’t put too much pressure on yourself to have everything in place at the start, just do as much as you can. I know that personally, I have loved seeing every bit of growth and progress that The Glow Pot has made and I’m excited for how far it will go. You might not have everything in place when you start but it’s good to start from somewhere, once you do get started and some money starts coming in, then you’re in a better position to add new things and expand your business as you go along. A small start is better than no start, delaying your launch because every little detail isn’t right may just lead to frustration, procrastination and possibly just giving up. I started my business with 5 products, I made sure that I promoted and marketed these 5 products to the best of my ability and created a buzz around them. This meant that as new products were added to my brand, my customers were excited for them and happy that the range was expanding because they saw the results and positive feedback I had received for my other products. I plan to keep expanding my range a few products at a time because quality > quantity.

2. If you can do it yourself, then do it yourself: One of the most frustrating things in my life is waiting. I have very little – some would say no – patience, so things like waiting for someone to get back to me with a quote, or having to wait for someone to finish designing something before I can proceed with anything is a massive pain in my backside. Which is why I resolved to just do whatever I could do by myself. Not only does it mean that you are working at your own pace and to your own schedule, but it also means that you pick up some really great skills and experience on the way. I’m basically a website and graphic designer now (not really).

3. INVESTMENTS ARE GREAT: A problem that a lot of young people have when starting up or trying to start up a business is that we want to do it all by ourselves. Given how much money is actually needed to start up a business (especially if you are selling physical products), this is highly unrealistic without some kind of start up capital lump sum. There are so many resources available online for investment opportunities and so many people willing to invest. I’ve been fortunate enough to have been contacted directly by people who potentially would like to invest in my business but this isn’t always the case. Looking into crowdfunding, angel investors and business loans – the Princes’ Trust has a really good scheme for this.

4. Planning is KEY! – So I am a particular kind of stupid, the kind of stupid that thinks they can successfully run a business without a business plan. When I first started, I literally went so far out of my way to not write a business plan that it concerned people around me. This caused major problems for me when I was approached by investors because the first thing they want to see is – yup you guessed it – a business plan. So my dumb a** was up till stupid o’clock writing an entire business plan as it needed to be sent by 12pm the next day. Don’t be like me, write your business plan as soon as you can. It is not a rigid and unchangeable list of rules that you must stick to, but it’s an essential guideline and target setting tool that allows you to steer your business in the right direction. It also helps you see how far you’ve come, what you’ve achieved and what things you still need to do. Nobody will invest in you without a business plan, no matter how good you are at explaining things. Here is a link for a good business plan template.

5. Celebrate every achievement, no matter how small: One thing that has really helped me stay positive and motivated is the fact that I celebrate every single success as if it’s the greatest thing ever. If I make 1 sale in a day or 100 sales in a day (I claim that IJN) I get super excited and I feel proud of myself. It’s easy to beat yourself up about things when you don’t reach your targets or expectations but nothing is set in stone, so be flexible with yourself. Just because you haven’t achieved exactly what you wanted, doesn’t mean that you haven’t achieved anything. Rather than beating yourself and being negative, instead be positive and optimistic. It makes a world of difference.

6. There will be bad times, there will be really bad times, but you can not give up: As you sit staring at your website back office after 10 days of no sales, no orders, no interest and no money being made, it is easy to feel like it’s time to give up. Don’t give up. Well, if you do give up all that means – in my opinion – is that you were never really passionate about it in the first place. We see all these success stories about people who went through setback after setback and experienced numerous downfalls and failures but they persevered and succeeded against all odds – what we don’t see is how f**king hard it is to actually get through these downfalls and failures. It literally sucks when you feel like you’re making no progress, sometimes you hit a brick wall and you just want scrap everything and forget it all happened. But the trick is to keep going no matter what. If your tactics aren’t working – change them. If your target audience don’t seem to be interested in your products or brand – do some more market research, appeal to a different audience. If you aren’t getting great feedback from your customers – ask them for constructive criticism and make changes accordingly. It’s simple but it’s not easy. If this is your passion, this is your thing and you want to make it a success then explore every avenue that you possibly can and if at the end of doing alllllll that, you still can’t find a solution then yeah, maybe it’s time to give up. But one day you’ll see a breakthrough, even if it’s just a little glimmer of hope and it will make it all seem worthwhile.

7. DO YOUR RESEARCH: Research is so vital that like I literally cannot even emphasize how vital it is. If you are selling a product then the chances are that there is some kind of regulatory body whose rules you have to comply to – find out who they are and what the rules are. Find out who your target audience are, where they shop, what websites they use, what things appeal to them, where your product will fall in the market, who your competitors are, how much you could realistically sell your products for etc. This will help you so much in terms of how to market and brand your business and also allows you to ensure that you are not putting your business or customers at any risk.

8. Have a contingency plan: I literally found out what this was on Monday, as in Monday of this week – but that is whatever. So, starting a business is great and all and initially if you start receiving a large amount of orders and start making some money you may fall into the trap of thinking that you should quit your full time hustle and rely solely on your business income. I am here to tell you that you are wrong and to do this would be entirely foolish (unless you have a large sum of start up capital, of course). Here is why – the money that your business makes within the first year or so should ideally just be channeled back into the business in order to expand it. Most business don’t even make any profit within the first 18 months and if it does, you really shouldn’t be spending any of it. It can be difficult to balance a full time job with running a business but if you can do it then please do try because that way, if the business doesn’t make as much as you need you still have the money from your full time job to fall back on. I personally am not much of a job person, I absolutely hate working for someone else and would much rather be my own boss. However, I am currently still poor. Do you see the problem? So, my solution has been to temp with an agency for the mean time. This allows me to have a flexible work schedule – I call my agency and let them know when I am available and if I am busy with business stuff then I tell them that I am unavailable to work and manage my money so that I don’t end up struggling during that time frame. As soon as your business starts making enough money that you no longer have to maintain a full time job then please feel free to quit immediately, but before that time it is always best to make sure that you are still receiving a secondary source of income because in case of an emergency (business or personal) you are still covered. This also allows you to put money from your job into your business and if you don’t need to do this, you can still put some money aside for savings.

9. Everyone needs some help sometimes: Asking for help or requiring support DOES NOT make you weak or vulnerable. There is a quote that says “if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”, and I wholeheartedly believe in this quote. This isn’t to say that you can’t run your business alone, you probably can. But what I am getting at is that you don’t know everything and you can’t do everything. I owe a lot of my businesses successes to those around me and on my different social media platforms who have shown me endless support. They give me advice, they help promote my products, they give me incredible feedback and encourage me to keep going. You might not even see that a certain aspect of your business needs to be changed or that it’s doing incredibly well until someone else brings it to your attention, be open to this. It’s also great to ask for advice from those who have been in a similar position to you. I spend so much time asking for tips and advice from other business owners and those who have experience in certain fields – shout out to you lot for putting up with me – because I know that no man is an island. People are way more willing to help than you would ever imagine.

10. Enjoy the ride:  Have fun with it! Have fun with your marketing, have fun learning how to relate to your customers, have fun with your website designing and your logo design and every other aspect of starting and running your business. It will be hard, there will be ups and down and people may not always believe in what you’re doing but as long as you believe in yourself, your brand and your products/service, that’s all that matter. Good luck!

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this and that my tips/advice have been helpful. If you would like any more advice or just want to discuss anything I have spoken about then please contact me on twitter: @bigfoams or via email enquiries@theglowpot.com.

Thanks for reading xo

A little black girl in the big corporate world…

Securing a graduate job with one of the worlds largest professional services companies before I even finished university has been one of my greatest achievements. I will never forget the day I got the phone call informing me that I had been successful after three different interviews and meeting one of the highest ranking directors in the business for the whole of the UK. Excited doesn’t even come close to how I felt, “this is it” I thought, I was so sure that my life had just fallen into place and that everything was going to be perfect. Being horribly wrong was not even something that crossed my mind at this point. What a pity.

Have you ever walked into a room and the first thing you notice is how incredibly different everyone else is to you? Despite having been born and raised in inner city London I attended a secondary school and college both just outside of London so I am used to being one of a few black people speckled amongst seas of middle class white folk. But this? This was a whole different ball game.. THIS was my first toe dip into the big white corporate world.

You see, during my short life I have never really experienced overt racism. It’s always been a bit like HIV, it’s dangerous, impossible to physically see and if you’re safe you should be able to avoid it but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s out there and it exists. It’s actually insane to think about how much a racist experience changes a person, it changes how you see those around you, how you see the world around you and most importantly it changes how you see yourself.

My first week working in the corporate world really shook me up. In an office of almost 100 people I was the only black person! The only one! I was astonished because I cannot recall any other occasion in my whole life where I’ve been the only black person anywhere. This would have been somewhat bareable if not for all the comments *rolls eyes*. It started off subtle enough “why do you speak so well if you’re from South East London?” “Is that all your real hair? How is it straight like that – no offence but I didn’t know black people could get their hair like that”- obviously I have neither the time or patience to explain what a hair relaxer is.  “I’ve been to Morocco once, that’s in Africa right? Yeah Africa is so beautiful, shame about all the poverty” *insert side eyes here* and the cherry on the cake was one of the senior managements referring to me as a “ghetto hood urchin” which was apparently meant as a term of endearment, I must have missed the memo they sent out that reclassified all of those words from the highly-offensive-and-borderline-racially-prejudice-remarks to cute-things-you-say-to-your-new-black-employee. Hm. It dawned on me very early into my time at this company that the majority of my colleagues had never actually interacted with any black person for a lengthy period of time and that was a massive shock to me.

Confident – one word that most people I know will probably use to describe me. I have never been lacking in confidence despite my many personal insecurities. However, I had never realised until that period of my life that my race could become something I was insecure about. Changing my hairstyle as and when I pleased was something I had been so used to doing without a second thought, now I found myself getting anxiety the night before work after having made a “drastic” change to my hair. By drastic I mean something like going from a really short pixie cut to having bum length braids. The next morning when I showed up at work with my fresh, new braids I became the office show pony. People were literally getting out of their seats to come over and touch my hair and ask me questions like “omg can I touch them??!” Or “wow they look REALLY heavy, won’t you get whiplash or something if you turn your head too quickly”. Overall it was a tedious and quite embarrassing half an hour. I couldn’t help but wonder why they thought it would be okay to do to someone – kind of reminded me of old those pictures you see of black kids being kept in zoos for white people’s fascination.

I honestly thought it would get better but it only but it got worse. Months and months of new recruitment drives and influxes of fresh, rosy white faces flood through the office further diluting any chance I had of not being so unmissably other.

I think I stayed there for way too long. I stayed after one of the few other WOC in or division was assigned the duty of informing me that some of our other colleagues found me a bit too “aggressive” even though this was the first time I had heard it from anyone and I had been there for about 6 months. This was a huge blow to my job confidence because not only had a been nothing polite, energetic and almost completely subservient to anyone remotely higher ranked in the business than I was. I cried that day. I’ll be the first to admit that I have got a ferocious temper when provoked – sometimes even when I’m not. But this wasn’t anything that had come from me showing my actual temper, what they really meant to say was “stop being so black, it’s making the white people uncomfortable”. I stayed even though a new manager came to run my team and made it a point to ensure I knew that he was “sassier than me” – little did he know that was literally not even close to being something I cared about. I stayed until the day one of the most senior members of staff in the business made a string of incredibly racist remarks and everyone else laughed. Everyone. And when I took (GREAT) offence to this their response was “it was only a laugh, it wasn’t even about you” and that’s when I realised that nothing I ever did or said would even put a dent into the shield of institutionalised racism that I was confronted with on a daily basis.

As I sit here now at my temp job in another corporate company willing myself not to punch the girl beside me who seems to find some sort of wicked pleasure in purposely pronouncing the names of our ethnic minority customers wrong – DESPITE several (kind and polite) corrections from myself,  I wish good luck to the black kids in university filling out hundreds of grad job applications for all the corporate monsters out there. You’re definitely going to need it.