A beauty blogger has shared a before-and-after photo of her face with and without make-up to show the reality of living with rosacea. Lex Gillies has been outspoken about her struggle with the skin condition, and admitted she is still "shocked" and "upset" when she removes her make-up and sees the red rash on her face.
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Posting a striking close up photo of her face with one half make-up free and the other after she has applied foundation, mascara and a bold red lipstick, Lex told her followers how she loved the "transformative" power of make-up. "This photo was hard to take and is even harder to post. Every single time I take a photo of my bare skin I am still shocked, because this is not how I picture myself," Lex wrote.
Lex Gillies shared this photo of her face with and without make-up
"When I imagine my face, I think of the girl on the right: happy, comfortable, wearing an amazing lipstick that screams confidence. So when I see the girl on the left, it's jarring. And it makes me upset." she confided. "But I absolutely love seeing photos like these from other people. It shows that makeup can be transformative and beautiful, but it's also so so much more than that. Wearing makeup makes me feel stronger and helps me to be myself."
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The blogger added that she would love to become less reliant on make-up and feel more confident in her own skin in the future. "To others this may sound silly or vain but to me it's a necessity. It gives me control over something I cannot change and that is so powerful," she explained. "One of my missions this year is to try and pare back my makeup in an attempt to feel more comfortable in my skin. But it's a slow process and one I'm really struggling with to be honest. I'd love to be more confident about the way I look, but for now I'm just trying to be a little kinder to myself."
The beauty blogger said she would like to become less reliant on make-up
It is not the first time Lex has spoken out about her skin condition. In 2016 she explained in an interview with BuzzFeed how she had first developed the skin condition when she was 21. "I had always had red cheeks and had blushed easily, but as time went on the redness became more severe, especially at certain points: when drinking alcohol, after exercise, when I was under a lot of stress," she said. "My skin would feel extremely warm and itchy, almost like heat rash, and would take hours or sometimes days to calm down."
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