When I had the opportunity to relocate from California to New York two years ago I was over the moon. I'd grown tired of operating my online magazine remotely and was ecstatic at the thought of finally being part of the action. In Manhattan I could interview my fashion and design idols in person rather than over the phone. At last I'd be networking first hand with the industry greats I'd admired since I was a little girl. It was going to be a momentous step for my career and I was determined to put my best foot forward.

I arrived in New York in the sticky heat of August, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, when an unfortunate thing happened. My skin, which had never given me much trouble, absolutely freaked out. I woke up my second day in town and could barely recognize myself in the bathroom mirror. My face was dry and puffy and my skin alarmingly rough to the touch. I panicked. How on earth was I supposed to meet all these new people looking like this? I was embarrassed to be seen at the corner bodega much less an important industry event. A beauty junkie, I tried to disguise it with makeup, but had little success. This was certainly not the glamorous New York debut I'd imagined myself making.

In a panic I raced to the nearest department store and headed straight to the Clinique counter for a remedy.

I still remember being brought to the Clinique counter as a young girl after convincing my mother to let me wear makeup. She taught me it was a brand I could trust. The specialist explained it was probably my skin adjusting to the east coast weather (hello humidity!) and sent me home with well wishes and a bevy of Clinique products.

I diligently washed my face, slathered on the moisturizer, and breathed a sigh of relief. Almost instantly I saw improvement. Soon enough my puffy, parched skin was a thing of the past and I began to feel like myself again. I was able to attend all the events and photo shoots I'd scheduled that fall looking and feeling my best. It's not always smooth sailing, every once in a while my skin still acts up, but the difference is I now know how to prevent disastrous flare-ups.

Moving across the country taught me countless things, but how to take care of my skin is one of the lessons I'm most grateful for. What had once been an afterthought is now a priority and I step out each morning feeling prettier and more confident because of it.

I was 12-years-old when my skin started to freak out on me. I went through puberty a little earlier than my friends, and along with it came angry red breakouts. None of my friends were experiencing acne yet, so I was kind of on my own. A hormonal pioneer! It would have been an adventure except it was mostly mortifying.

After a few years my acne got bad enough that my mom decided to make an appointment for me to see a dermatologist. Now, my mother, bless her heart, is a genetic marvel. The woman barely wears a stitch of make up, gives her skin little to no attention, and yet is somehow aging like a fine wine. And yet here was her daughter, her genetic offspring, going through puberty with as much grace as a drunken grizzly bear. She was as sympathetic as she could be, but I could tell that what I was going through was beyond her realm. I was on my own at home, too.

Over the years I tried just about everything. Prescription creams and pills, one doctor even suggested I use straight up rubbing alcohol as a toner to help combat the mess on my face (don't ever do that), but nothing worked. The pills made me nauseous, the creams made my skin red and sensitive, and most of the things I tried just made the break outs worse.

Until one day: There I was at seventeen, my senior year of high school, a pimply, braces-wearing mess. I was awkwardly growing out an impulse pixie cut… the whole thing was fairly tragic. (Pixie cuts are always a bad idea, Natalie.) To make it worse, I had never been kissed, and the boy I'd crushed on for years and who seemed interested in me off and on had just asked another girl to prom—a girl he had flown into town from another state, even. It was just too much. I'd had enough.

I went to the mall and visited the lady at the makeup counter. She gave me a few tricks to accentuate my best features. I went home and I practiced, practiced, practiced.

And then, at school, I just decided I'd act confident. I started flirting with the boys. I laughed more. I'd smile when I'd make eye contact with someone in the halls.

Of course it was all an act. I was feeling every bit as self-conscious and embarrassed by my skin as ever, but I knew that I was doing my best to accentuate the parts of my face that I liked, and I knew I was ready to feel like something besides a walking pimple. I was ready to take charge of my high school experience. A girl's gotta live her life, after all. Pimples or no pimples, I was the one in charge.

I'll have you know I got my first kiss on a Thursday night in June from that boy I'd loved all year with a mouth full of braces and face full of pimples. Nothing had changed, but everything had changed. I had changed.

Since then I've been lucky enough to have really great skin, and so far, I've been lucky enough to take after my mother in the aging department, too. But I never forgot what I learned in high school: I can't control what I look like, but I can control what people see when they look at me. And that's the best feeling.

For years growing up I was in an endless fight&mdashwith my face. It was something that taunted me and made me feel terrible every time I looked in the mirror.

You see, I started suffering from breakouts at a very early age—long before most kids became pimply-faced teenagers. As early as age ten, spots started erupting and it was war: my skin against me.

Looking in the mirror first thing each morning revealed the verdict of the previous night's battle.

Did the newest trendy product, home remedy or crazy idea (I remember hearing toothpaste could zap a pimple) come to the rescue this time? Too often the answer was no. And I'd just want to crawl back under the covers and hide. No matter how common acne is, it still has an amazing power to make you feel unattractive, no matter what other wonderful attributes you might have.

We all know that being pretty is more than skin deep and trust me, family members did their best to convince me that no one else noticed my problem skin. But when you spend years coveting the fresh, bright, acne free complexions of your friends, it can often become all you see. Sure I loved being tall, I felt proud about being a good athlete, I even knew I was smart, but I never, ever felt pretty.

Eventually, I kinda gave up. I stopped fighting against my skin. I resigned myself to having a problematic complexion as being a genetic inevitability; there was nothing I could do but try to pile on foundation to try to hide the spots. I focused on other things and went all the way through college never thinking of myself as pretty.

Then, as I hit my late 20s, I finally discovered a skin care routine that worked! And what a different daily reality it was to wake up and not be nervous about what would be on my face. I wish I could say it wasn't a big deal.

I wish I could say having clear skin didn't really matter to me and I felt just as good about myself as I always had – but that wouldn't be the truth. Waking to a clear complexion, not having to worry if I would be breaking out during my next big event or when I’d have my picture taken was truly an amazing feeling. No mater how hard you work to hang onto your inner confidence, when your skin won’t cooperate it’s a struggle.

Realizing it wasn't too late to change my story and that I didn't have to be at the mercy of my face – that instead I could have the skin I always coveted was such a relief! Facing the world with clear skin and a big smile made all the difference for me.

I will always remember that being pretty runs much deeper than someone's complexion – but I will always cherish having good skin—and feeling fabulous about how I look everyday because of it.

Finding your way to clear skin is definitely better late, than never!!

When I was only five or six years old, I bartered with my brother over skin care. Five years my senior, my brother wasn't too keen on the idea, but this was our deal: I would agree to be privy to hours of boy, action cartoons in the shared TV room. In exchange, he would let me give him a "face treatment," which was a rudimentary facial, including cleansing and several masks.

Gradually, the face treatments I was giving to my brother, my friends and myself became more in-depth, as I learned about the importance of astringents (this was the '90s by the way) scrubs and blemish removers of various sorts. My favorite activity was "sending away" for free skin care items from various beauty magazines, checking out the latest drugstore offerings and going to the department store beauty counters with my mom.

My beauty fascination started with skin care and I'm grateful to have learned how to take care of my skin starting at such a young age. I became obsessed with finding products and ingredients tailored to a particular need or condition, to give skin what was required to look its best.

Pampering my skin with soothing moisturizers, acne-prevention topical items and cleansers also helps me relax and enjoy a little "me time," a ritual deeply important to me, even today. Taking the time to care for my skin—morning and night—and giving it what it needs makes me feel more confident as a result. After all, it’s what’s on the inside that counts, and looking good is all about feeling good, too.

In my teens and 20s, my chin and jawline were the parts of my face I could always count on to behave. Acne rarely made an appearance there—which seemed strange because I'd had bouts of acne on my forehead and chin since the age of 12 or 13.

But my chin had always been smooth and breakout-free. No drama. It was like my metaphorical safe place at a time when a raging pimple party was happening on the rest of my face.
But then something happened around the time I turned 36. A switch flipped, and suddenly I was getting breakouts along my jawline and chin.

It was so frustrating having to deal with acne 1) at 36 and 2) where I'd never seen pimples before. I started turning to the side in my blog pictures and wearing my hair down to hide the worst spots.
On the one hand, I guess I got pretty good at disguising my acne with makeup, and I learned a lot of lessons along the way, but it still hit my self-esteem hard. On the worst days, I felt self-conscious and didn't want to leave the house without a full face of makeup.
I had to get it under control, so I ended up trying a bunch of different products, both prescription and over-the-counter, and also experimenting with changes in my diet.

These days, I still get the occasional renegade pimple on my chin, but things are more or less clear, and I feel good again about my skin.

When it comes to skin and breakouts, I can't pretend it's not a struggle. Anyone who says it doesn't matter either has great skin, or thicker skin than I. If you're going through a rough patch with acne, I understand, and you're not alone. It's beyond frustrating, I know, but try to be kind to yourself and patient. It takes time, and sometimes a lot of trial and error, but you'll get there. You will.

I never gave much thought to my skin until my very first blemish emerged at 14-years-old. In Korean culture, skin is cherished; it's seen as core to a woman’s beauty. So as soon as my skin started to break out, my mother took me to the nearest Clinique counter and bought me the 3-step program. She told me from that day on I needed to wash my face morning and night.

Some daughters shop with their moms for prom dresses as a rite of passage, but this was my moment. My mother was always adamant about what happened to my pores, my cell turnover, even their color. I kid you not. Even now, my mother still calls me to check in on my skin.

The skin regimen goes back another generation to my maternal grandmother who created a beauty legacy grounded in confidence.

My grandmother was the kind of woman who wore lipstick until the day she died. Even as she battled cancer, she'd sashay around her home with her ostomy bag, wrapped in Christmas paper and shiny bows like a purse. She, too, guided my skin. She'd walk with me, even in difficult health, to the glistening cosmetics counters of Seoul to see the newest skin care lines. She'd advise me on step-by-step approaches to nurturing even the most microscopic blemish.

My struggles with acne heightened during two phases of adulthood. During grad school I woke up one day to a strawberry patch of pimples all over my face, so bad that I burst into tears. Of course I called my Mom for advice. Then I struggled with acne again when I was pregnant with my daughter. My hormones had gone amuck and threw a pimple party on my face. I called Mom again. She quieted my tears—reminding me that I had stress and/or pregnancy hormones. She stressed to not pick at the blemishes or I'd scar. But most importantly she said the golden words: They'll go away, they're not here to stay.

I realized that it's important to value the natural assets you're born with. It might sound cliché, but as women we don’t do that nearly enough. I understood this more after becoming a mother.

When we endure a breakout, we imagine that all people see are bright, red bumps, when in reality others probably don't them as badly as you do they may not see them all.

If we can remind ourselves that acne is, in the grand scheme of things, just a blip in the radar, we can ease our anxiety while treating our skin. Compared to all our other wonderful, beautiful assets, acne is like a passing shower; not here to stay. Remind yourself of what you’ve got inside—It's good, getting better, and you know it.

Then smile, move from the mirror, and have a good day.