The Portrait of Jeanne Gray

I made a discovery this spring that made me sad, and this is what it is: Starbucks drinks make me break out.

Hear me out. This could be an instance of causation and correlation, but it seems pretty apparent to me.

So: with the winter came the holiday drinks, including my favorite Gingerbread latte. If I had time before my morning train, and particularly if the cute barista guy was working, I would go to the tune of two to three times a week. Expensive, yes, but also delicious. Come January, the holiday drinks drifted out but they brought in the new tea lattes, which are very tasty, and I switched over.

At the same time, I was chronically battling my skin, particularly on my cheeks, which can be tied to stomach issues. (Milk and I aren't really close friends, you see.) I was bumpy and grumpy and, in the words of Tia Williams, I just felt busted.

And then, in January, I decided to knit baby blankets for my two co-workers who were expecting babies, and the best time to do all of my knitting was on my commute. Since I didn't want to juggle a hot milky drink and my knitting in the mornings, I stopped getting my morning Starbucks... and my skin started behaving. After the first blanket, I took a week or two off and went back to Starbucks, and my skin flared up again. I started up the second blanket and stopped the Starbucks, and it calmed back down.

Yeah, it's not super-scientific, but I can really tell a difference in my skin just by cutting out the milk-based beverages. And so, alas, I have. Even having one isolated drink makes me bump up, which is sad (and frustrating).

That said, if I could eat anything I wanted and not have it show up on my face, a la Dorian Gray, I would. (I would still want to keep aging, though. I'm fine with that part. It's just the yummy-things-turning-into-pimples that's getting me down.)

Would you give up something you loved if you found it affected your skin negatively? What would you refuse to give up? Would you want a Dorian Gray-style bargain?

image from periodicstyle.blogspot.com