Video blogger and mother of three Kristin Moras had a particularly tumultuous start to 2020. The coronavirus pandemic meant that in early spring she suddenly found herself homeschooling her two sons while pregnant with her third child. Not only were the stress and pregnancy hormones causing her skin to flare, but she wasn’t able to take her prescribed medications for rosacea because of her pregnancy.

“I just hit a breaking point,” Moras explained. “I texted a client to say I couldn’t meet her because my skin was so bad.”

But then she posted a picture of her skin without makeup on the photo sharing app Instagram — something she’d never done before — and received supportive comments from the skin acceptance community, a movement encouraging people to be more comfortable with their less-than-perfect appearance. After that initial post in March, Moras decided to go makeup-free for the remainder of her pregnancy.

Wearing cosmetics for more than a few hours led to pain and irritation, worsening her flare-up. In posts, she discussed the negative impact that not being able to hide her rosacea had on her self-worth, though she was ultimately able to gain strength knowing that her flare-up wouldn’t last forever.

“I’m just going to try to keep myself from hiding away,” Moras said in an Instagram post. “The only thing worse than rosacea right now would be letting the fear of it control me.”

As Moras posted more pictures of her skin without makeup, she found a supportive community online, as well as at home. In addition to recognizing that her flare-up was temporary, her family was another strong force that pushed her to accept her skin.

“The people who love you don’t care about your skin,” said Moras. “Your kids don’t care about your skin, but I know they’re going to see my behavior and how I feel about myself. If I don’t love myself, my kids will see that and they won’t love themselves.”

She received messages from online followers asking if she was afraid to get pregnant knowing that the hormones would cause her skin to flare and she wouldn’t be able to take most medications.

“The answer was yes.” Moras said. “But I had to weigh my mental health and skin health against my desire to have a family.”