Olly Undeniable Beauty HSN Vitamin Review (with before and after photos!)

I have always had pretty clear skin. If I ever had breakouts, which was more frequent in college, I was able to eventually pinpoint what exactly caused it, and it would usually be linked to stress or a certain food. And it was usually like 2-3 breakouts, so nothing like super crazy. The breakout would happen, I would freak out for a second (probably post a snapchat about it 🙊), and then my skin would go back to normal. But in the past 5ish months, my skin has changed. The breakouts have been more regular and my skin isn't as smooth as it used to be. I have been trying to figure out why because there hasn't been any significant change in the products I use or the food I eat. Like I was going to post an updated skin care routine and then my skin went crazy and I scrapped the idea (for now).

But I was open to using some kind of supplement that would help improve my skin and hair.  Well, mostly my skin, but I wasn't opposed to hair growth. The vitamins I originally wanted and had seen results from hundreds of people were kinda expensive, so I found a cheaper alternative at the drugstore, by a brand called Olly. I have seen social media influencers use this brand, so I decided to try it out for a month and see what would happen. I forgot the exact date, but I think I started taking them around August 12th, 2019 according to the date of my "before" photos. There are lots of positive ratings of the brand overall, so I wanted to see any before and after photos, but there were none. (Which apparently seems to be a huge problem when it comes to products and brands that claim to make some physical changes to your body?! WHY IS THAT?!! anyways...) Not seeing any before/after photos made me a little hesitant, but I still wanted to try it out since it was cheap, had good ratings, and not the biggest loss of money if I didn't see any change.

Just wanted to show that I did actually purchase and consume all the vitamins. 

I'm not going into detail here about the product claims, but you can check it out on their website here! Basically, it's a gummy vitamin that is supposed to help improve skin, hair, and nails using Biotin, Vitamin C, E, and Keratin. You're supposed to take two gummies daily. They never specified if it needed to be taken together or separately, so I took one in the morning and one in the evening. And food and water is not necessary to have with it. There were some days where I forgot to take a vitamin in the morning, so I would just take two at the same time. Towards the end, I started to forget to take them but I did finish the bottle in about 5 weeks.

Here are some unedited before and after photos. The lighting is slightly dimmer in the after photos because I think one of the lights in my bathroom went out, so if I look more dead in the after photos, that's why.

LEFT SIDE OF MY FACE
Before (Aug 12th) vs. After (Sept 19th)

RIGHT SIDE OF MY FACE
Before (Aug 12th) & After (Sept 19th)

FULL FACE (yes I look atrocious, boys i promise i'm not this ugly)
Before (Aug 12th) & After (Sept 19th)

Yeah, you're not seeing wrong. My skin actually got worse. Like way worse. I noticed my skin getting really bad about 10 days into the vitamins. But I was 100% convinced it was something else. Like I started talking about it on my instagram and never mentioned the vitamins being a potential cause for the breakouts. And I wanted to give the vitamins a fair shot because I have heard of certain vitamins and skincare products making the breakouts worse before getting better. I honestly don't know if the vitamins solely caused this breakout, but I started reading what the negative reviews said and it seems like some people have had similar experiences to me. I also found out that people can be sensitive to biotin supplements and acne is one of the side effects, which could also possibly be the case for me. At first, I thought the breakouts were due to an increase in junk food consumption because I had started eating those sugary dessert snacks (i.e. Twinkies) regularly. Not a lot, but maybe one snack a day. I completely took that out of my diet and thought I saw an improvement in my skin, but then it got worse again. I thought it was stress from moving back home with my parents, which could still be the case since like I stated earlier, my breakouts had started back in May. But my biggest issue was with how bad it had gotten in a short amount of time. As you can tell in the before pictures, it wasn't that terrible and that's basically how it had been since May. It only got really bad in August around the time I started taking the Olly vitamins. I don't know exactly what to do, but as of now, I do not plan on repurchasing the vitamins. Like even if it's the case where the breakout has to get worse before it gets better, my skin wasn't that bad to begin with, so I don't see the point. But I seem to be in the minority with all these issues, so if you want to try it out, I guess go for it? I personally would probably talk to a doctor before doing so, just in case. Like if I actually do have a biotin sensitivity, I had zero clue up until now. I just wanted to share my experience WITH pictures with you guys, if you were ever curious about HSN supplements. I think my mistake was using these to improve my skin when usually people use it to improve their hair and nails, when I never really had an actual concern with my hair and nails. They have vitamins that target the skin specifically, which I could try, but for now, I am taking a break from supplements, lol.

But speaking of hair, I did take before and after pictures of my hair (see below) and I think my hair grew a bit, at least an inch, right? So I think it worked with hair growth if you are wanting your hair to grow longer. I didn't take pictures of my nails since I have no issues with my nails and didn't notice anything different with them.

Before (Aug 14th) & After (Sept 20th)

If you're in the medical field and you're familiar with these kinds of products or my situation, please feel free to leave some advice or feedback in the comments below! As stated above, I am only assuming the increase in acne is due to the vitamins. If I have any skin updates, I will try to update this post and also post on my instastories under my highlight tab called "Skin Journey"!

FYI: I purchased this product on my own and I was not paid to give a review. All opinions are my own.

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