Aesthetician, founder of Porespective skin clinic and productsGoing off birth controlChanging her diet, never picking, and finding a product cocktail that worked"In high school, I always had one 'monster' zit that I’m sure was caused by hormones. But then when I was 17, I started taking birth-control pills and didn’t have many problems until I got off of them when I was in my early 20s. Then, my face completely exploded! I started seeing a dermatologist for weekly cortisone injections and chemical peels, but it never really settled down, so I immediately got back on birth-control pills and it cleared up again pretty soon."In my mid-30s, my husband and I wanted to try to have a baby, so I discontinued my birth-control pills after taking them almost non-stop for 15 years, and my face exploded again. So here I was, selling an acne drug to dermatologists [Chasen was then a pharmaceutical rep for acne products], and showing up for sales calls with a face full of acne. The dermatologists who were my clients all had their suggestions on how to get me clear, from Retin-A to oral antibiotics, but nothing really worked and I didn’t want to go on Accutane. I had spent years reading medical journals and clinical studies, and working with some of the best doctors in the country, but nobody could get me clear. That’s when I enrolled in an esthetics program, received my license, and opened an acne clinic in Texas."The first two years of practicing, I was creating a small sample size of my own clinical study, just like the ones I had read about in medical journals. I started using different products through trial and error, first on myself and then on my clients.