'My Perfect Fucking Skin', Lena Dunham's latest 'Lenny Letter' on her website, beautifully captures the emotional impact of battling a skin condition.

The famously outspoken actress and activist reveals that a course of steroids to treat her chronic autoimmune disease resulted in an overnight appearance of rosacea, a common skin condition that causes redness, pimples and dilated blood vessels on the face.

Dunham says it knocked her confidence for six because she celebrated her complexion for its conventional beauty – in a time when the rest of her physical attributes are constantly critiqued.

"I had finally found my vanity", she explains. "Seven years of being treated in the public eye like a punch line about female imperfection may not have felt like it was wearing me down, but it had actually forced me to rely emotionally on my one area of fully conventional beauty: my perfect fucking skin."

The famous face says her experience of rosacea went from "two perfect pink circles" on her cheeks to "hundreds of tiny pimple-blisters that covered me from forehead to neck".

She admits it's her pride that burned more than her face, but as a female celebrity "with access to skin witches" and resources to deal with it, she's still the lucky one.

"I'm starting to believe that speaking this pain aloud isn't just good for my own healing: it allows any young woman who might be watching to understand that nobody is immune from feeling bad about hateful attention." We applaud Dunham for addressing not only the physical but emotional impact that a skin disease like rosacea, acne or eczema can have. It's about so much more than vanity.