Sarah Griffiths has spoken about one particularly cruel encounter she had11:13, 13 Jul 2026Updated 13:31, 13 Jul 2026A newlywed has revealed how years of navigating a health condition left her convinced that potential partners would reject her once they saw the reality, after one cruel dating encounter left her confidence at an all-time low.‌On June 26 Sarah Griffiths, 29, tied the knot with Aled Morris at The Barns at Delbury Hall, Shropshire, before jetting off to Croatia for a dream honeymoon. But the spa account manager has now opened up about how she spent years worrying that the psoriasis affecting her scalp and body would put off potential partners, leaving her fearful of intimacy and reluctant to discuss the condition with people she dated in the past.‌Sarah said: “It definitely affected my confidence in terms of meeting people, in terms of intimacy, in all aspects of a relationship. I was on a night out, I must have been 19 or 20 years old, and went home with someone. Then, as I turned the lights on, I remember he looked at me and said, ‘what the f*** is that?’‌“I think I was still probably a couple of sheets to the wind, so I was able to have a bit of thicker skin, but I just got my things and left. For a very long time, it made me feel very much less than.”Sarah has lived with the skin condition since she was a child and experiences symptoms across her body, including itching and dry skin on her scalp and hairline. Her symptoms are all too common. Research from coal tar shampoo manufacturer Polytar shows that more than a third (34%) of women deal with persistent itchiness of the scalp, almost three in 10 (27%) deal with a dry or tight-feeling scalp, and a quarter (25%) navigate increased flaking."I've got full-body psoriasis, but obviously on the scalp as well," she explained. "My main issue is that it's quite thick plaques around my hairline, so my major cause for concern is having flakes in my hair."‌Over the years, she has tried numerous treatments while also dealing with the emotional burden of living with a highly visible skin condition: "I think I've tried pretty much every available medication in the UK. The reality is, I do feel more confident when it’s treated, and that’s how I feel better.”Yet Sarah said the biggest challenge wasn't always the physical symptoms, but the effect it has had on her self-esteem and confidence: "I didn't want to talk about it because when I would talk about it, I would just get such a lump in my throat and become so emotional. So it was just avoid, avoid, avoid."‌While dating in the past, Sarah said she constantly worried about her dates judging her for something she couldn’t control: her skin condition.She said: "You’d just think, 'are they looking at that? Are they looking at me? Does he really fancy me?' If I were feeling very empowered, or girlbossing too close to the sun, I’d be like, ‘I’ve got a skin condition, okay?’ And other times, it would just break me.”This affected her so much that she often tried to hide it rather than opening up about her condition: "I'd always do my best to hide it, but I had this really bad habit of not broaching the subject because I was so nervous about it. So I would just kind of keep it to myself until it came up, or until things progressed that far, which almost made it worse."‌As relationships became more serious, so did her anxiety: "My biggest insecurity was that when it got to that stage of them seeing me undressed, they'd be like, 'that's not what I signed up for'. It became this massive, unavoidable beast.”But despite fearing this rejection, Sarah said most people reacted positively. Most of all, from her now-husband, Aled, who has been supportive of her condition from the get-go.Sarah said: “People would ask about it, but they'd be like, 'that's fine, no problem,' even if I'm there crying, saying, 'I hate it'. I definitely was very nervous about telling Aled, but he was extremely kind and extremely reassuring.”‌During the lead-up to her wedding, Sarah admitted she was worried about her psoriasis flaring up: “On the run up to my wedding day, I've been trying to avoid my known stresses that I can control, for example, drinking, eating fatty and sugary food and trying to keep stress down as much as possible. But it is the nature of the beast with weddings!”She explained how using Polytar became a pre-wedding ritual, which allowed Sarah to have her dream updo hairstyle on her special day.‌She said: “Polytar, I always use on my first wash. I’ve been trying to have more baths because it’s more relaxing and in the bath I can put it on and leave it on for five to seven minutes. Sometimes, when you are very stressed or you're down in the dumps, self-care can feel like a chore."Using Polytar, it's like habit stacking because I'm in the shower or bath anyway and I'm not having to do another step in my daily routine. If anything, it encourages me to take things a little bit more slowly, leave it on for five to seven minutes, maybe do some breathing, which is going to help with stress anyway."Now that Sarah is in honeymoon bliss with her husband, she hopes that speaking openly about psoriasis will help others struggling with the same fears she once carried.Article continues below"I spent years worrying people would reject me because of my psoriasis," she said. "What I've learned is that the fear was often much worse than the reality."