Oh Acne!

This will probably be a recurring post topic for me since a lot of people struggle with it. I, myself, struggle constantly with acne. My goal here is to help you short cut to something that works for you or perhaps let you in on something you haven't yet tried. No matter how you cut it, face washes, creams, moisturizers, shampoos, deodorants, all beauty products are not one size fits all. What works for me might not work for you and in the end, it is YOU who have to experiment by trial-and-error. There's even the fact that your body chemistry changes over time and something that used to work for you might stop working & it's time to find something else. I'm going to try to ease your pain.


Identify your skin type
The first thing you have to do is identify what kind of skin you have. I have normal leaning towards oily skin. Oily especially in that famous T-zone. My skin is also exceptionally sensitive. I can't use peroxide (especially benzoyl peroxide at any concentration) without fear of my skin getting red, itchy, dry and in the case of open wounds, super filled with pus and 20x angier than if I'd just have left it alone. When I was a teenager, I was all about benzoyl peroxide. I thought it was a miracle. It zapped those zits dry but it left me with flaky, dry, red skin. Not pretty. Also, I find dry skin even harder to put makeup on than just flat out zitty skin.


Decide what your top concerns are
My two biggest concerns are no zits and no dry flaky skin. I don't worry so much about the unevenness of my skin tone or under eye circles - that's what makeup is for. I also don't worry about wrinkles. Not because I'm young, I'm almost 30, but because whatever. I want to look as natural an healthy as possible. Wrinkles are a sign of use. Smile lines around your eyes and mouth are good things to have. Now, unless you have a furrowed brow from being angry all the time, you shouldn't worry about wrinkles.


Develop a testing method
And stick to it! Your skin usually isn't going to react (positively or negatively) over night to a new face wash. You have to give it weeks to see if its right for you. I know. I am impatient too. But I promise to myself I will use the whole bottle of something (or like 3/4) before I determine if I like a product or not. About a month of using something gives you a better idea of if it is good for your skin or not. It will have been used during all levels of hormones and stress so you can better judge it. 


Don't get discouraged
Sometimes you'll go through a mountain of products before you find what is best for you. In the meantime, your skin is going to suck. But something I've learned over the years is that it isn't the end of the world. Life goes on. I admit sometimes acne has kept me from going to social events if it is particularly terrible. But I generally try to push on and go to events where having fun at the event would be a million times better than staying at home with my giant boil on my chin or where ever.  Keep trying til you find something that works for you. If you've tried the basics and still need help, there is always a dermatologist. I've been to plenty myself.


General pointers
Really there are only two. Wash & Moisturize. Wash your face in the morning when you get up and in the evening just before bed. You could get away with one other time (sometimes I re-do makeup for the night if my day makeup got all sweaty and gross) but don't wash your face excessively. It makes your skin flaky or conversely, could cause a serious over production of oil. Both are bad. After you wash, MOISTURIZE. I don't even care about you whining you have oily skin. There are moisturizers out there for you too. You have to replenish the oil lost in the washing process or your face will work double time to make more oil. Again, this is bad. Some people would recommend a toner in between but I haven't found that to significantly improve my skin so I say you can skip that step. Also, I only use acne treatments at night after I moisturize. It seems to be that I can't cover it with makeup during the day and I've really searched the market for something truly undetectable under makeup.  This Almay Concealer was the only one I could find that actually worked well as a concealer AND acne treatment. The problem was, the color didn't match well at all.


Here's some stuff I recommend & don't recommend
To help you on your journey, here's some things I've learned. I generally love Neutrogena products. I like their Pink Grapefruit, Redness Soothing and Stress Control lines. But I do NOT recommend any face soap - or for that matter soap at all - that is solid. Even Neutrogena's solid bar is a no-go. No matter how fancy or non-comedogenic it claims to be, solid soaps usually ends up either making me break out or drying the crap out of my skin. Most Clean & Clear & Clearasil products I either hate or just felt 'meh' about. Aveeno has been alright. It didn't remove makeup well in my humble opinion, but might be good for those who don't wear makeup or just as a morning cleanser. I've had some samples of Murad Clarifying Cleanser and Time Release Acne Cleanser that were pretty nice. Just WOAH expensive so I've never bought any.

As for moisturizer, I am pretty picky. I like Neutrogena's Oil Free Sensitive Skin moisturizer pretty much exclusively. I occasionally buy the CVS knock off, but that feels waxier on my skin than the real deal. I've had lots and lots of sample moisturizers and face washes from Sephora but most have not impressed me enough for me to want to buy the product. I seriously just searched Sephora for moisturizers and none of them I recall to be particularly amazing or terrible. This one I can't offer much help on. Choose one based on your needs (oily, dry, combo) that is non-comedogenic, non-acnegenic, and oil free. That's the best advice I can give. I hear ones with salicylic acid are good for oily skin.

I like Boscia's masks. I have the Clarifying Detox Mask I use as a spot treatment when I have just popped a white head. I don't use it on all of my face normally. I also use their Luminizing Black Mask about once a month to rip out black heads everywhere. Makes my skin so very soft. I don't recommend any drug store masks as they all seem to just make everything worse. Previously mentioned in another post, I like Philosophy's Micro delivery Peel but only about once a month.


In summation
Good luck! I will post more on my recommendations and non-recommendations in later posts and go into more detail as to why/why not I like them. In the meantime, know that you aren't the only one struggling with acne. It is totally A Thing. Even as an Adult.

A quick rant about some things I don't like

Here are 3 products I've been begrudgingly been using until they are gone so that I won't ever have to buy them again:

Here we have from left to right:
Garnier Fructis Sleek & Shine Shampoo
Neutrogena Ageless Restoratives Energy Renewal Cleanser
CVS Apricot Scrub (knock off of St. Ives)

I'll explain why I hate these will be overjoyed when I've used them all up so I can move on.

I've had the shampoo for awhile in my basement queued up to be used. I only shampoo usually on Sunday (or Wednesday and Sunday) so I don't go through it very quickly. I don't know why I bought this stuff to begin with. It's a brand I've used at my mom's house and was never impressed with it there either. My mom has very short hair, so I don't think shampoo is much of a concern for her. Having long, thick, porous & kinky white girl hair, though, the shampoo I use affects all of my hair. Not just my scalp. This stuff not only dries the shit out of my scalp & gives me dandruff, but it washed all my hair color out too! Never again!

I bought the Neutrogena face wash at Big Lots and thought "Oh hey, I love Neutrogena. This is cheap, I'll try it out." Nope. It sucks. It actually makes me break out. Consistently. I also don't like the film it seems to leave on my face afterwards. That's probably what's causing me to break out. I have pretty sensitive skin. I also get nodule, cystic acne. This seems to both aggravate that and give me white heads. Never again!

I've bought the CVS face scrub in the past but apparently I forgot how much it sucked. I kind of got it on request of my boyfriend who wanted a nice exfoliator. He and I both really liked the sample of Yu Be Foaming Skin Polish I got from a Sephora order. But the CVS stuff (and let's be honest here - the St. Ives scrub too) just isn't up to par. The Yu Be exfoliator is like a godsend. The grit is a lot finer than what you can get at CVS or St. Ives. It just smoothly buffs off dead skin. This knock off stuff, on the other hand, actually feels like gross sandpaper and my face feels rough after using it. Tony, my boyfriend, has nice, even-toned brown skin and doesn't seem to mind the knock off but does agree the Yu Be is better by a lot.


I can't wait til I'm done with these so I can move on. But I just can't justify throwing out something. So here I wait in limbo.