Acne Magazine

If you have acne, then it may be tempting to sunbathe and think that you are “drying out your zits”, and in fact you are sort of covering the problem with a little color, but in fact, most studies point to the fact that excessive sunbathing can actually make acne worse, and make the inflammation ten times worse, especially if you accidentally burn your skin. 

It is imperative that you use a good, noncomedogenic (non pore clogging) sunscreen if you have acne.  Number one, to protect your skin from further damage from the excessive free radicals that the sun unleashes on your skin.  Number two, to protect your skin from dryness, wrinkles, sun spots, fine lines and possible skin cancer. 

And number three, to keep your acne away from further irritation and drying, which the sun always does.  While your skin may look better for a day or two because of the extra color, trust me, you are bound to get at least one whopper of a zit that’s a really bad one from the dryness and irritation, and excessive sebum triggered by the sun. 

Neutrogena has some pretty decent sunscreens that don’t irritate the skin and are also safe to use on skin with acne. There are also some that are a little higher end, like Clinique and Estee Lauder that work wonderfully but will cost you a little more.  Just be sure to see if there are any potential pore cloggers in the ingredients before you purchase, such as cocoa butter, any oils or heavy scents. 

I used the Avon product for refining and cleansing pores, called True Pore-Fection skin cleanser, and I have to say it was overall a pleasant experience.  What I liked about it was that it came in a fairly large tube that lasted me a while, and it came out looking and feeling almost like a mudd mask would - it was the color of clay, and yet when you ran it under water and suds your hands up, it made a nice creamy lather that felt good on your skin. 

I also liked that it did not over-dry my skin at all.  This really impressed me, since my skin tends to dry with a lot of “acne geared” cleansers. I did have to watch not to over do it though with rubbing my face, or else then I did notice a tinge of dryness and tightness in my face.  The price isn’t too bad either.  It costs about $5 for a tube of it. 

I would recommend this product to anyone who is not specifically looking for a cleanser for aging skin, but rather is still fairly young, as it does have drying agents in it, and no ingredients specifically geared to make the skin look younger or to hydrate the skin.  For that I would recommend some of the products on the review page to the right, which has plenty of reviews on acne cleansers, serums, creams and other topical products. 

And of course I always recommend something oral to take to internally “calm” the skin.

I recently came across an acne forum where they were having open season on celebs with acne or acne scarring. God bless ‘em, they have had acne too, and even though they may drive Rolls Royces and drink the finest champagnes, some things just are beyond repair - or maybe they’ve become somewhat of a trademark? Take Brad Pitt for example.

In my younger days of going to various dermatologists for my acne problem, there were only a few cleansers that were recommended for my skin by these doctors. The only four they recommended were Dial antibacterial, Basis, Purpose and Cetaphil. I could never figure this out.Dial antibacterial completely dried me out and made my acne worse, and Purpose seemed to do almost the same, only not dry me out as severely. I did however, kind of like Basis, although I never use it now due to my skin’s changing needs. Cetaphil is the facial cleanser they recommended that I really didn’t get.

Some people love to use facial masks like mud masks and peelable moisture-infusing masks once a week. I myself can never remember once a week to add to my skin care regimen, but some others find masks to be both skin-refreshing and relaxing, kind of like they are pampering themselves.There is an anti-redness mask that appears in the “Rosacea and Acne Rosacea Skin Care Product Reviews” page over to the right on this weblog which really soothes the skin and brings it back to a nice tone and even color that a lot of people swear by, especially those with red, dry and irritated skin, or those with rosacea or acne rosacea. I recommend you check it out if you’re a “mask person”.

I was thinking today how all of the advice I ever got about acne almost never worked. From “rub the wound with soap” to “use toothpaste to dry out a zit”, they almost always made my zits look worse than they did before. Enter the worst advice I ever got : Baking soda for acne lesions.

My friend and I went out to dinner tonight and she told me a funny story.  Oh, before I tell you my funny story, my friend has rosacea and she has very sensitive, fair skin.  She went to Dillards with a little time to kill, just to pick up some Mac Lip Gloss and go home.  The lady at the Dillards makeup counter talked her into letting her try out a few foundations and powders on her skin, and while my friend knew this probably was not a good idea due to her fair skin, she figured what the heck, I’ll kill a little time.

To make a long story short, she ended up with what she called a “cake layer” of foundation on in a shade too light even for her fair skin.  She had such irritated skin she had to wash it all off right away!  That just goes to show, if you have either rosacea, acne rosacea or just acne, you have to be very careful even of the cosmetics you use daily - they can definitely cause breakouts and irritation.  Don’t let the Dillard’s Makeup Ladies Get You!

Can you believe that I just typed into Google (out of curiousity), to see if there was any news on Accutane, and came up with a long list of results, but most of them were for Accutane lawyers? Hmm….it got me thinking - how many lawsuits ARE out there for this drug? And if there are so many that lawyers are jumping at the chance to get your case by listing very high up in Google, then is it more common than we think?

If you’re a woman, or a teenage young woman, you may think you’re just imagining things when you happen to notice that every time, at a very specific time of the month, you notice that your face becomes an oasis for blemishes.  And not just one of those little “dots” on your face that everyone tells you “oh I can’t even see the thing!”, but a big, hormonal blemish that comes to a head and seems to take over roughly half of your face.  It’s certainly all you can think about, so you think everyone else must be staring at it too! 

Well, while I may be exaggerating a bit, this is true for most of us women, right?  I know that I can always tell when my period is coming, because I get the tell tale rough looking skin which appears on my chin as a precursor to a serious round of blemishes taking off on my face.  It has actually been scientifically proven that our period, or specific timing before our period, called PMS, tends to cause abrupt breakouts in our skin. 

You see, our female and male hormones get somewhat “out of whack” during our period, and the hormonal imbalance that ensues manifests itself in mood swings, occasional faintness, fatigue and muscle aches.  It is androgens, the testosterone and other male sex hormones that make skin oily, and these androgens are produced by both the male and female body, just at differing levels by women, such as during their period. 

As a side note that I was thinking about after I posted that last post, there is a statistically higher amount of women affected by chronic acne in their midlife - about 8% higher than men.  In other words, women in midlife (and actually even menopausal women) are more than twice as likely to suffer from acne in their older years, and also suffer more severe acne.

I think this is probably due to the natural hormonal fluctuations in women as they age.  Their estrogen drops, and they become more susceptible to hormonal irregularities, such as hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings, vaginal dryness and yes - acne.  Even younger women are more susceptible to acne breakouts during their menstrual cycles, and at certain peak hormonal periods, which can vary from individual to individual. 

This fact is undisputed.  As a matter of fact, I think I’m going to research the period/acne link.  That’ll be for next time.  Oh I just love these inspirations, don’t you