Acne Magazine : Skin Care, Tips, Treatment Reviews

People, young and old, who suffer from acne or problem skin, tend to usually ask this question if they’ve tried a few things for their skin to help clear it up and nothing seems to be working. The short answer is, when a few other options that are alternative and natural in nature and lifestyle change oriented, have been attempted by individuals with acne prone skin, then they probably should go seek a professional dermatologist’s evaluation and opinion on what should work for their skin.

I went to a dermatologist for the first time when I was about 13 or 14 years old, when my normally pristine skin began to erupt into painful, under the skin lesions that marred my face – mostly my chin. I had a rough bout with adolescent hormone onslaught, as was evidenced by my wild mood swings, the onset of my period, and the systematic destruction of the skin on my face. I literally seemed to get acne over night. There was no gradual progression of a zit here and a zit there, but rather my face erupted all at once into the worst hormonal acne you could imagine.

My mom’s first instincts were to try to treat it naturally so we cut out chocolate and fried foods from my diet, but this was beyond food, this was hormonally based, and something needed to be done on a medical/professional level. Keep in mind that back then there was no internet where you had the coolest treatment options at your fingertips, but rather word of mouth and natural health shops that mostly sold bogus homeopathic remedies that didn’t work for the majority of people. Nowadays, you have all kinds of options, including my favorite, dermacleanse, and you also have other top sellers like Acnezine and Clear Pores.

I think most people should try a few things before they go to a dermatologist, especially since dermatologists often prescribe antibiotics for acne, and the long term effects of antibiotic use are more and more scary as more things come to light about them. If natural alternatives do not work, and changing your diet to help regulate your hormones, then you may want to consider going to see a professional, but make sure you examine all options first, as more and more people are treating acne with a good amount of success with alternative acne treatments.

It’s no secret by now that foods that are rich in omega 3 fatty acids, which are found most richly in these commonly eaten foods, almonds, fish, avocados and flax seeds, and of course more, but these are the most well known especially giving credit to the glut of good press these foods have gotten, help us in numerous ways when it comes to our general health.

Not only are omega 3’s protective for the heart because of their ability to help reduce harmful cholesterols and other fats from clogging the blood stream and reaching the veins and other parts of the circulatory system and causing havoc, but they also are known to help promote concentration, brain function – and yes, to help maintain a youthful, supple appearance in the skin.

Why? Well, because fish oils are protective of skin cells as well. Let me clarify, omega 3’s are helpful in protecting the skin, they don’t just have to consumed via fish products, but there are also various nuts, seeds, grains and veggies and even fruits that can help supply your diet with these much needed healthy fats.

I think you’ll find that consuming these fats in abundance will help your skin stay fresh looking, and amazingly moisturized and glowing if you make sure you also get lots of other good stuff in your diet. It’s not something you can take and then eat anything you want, but when you take this supplement with a balanced diet, I think you’ll find that it helps your overall health in many ways.

Not only do I feel that taking one fish oil a day helps my skin look better, but I also feel that it helps me to focus and have a better grip on my mental functions – as they say, fish is brain food, and it very well may be because of the omega 3’s, which help stabilize the blood sugar, and therefore help you not get that airheaded hungry feeling that so many of us do when our blood sugar dips – and guess what, an even keel blood sugar is also great for the skin. I think you can see what I’m getting at here – omega 3’s are a smart addition to your diet

So, I just got reaquainted with a good old beauty stand by from the eighties and nineties. My old friend, the Buf Puf. If you’re a little too young to remember this piece of marketing genius, it’s just an exfoliating sponge that you swipe over your face to either use to get a deeper cleansing with your facial cleanser, although I never used it this way because I found that too drying, or, like I use it, you can use it after you’ve washed and your skin is still wet. I like to use it then, because it’s easier to get all the flakes of dead skin and the older skin cells that are just sitting on the surface, dulling up my skin.

They are much more susceptible to being swept away (aka exfoliated), when they are wet and much more easy to remove. I had found when I was younger, in my early teens, that it was hard for me to consistently use the Buf Puf or other similar skin exfoliators like it, because I so often had new, broken, and already irritated acne lesions cropping up, and using the Buf Puf was just too painful, or I had to so strategically maneuver around the eruptions on my face so as not to further irriate or erupt them, or rub off any scabs, that it was was a pain.

Now that I’m older, and I enjoy a much more acne free complexion, I’m getting friendly with this old beauty scrubbing tool, using it occasionally after washing my face to scrub away the ol’ nasty skin cells and other debris after it’s been loosened off by washing, and I really like it. It’s a nice way to make your skin glow and get off any dry spots, flaking, or roughness that tends to cloud the complexion.

However, you will have a hard time finding the genuine Buf Puf article. I had to order mine online, and I honestly don’t know if drugstores sell anything comparably convenient and economical that lasts as long. Buf Pufs are very durable, and you really get your $6 worth, so I’ll be having this in my shower for bi-nightly exfoliation for a long time to come. Only time I won’t use it as much is in the summer when I put self tanner on my face quite a bit to keep that warm, summer-kissed glow in place of my ghastly white facade in the winter

I have read a lot in the past about using various B vitamins to help treat acne vulgaris. The only problem is that everywhere I look, they are telling me that it’s a different B vitamin you should use to treat acne. Most commonly, I found it was vitamin B5, but I also found other places saying that it’s B12 and even B1 that you should use, not B5.

So, I wondered, has anyone out there had true success, and not had any negative side effective by dosing up on B vitamins to help treat their acne? Of course, there would be a lot of concern if B vitamins were not water soluble, since they could quickly build up to toxic levels in the body, however, most B vitamins, including B5, are water soluble, which means you pass them out of your body when you urinate on a daily basis, so there is no danger of toxicity, unless you are taking such high levels that the body cannot get rid of it quickly enough.

Vitamin B 5 also goes by the name pantothenic acid. You see this ingredient in a lot of hair skin and nails vitamins, and in a lot of natural acne treatments since it is therapeutic for the skin, however, there is some concern over using primarily just higher doses of the vitamin to help treat acne since there are some side effects reported anecdotally such as lethargy.

I have a problem with extremely high dosing of any vitamin, and that is what some of these B5 acne treatments want you to do. Any high dosage of any vitamin or mineral should be treated with EXTREME caution, as any vitamin or mineral, or any other one pronged treatment for that matter, can become toxic to a person. Even the most healthy of vitamins, like vitamin C, can be taken too much. You can get mouth sores and overly acidic from taking that, and that is one of the most harmless vitamins out there.

B vitamins assist in the metabolization and processing of fats and carbohydrates in the body. As you know, B12 is one of the B vitamins that is used to infuse energy into the body by giving you excellent bursts of energy. The interesting part of the B vitamin theory is that it somehow traces acne back to the storage of fat in cells or something of that nature.

To be honest, I didn’t research it much because I happen to disagree with mega dosing like this. I think vitamin B is an excellent acne supplement, but only as a small dose, nothing huge or megadosing like some people suggest. I think there are better ways to treat acne, but that is just my personal opinion. Anyone who disagrees or has a different side to the story, please feel free to comment here – that’s what this site is all about.

I wrote in the last post about how I looked at the ingredients in a skin care product designed for acne prone skin, and it contained maltitol. This confused me since I’m only used to seeing maltitol as a sugar alcohol (sugar substitute) sweetener in mostly diet and low carb processed foods, and things like sugar free ice cream, candies and gum. And by the way, I also mentioned that eating anything with this ingredient in it happens to give me terrible gas pains, so I try to stay away from it, that’s why I’m so keenly aware of it in labels.

Maltitol is a sugar alcohol. It is made from the starch of corn, which is fermented and made into a sweet syrup or powder, and maltitol is not as sweet as sugar, but almost. I’ve found that eating products that have maltitol in them, they have a slightly bitter taste to them. The syrup is supposed to be sweeter than the powder,and so less of the syrup is needed.

Maltitol produces excess gas and even diarrhea in a lot of people because it is designed to be slowly digested by the body (not so sure this can be good for you, it sounds similar to that Olestra fat substitute that gave so many people painful diarrhea and gas almost a decade ago), especially people who may have highly sensitive digestive systems, like myself.

So, you’re probably wondering, gee maltitol sounds like a decent sugar substitute, but what about it’s use as a skin care additive? Well, the only information I found on maltitol as a skin care product additive is that is does have slightly hydrating properties, so it is probably added as a moisturizing agent that is not comedogenic for acne prone skin.

HOWEVER, I also found that one of the properties of maltitol as applied topically can function as a skin irritant. While this may be broadly deciphered, since I know that salicylic acid and my other favorite acne skin care ingredients can also cause “irritation” in some more sensitive individuals, of course this raised my eyebrows. But I also read (again, the research and availability of material on this on the internet is very limited, mostly what I found was about maltitol as ingested in food products, not much else), that it is used as a humectant in skin care products.

It also serves as an emulsion stabilizer, so perhaps it stabilizes lotions and creams so that they form bonds and stay as a lotion or cream instead of basically disintegrating. I don’t know how widely it is used, but the FDA has approved it for both topical use and oral ingestion, so it can’t be too bad.

I received a question from a new reader (we love those, keep them coming!) about whether or not we had reviewed the Boscia Clear Complexion Kit yet. I have not tried this product, and to be honest, had not heard about it until now since there is such a wide plethora of acne treatment products on the market today, so I cannot offer a true assessment of it, but I did look it up and the ingredients are conducive to clear, yet moisturized skin.

The only ingredient that puzzled me was the maltitol, which I’ve only ever seen in foods as a sugar alcohol (sweetening agent) usually used in low carb foods. And it gives you really bad gas if you eat too much of it, so I found this a rather odd ingredient for a skin care product, but loved the other natural ingredients I saw in it. I’m going to research this maltitol thing, who knows, it may actually have very therapeutic properties for the skin, and now I’m curious about it, since up until now, it was only a food ingredient that I ignored like the plague in diet foods since it wreaked havoc on my digestive system.

Here is the question from the reader, if anyone has used this product, would you kindly post a comment below about your experience? Don’t know if I’ll get around to trying this product any time soon! Thanks!

Dear AcneMag Editors,
Hi, I’m a new reader, and I was looking to see if you have reviewed a product:
Boscia Clear Complexion Kit . I have acne rosacea and always looking for good products and good value.
Thank you for putting information out there for people like me!

Answer to reader :
Hi XXXXX. Sorry for the delay in responding. No, we have not reviewed this product yet. I have never tried it and haven’t really heard anything about it, this is the first I’m hearing. If you happen to try it (I’d suggest seeing if they offer a money back guarantee), please let us know how it works, I’m sure there are others like you who are looking for good user reviews on this product! I looked at the Sephora page with this product and I saw fairly mixed reviews, which is why I suggested asking if there is a money back guarantee, in case it did not work for your skin.

I used to think that your skin cleanser didn’t matter so much because it seemed that every cleanser I had dried my face out and actually irritated my festering acne sores even more, to the point where they would scab and crust over numerous times before they finally gave in and healed into a nice, pale, red scar. However, what I didn’t realize at that time was that I was just washing my face for too long, allowing the lather to set on my face for far too long, because I thought that would make my skin problems better by getting a deeper clean.

That was also before I got turned onto the awesome acne skin care ingredient that I love to have in all of my skin cleansers, salicylic acid. This ideal ingredient for acne, I’m convinced, is this one in your cleanser because it is exfoliating and refreshes that last skin layer while clearing away debris which causes pore cloggage and makes a nice, big fat zit wherever it happens to settle on yoru skin.

Your cleanser does matter, but you don’t need to spend a whole lot of money to get one that agrees with your skin. However, that being said, I do believe that the ones without the harsh ingredients like sodium laurel sulfate and parabens are the best, since it is my opinion and experience that these types of natural, organic cleasers are actually better for acne prone skin because they have no drying or irritating or allergenic ingredients, which many times can just inflame acne further and make your face look worse.

As long as you stay as natural as possible, you can’t go wrong. You just have to figure out which natural ingredients work best with yoru skin. Is it glycerin? Maybe a vitamin C based cleanser, as is what works for my skin by chance? Maybe it’s something like naturla cucumber extract to calm the skin, or maybe it’s green tea extract, or better yet, many people respond well to the astringent qualities of tea tree oil, which is excellent for acne prone skin.

Finding the right cleanser, as you know, is just half the battle. Eating the right foods, taking the right herbal and vitamin supplements to help fight acne, and keeping your hormones and your skin oil in balance is the most important aspect of keeping clear skin, and as long as you don’t forget that the cleaser is only one minor piece of the puzzle, then you’ve won half the battle to understanding how to fight and win against acne.

I came across this cover up makeup that is supposedly cinema quality (in other words, it covers up blemishes well enough for them to become virtually imperceptible when actors and actresses are on the camera, which is a hard feat to accomplish without having them show through at all), called Smart Cover.

I was on the website searching around to get some more information on pricing, testimonials, what it is and how it works and all that good stuff, and the site kept crashing on me, which was a bit annoying, but I have to admit, I was very intrigued, so I kept looking into what the product was and what it could do for those of us with less than perfect skin who need quite a bit of help with covering our blemishes here and htere.

It’s a concealer that helps mask everything from scars and tatoos to skin imperfections, blemishes, redness, rosacea and acne redness. It seems to do a very good job by the pictures that I got to see online, but of course, I have not tried it so I don’t really know if it works in the real light with not retouching until I actually try it. The kit was going for about thirty bucks a pop, and that seemed a bit expensive for me to splurge on if I wasn’t sure I was going to like or use it.

There were several pictures of women before and after that had a lot of redness to their skin, or blotchiness, or they had dark circles under their eyes, but it was too hard for me to tell whether these pictures were really retouched or not, so I sort of gave up looking at them because I wasn’t sure they were real or not to be honest.

Now, the way I found this Smart Concealer is that I was searching online with the search terms “concealer used in movies”, so I’m assumign that Smart Cover is used in movies, but they didn’t come right out and say that, but just showed pictures of beautiful actresses with great skin, and cited movies they were in, but it didn’t come right out and say that this cover up was used for that movie or not.

I, for one, believe that your diet makes a huge difference in the appearance of your skin. However, I do think that acne is sometimes a different animal, and if you have tons of hormonal issues at your back pushing you into having acne prone skin, then it is much more difficult to battle these issues strictly with diet alone. When you have deeply hormonally based acne, you really do need to treat it on all fronts.

That means you need to be able to take either an internal medication or something like an herbal acne supplement to help combat it from the inside, and you also need to confront the problem from the outside using whatever method you find happens to work for your skin.

An example of how my diet has affected my acne over the years is my sugar and caffeine intake. I have noticed that when my sugar intake is very low, my skin happens to look brighter, tighter, and I have many less bumps and roughness of the skin that if I’m eating a lot of sugar, refined carbs, things like chocolate and coffee and other caffeinated beverages – especially soda since I think the carbonation and the caffeine on top of that really do a one two punch number on your skin.

A great diet for acne that I went on was the Zone Diet. This is that famous one that is similar to the South Beach Diet, in that it uses combinations of protein and veggies and fruit that make for a perfect hormonal balance in the body, burning of fat, and excellent skin health since they also advocate the use of omega 3 fatty acid rich oils and other foods like almonds, fish and walnuts. Foods like this are true friends to the skin. They infuse it with additional moisture and suppleness from the inside basically.

Also, if you are eating a diet rich in antioxidants, as is the approach with the supplement called Acnezine (they use a ton of potent antioxidants to help combat acne in this supplement), you are going to enjoy smoother, clearer skin because they are battling the free radicals that cause skin damage.

Also when you are eating a lot of antioxidants, you are tending to also get a lot of the other good stuff because you are probably eating a lot of plant based foods, which are rich in tons of other nutrients, minerals, fiber and everything else that nourishes the skin and keeps it young and acne free.

I have a rather bizarre observation to share with you about how my acne sometimes will alternate places. This happened especially when I was suffering from acne badly just when I was a teen and in my twenties, and it still will occasionally happen to me today when the ol’ stressors start to wear on my skin. Stress is my biggest acne trigger, by far today. I would say my biggest triggers for acne to this day are, number one stress and anxiety about particular events or about some particular situation or quandary, and number two, from stimulants like coffee and other caffeinated and stimulant-laced drinks, pills, supplements, and medications.

I’ve always observed, especially in the last five years or so, I guess my acne has “evolved”, that I will either break out on my face or on my back, but it’s never both at one time. For example, shortly after my Las Vegas wedding and when I weened off of the Zenmed Dermacleanse supplements, I noticed that my back broke out but my face was clear and pristine, almost clearer than it had ever been really. So, while it was nice that my face was extremely clear, it wasn’t so nice that my back had broken out in its place.

Conversely, the acne seemed to shift, and for a few days my face broke out after that while my back was mostly cleared up. Very odd! I can’t really think of a scientific or logical explanation for it that would be plausible, but there it is, that’s how it happened, and how it has happened on and off for a while. I have since started back on the Dermacleanse and everything is cleared up now, shoot, now I’m just waiting to break out again because we are planning a reception for the early spring, and then we’ll have all that planning and stress to deal with – fun!