Acne Magazine : Skin Care, Tips, Treatment Reviews

I’ve always said that it’s important to screen your face from the sun.  Although I’ve come around in the past year or two in believing that you HAVE to get sunlight to remain healthy, and that sheltering yourself from the sun your whole life can really be a detriment to your health, I still believe that your face is one of the most important parts of your body to shield from the potentially burning UV rays.

Your face is out there, front and center, when you’re out in the sunlight. This is why your face is the first part of your body to get burnt (well, that and your shoulders).  Because our faces are where we show our age that most, and this is the part of our bodies that are considered most important since we talk, communicate, and put forth our first impressions with, it’s of vital importance that you make sure you keep it healthy, smooth and young looking (and of course, acne free!) for as long as possible.

So, I’ve always used a noncomedogenic sunscreen on my face for as long as I can remember. Even if you have acne prone skin, you must use a sunscreen, and there are some that cause zero problems that contain sunscreen. L’Oreal Future e is one of them. This cream also contains vitamin e, which is a great antioxidant.

Antioxidants help to protect your skin against UV rays as well. They aren’t actually a sunscreen, but they help your body to defend itself against free radical damage, which is exactly what the sun does – it causes free radical damage in that it causes cell damage to occur to over exposed cells.

The L’Oreal Future e cream is a day cream that has an SPF of 15, and it’s a light, delicately scented lotion that has given my skin no problems thus far.

It’s about $12 a bottle, but it will last a while because it’s a pretty generously sized bottle.  The only thing I wish was different about it is that it does, like most other commercial brands, contain chemical preservatives and other chemicals that I am really trying to avoid in my skincare right now. 

I’m working on making all my skincare products all-natural, because I’ve come to realize that there are some serious consequences for using all skincare products with these dangerous chemicals. Over time, they really absorb into the blood stream and can affect the bodies chemistry.

Acne prone skin is really one of a kind. You can’t treat it exactly as you would combination skin, or dry skin, as many of the products that would work find on these types of skin are simply too oily or comedogenic (pore clogging) to work on skin that easily falls prey to acne lesions forming.

There are many different kinds of facial masks for the treatment of acne on the market today. Some are more like scrubs, and some are masks that you paint on your face, which form a bond, then you literally peel them off of your face when they have solidified.  I’ve tried those kind, and frankly I’m not that impressed.

I’m usually more impressed with the mud-type of facial masks, as these ones really open the pores and seem to help mop up excess oil from the pores. However, you do not want to leave a mud based mask on the face for too long, because they can sap your skin of too much moisture, leaving it dry and flaky.

You should really just leave a mud-based mask on until it is no longer wet feeling (probably no more than 10-15 minutes), then once it has turned opaque for the most part, you can go ahead and rinse it off with a washcloth that is soaked in warm water. 

It’s the ideal time to really tone the skin after a facial mask, as this is when the pores are more opened and have gotten a lot of the dirt and debris deposits cleaned out.  A good toner could be witch hazel, or an all natural toner that helps to tighten the pores without over drying the skin.

An example of what not to use would be a toner loaded with alcohol, or one that is over the counter and harsh such as Sea Breeze.  Those ones with a strong medicinal scent are usually a warning that they are loaded with moisture-stealing alcohol, which can actually further irritate acne by over stimulating the oil glands into producing excess sebum. 

Also beware of chemical-filled facial masks, as there are several harsh chemicals that can be used in commercial facial masks that you can buy anywhere.  These chemicals can dry out the skin, and make it appear red, rather than calm and even toned.  Masks are often filled with synthetic colors, fragrances and more, so I’d always recommend natural acne masks, when possible.

I have been on the pill, give or take a few months, for the past decade.  I find that it not only gives me peace of mind that I will not get pregnant, but it also helps to regulate some of the hormonal acne breakouts that I’ve tended to have since I was in my early teens.  I’m on a low dose pill now, which gives me a steady low dose of hormones.

The low dose pills are actually not “supposed” to help with acne, but some of them do.  There are others that are actually marketed for the purpose of reducing acne breakouts, but there are actually several types of birth control pills that can help you to reduce hormonally related acne breakouts.

Over the past decade or so, I’ve actually grown tired of some of the side effects that the birth control pill tends to have on me. I feel somehow more “alive” and energetic when I’m not on the pill, and it also tends to make me feel thinner and less puffy all the time since it helps take away some of the water weight that often comes with being on the pill, even the low dose estrogenic pills that I’m on.

Like I said, there are certain advantages to being on the pill, like knowing when your period is going to come, havine less severe periods, and of course that all important sometimes side benefit of reducing acne. But there are almost always good with the bad when it comes to most birth control types.

So, I went off of the pill for a few months at a time  periodically, to see how it would affect my body.  It was always fine for the first few weeks of  getting off the pill, but then I would find that I would experience a weird body acne type of breakout for a few weeks into the break off the pill.  It was like my back would break out, or I’d start to find that I’d be getting those painful acne bumps on my face here and there.

It’s almost like coming off the pill sort of shocks your hormones into action after your body realizes that it’s not just the seven day sugar pill break you’re on, and that you’re not going to get back on the 3 week cycle of taking the pills again. 

I’m sure that there is an inevitable flush of estrogen and androgen hormones in the body after this happens, which can lead to breakouts, so just be aware that coming off the pill may have some consequences, but that they also may be short lived.

I’ve been reading a lot about the power and therapeutic benefits of essential oils.  Essential oils are those wonderful fragrances that come out of extracting the “essence” of the plant into a single, condensed oil. Often times, it can take many plants just to come up with a single ounce or so of an essential oil.

So these essential oils can many times be very potent in their therapeutic benefits. They contain many different constituents, often times hundreds of them, which make them very powerful on a bioactive level.  You’ve probably read before about the essential oil of the tea tree, and how it may benefit skin with acne, but I’ve recently read that lavendar is another essential oil that can have powerful anti-acne properties as well.

Many of the essential oils today possess antimicrobial and antibacterial qualities. For instance, just spraying a mist of cinnamon bark oil mixed with water into the air can totally inactivate any type of microbes and bacteria that are floating around in the air.

Tea tree oil is the same. It can greatly reduce harmful bacteria on the surface of the skin, which takes one very important component away from acne formation – the bacterial component that gets into the pores and causes inflammation.

Lavendar essential oil, which smells a heck of a lot more pleasing to many noses than tea tree oil, has also been identified as a great topical anti-acne aid as well. It smells really soothing, and it has even been used as aromatherapy to help reduce stress and anxiety as well as depression.

Parents are even urged to use lavendar aromatherapy to help calm their children’s antsiness, or to help with ADD and insomnia.  Lavendar has many uses. It may be one of the most multipurpose essential oils that we know today.

So, you may want to start looking into products and soaps that contain lavendar in them as well. Not just “scented” lavendar, but actually containing lavendar essential oil, which is key to getting the right benefits.  Only the real thing can deliver the therapeutic benefits. There are many scented chemical imitations that do not have the genuine chemical constituents that make lavendar so beneficial.

Here is an article that summarizes why you may want to avoid using antibiotics unless you really need them – especially in the treatment of acne, which tends to be longer term than necessary. 

Antibiotics are an extremely important method for us to fight infections.  They are very useful for this purpose but in recent years, we are beginning to see the emergence of a variety of super”bugs” that are resistant to the use of antibiotics.

As important as the antibiotics are, doctors need to relearn how and when to prescribe them and not to over-prescribe.  This can help to diminish drug resistant infections.  Doctors are being trained to look at individual factors before prescribing an antibiotic.

Physicians should learn to look at the age of the patient and their liver and kidney function.  Doctors should do this to make sure any prescribed medication can be cleared out of the body to avoid any drug toxicity.  Doctors should use caution in prescribing to pregnant and nursing mothers as certain antibiotics can adversely effect the baby either in utero or through the breast milk.

Another area for doctors to exercise caution is to ensure there are no known allergies.  If you are a patient, make sure you inform them about any bad reactions to medications taken in the past.  Doctors and patients need to communicate effectively. 

If a patient has recently been on antibiotics and comes in with a new infection within 3 months, they could easily have a drug- resistant infection.  In this instance, a doctor would need to be informed so they could put the patient on an alternate type of medication.

Another area for improvement in the prescribing of antibiotics is to first get a culture to determine what type of organism is causing the infection.  This should be done when there is uncertainty as to what the causative organism is. 

In many cases, the cause of an infection is not bacterial but is a virus.  When this happens, taking an antibiotic will not cure the infection and could possibly make it worse.  Causes for a patient’s symptoms could also be an allergy or a connective tissue disorder.

The emphasis is on doctors taking responsibility for getting the right medication at the right dose suited to the patient and their individual situation. 

Patients need to be responsible for communicating well to the doctors about facts such as allergies and recent antibiotic use also.  Avoiding misuse and overuse of antibiotics will enhance the ability of this class of medication to work well when we really need them.

It’s that time of the month. And you know what that means. At least, I know what it means for me. It means my skin becomes a veritable greasepit, working overtime on producing sebum, and needing a lot more attention when it comes to using my good ol’ blotting sheets.

My skin is very oily naturally as it is. At any given time of the month, you will get a lot of oil on the blotting sheet on almost every portion of my face.  This goes doubly for my chin and my forehead, as well as the areas immediately adjacent to my nose, which also tends to be hyper-oily.

During PMS, and for some women, during their actual monthly cycle, the skin tends to go into over oil over production. This is simply due to the natural fluctuation of hormones that occurs during this time of the cycle. 

Many times, our estrogens (female hormones) and our androgens (male hormones, these are the primary cause behind acne) tend to be out of balance during this time.  Some women have less of a problem with this, especially if their skin tends toward the drier side, or if they’ve never really had issues with acne in the first place. 

Chances are, if you have major PMS symptoms, your skin may also be a lot oilier during this time, as the same hormonal imbalance that is related to other unpleasant parts of PMS like mood swings and water weight gain, are the same imbalances that are generally responsible for oilier skin.  Hormonal acne is the worst.

Even if you are on the pill, like I am, you will probably still experience oilier skin during PMS or during your actual period.  There is really nothing you can do to “prevent” it, but you can make sure your skin is absolutely clear of debris by cleansing it twice a day.

Why will this help you maintain acne-free skin during the oily time?  Well, because it takes a few things to create a breakout-friendly atmosphere on your face. First, it takes excess sebum production, which you get during PMS. Second, it takes bacteria and debris accumulation, which penetrate the pores and infect them, creating an acne lesion, which can be a whitehead or blackhead or cyst.

If you take the bacteria and the debris out of the equation, it’s impossible to break out. So voila, you at least reduce the likelihood!

Rosacea— known as the “curse of the Celts”— is an unattractive but normally harmless condition in which the skin turns red; it has been observed primarily among people indigenous to northwestern Europe and their descendants in other parts of the world.

Because it makes the skin so esthetically unattractive, those who have it naturally wish to do something about it, and so dermatologists have been looking for— and discovering— effective treatments for the condition. Most treatments for rosacea fall under one of four categories— behavior, drugs, natural treatments, and surgery or device-driven therapy. 

Of course, my favorite category is the natural one.  Natural treatments for rosacea can be very effective and satisfying to the person who has rosacea, and who has acne rosacea. 

In the most mild cases of rosacea, behavior modification may be all that is needed. Such modification includes avoiding too much exposure to the sun (strongly recommended) and care of the eyelids (if one often suffers from infection in that part of the body).

More serious cases may be treated with drugs. Physicians usually begin by prescribing tetracycline and topical antibiotics such as doxycycline and minocycline.

If the skin does not show improvement within a reasonable time, isotretinoin— a drug commonly used to treat other skin conditions, such as cancer and acne— may be prescribed. Since rosacea often resumes once the patient stops taking the drugs, treatment may have to be longterm or even lifelong.

Laser surgery is often necessary if the patient has developed erythema (red skin). The walls of capillaries expand and burst due to the heat that results from the absorption of the light by hemoglobin, and as a result the body’s defense mechanism absorbs them. If phymatous rosacea has produced an excess of tissue, a carbon dioxide laser may be employed.

A pulsed light called PhotoDerm has proven even more effective than lasers in treating “blush” blood vessels: the patient often improves immediately, whereas lasers may need to be applied periodically.

Ultimate Light™ PhotoDerm has been used in cases of itching or burning, and such ointment creams as Protopic and Elidel may work in rosacea cases attributable to steroids. 

Light therapy has been shown to be quite beneficial in the treatment of rosacea in some people, and it also has been effective in the treatment of acne, such as with blue light acne therapy, a burgeoning market for acne treatment which can also be performed at home with home devices.  Incidentally, ex- President Clinton has rosacea. So does Mariah Carey.

Acne is a skin condition that most people will have at some point in their lives. It is most common in teenagers, but it also can occur in people in their adult years. The first impulse of many people that have acne is to run to the dermatologist and get a prescription for a medication or cream when really they may benefit greatly from some of the best natural acne treatments available.

However, treatments that are prescribed by dermatologists are often expensive and may come with many unpleasant side effects. For this reason, a person should try natural remedies for acne. Some of the natural TOPICAL remedies that have been shown to be effective at treating acne include: salicyclic acid, benzoyl peroxide and sulfur.

Salicyclic acid has been proven to reduce the size and appearance of pimples. It works by unclogging the pores and removing dead skin. Removing the dead skin will promote the growth of new skin. It is not only effective at treating acne, but it has also been shown to be effective at keeping it from coming back.

Benzoyl peroxide is a natural remedy that has been used for many years for many reasons. It is also works as a natural acne treatment. Benzoyl peroxide contains antibacterial properties that help unclog the pores. While this product is very effective, it is important to remember that it has a tendency to dry out skin. It is best to look for benzoyl peroxide that contains moisturizers.

Sulfur is one of the most popular natural treatments for acne. In fact, it is highly recommended by holistic health practitioners. Sulfur has antibacterial properties and works best when combined with alcohol and salicylic acid. Many people respond just as good, if not better to homeopathic or natural remedies as they do to prescription treatments.

However, if one’s acne does not improve or worsens, it may be best to seek out other alternative acne treatments.  You know me, and I always recommend dermatological interference only if nothing else has worked.

I truly believe that we have access to some of the best all natural acne treatments today. I can attest to my own success with herbal remedies for acne and topical treatments that really help to treat the acne from the outside as well, and smooth and tone your skin and help the acne postules to heal well that are already existing.

I have been down the physician route with my acne when I was younger, and I found that I had to stay on dangeorus medications long term to even get my skin to clear up for a little while.  It just wasn’t worth it for me.