Acne Magazine : Skin Care, Tips, Treatment Reviews

I’m always on the lookout for new ingredients that can give my skin that natural luminescence that makes you look so young, fresh and energetic. I think that’s what we’re all looking for, after all, isn’t it!? There are a number of ingredients which help to keep the skin looking fresh and young, probably one of the more notable ones for helping you look bright and luminous is vitamin C in a very concentrated form.

However, there are other ingredients that will also infuse your skin with that coveted natural dewiness that usually are an indicator of youth and vibrance, but of course, they are also an indicator of a healthy body and healthy skin, so eating right is vital if you want your skin to look it’s very best from the inside out. See a great skin care vitamin here for more info on that.

Well, one of the other ingredients that I like in my skin care products is kind of a weird one to find in skin care, but Aveeno has been using them quite abundantly in their skin care line, and they’re very popular because they’re very mild and anti allergen, and they also happen to make your skin look very good. They also have a high SPF in them, 15 to 30 depending on the product, which is awesome because many day creams don’t offer sun protection, and they also tend to irritate the skin if they do.

Soy is a great ingredient to help blend the skin tone better and bring out the natural glow because of it’s naturally polishing and antioxidant values. With continued use, it can really make a difference in the texture and tone of your skin and give it that all around natural glow you’re looking for as well. Another good thing is that soy skin care products usually aren’t outrageously expensive because soy is such an easily made ingredient, and it is grown right here in the US with manufacturers having easy access to it, so it’s cheap to make.

What is a retinoid?  Chemically, a retinoid is any compound that is related to the vitamin A.  Retinoids are considered a class in themselves, and they are all somehow a derivative of this vitamin.  Some examples of retinoids are Retin-A, which is used both to treat wrinkles and aging skin and also is used to treat acne topically, any over the counter or prescription skin cream that says it has “retinol” in it means that it has a retinoid in it, hence a derivative of vitamin A, and also many times AHA’s or alpha hydroxy acids have retinoids in them, which are all somehow related to this vitamin family.

The basic mechanism behind vitamin A derived topical skin products is that it accelerates the turnove rof topical skin cells, which helps to treat a variety of skin disorders.  These skin diorders can range from age spots and different types of acne to aging skin and wrinkles, since speeding the turnover of epithelial skin cells helps to unclog the pores and remove the debris and bacteria that helps to form acne lesions on the skin.  Many women, and men, love retinoids and retinol based products for anti aging purposes, including me.  My favorite anti aging cream right now contains a retinol, and I believe that not only does it help my skin look brighter and younger, but I also believe it helps keep those little bumpies and unevenness at bay.

Retinoids have also recently been an interest to those studying how to topically help treat certain types of skin cancer, so that’ll be interesting to see if it can help people who have been diagnosed with skin cancer.  What’s really interesting is that retinoids can be a double whammy tool for those of us in our adult years trying to fight both acne and new fine lines and wrinkles, since what comes with getting older as a woman is an increase in androgens and decrease in estrogen, which often leads to hormonal acne breakouts as an adult woman.  Now, as far as retinoids and different kind of acne, here’s how it can help you.

Retinoids, such as products with retinol in them or Retin-A prescription cream or gel, help all kinds of acne to clear up.  This includes every kind you can think of.  Those little annoying bumps that you’re not even sure are acne, the kind that almost looks like baby acne, it helps those.  It also helps to clear up whitehead (ah, my favorite, and probably the most common kind I get, since I rarely get blackheads), and blackheads.  Also those cystic, under the skin ones that usually come to a whitehead, it can be useful for those as well, helping to bring them to the surface and heal them faster since it speeds the cell turnover.

I was researching to find out what topical products might be best at helping to sort of resurface bumpy skin areas or patches, since this is one my personal pet peeves about my own skin.  It seems to always come back on me, even though I do all kinds of microdermabrasion treatments, chemical peels and I also try to avoid caffeinated beverages and products which seems to make my skin worse as far as the bumpiness goes.

So I’m always on the lookout for topical products that might help with the bumpiness that is on my chin from years of suffering acne breakouts as a teenager and in my adulthood as well.

I found out that one ingredient that is used in a lot of anti aging product now called Retinol, may actually help with this because it helps to thicken the skin up and smooth it out, which is contrary to the products that I usually use in this arena, because they usually do the opposite – they strip away layers of superficial skin, leaving the newer skin cells exposed, which helps the skin look fresher, cleaner and brighter.

Not that I don’t like that either, and I think that there are purposes for both thickening the skin as well as stripping it away to help facilitate faster cell turnover, but I wanted to try something different so that I could see which method might work better both for my aging skin as well as for the remnants of my acne scarring (aka bumpy skin texture) on my chin and right by my nose.

So, I decided on a product that I’m going to try, but I haven’t gone out and purchased it yet because I’m waiting to use up my other cream before I buy it, like a good, financially responsible girl!  It’s the RoC product called Deep Wrinkle night time cream, and has one of the higher concentrations of retinol in over the counter that I read, so I’ll let you know how it works on my skin.

One of the things I’ve sort of backed away from over the years as my skin has matured, is using a lot of topical acne treatment products, whether they are drugstore brands, online herbal higher quality brands, or prescription.  The reason is, I hate the fact that most acne treatment products that are topical in nature are also drying by their very nature. I’ve tried scores of topical products over the years, and unanimously my favorite I’ve always come back to are products that are made with a salicylic acid base.

I just personally find salicylic acid to be much less drying and irritating, with an added benefit of exfoliation and skin renewal, when compared to it’s other common acne fighting counterapart, benzoyl peroxide.  Benzoyl peroxide tends to be a little more drying and irritating, at least for me, whereas salicylic tends to be a more gentle alternative.  Some people may feel conversely, since all skin reacts differently to different products depending on the thickness of the skin, ethnicity and other factors such as sensitivity.

Because I live in Northeast Ohio, we have very rough, long winters here.  With long, cold winters comes another undesirable – dry skin.  My skin gets very dry during the winter months since the humidity in the house is virtually nothing (I know, we really need to look into getting a humidifier, I’ve thought about it plenty of times), and if I even put a topical acne treatment product on one blemish, that area tends to get very irritated, red and flaky.

You really want to try to use topical products for acne sparingly in the dry, cold winter months since your skin doesn’t have that extra moisture barrier that is provided by humid environments.

I just got done reviewing this line of products, or at least one of their products in particular, the Virtual Laser Wrinkle Eraser lotion, for another site about beauty reviews, and then I thought, why not share this with anyone who, like myself, suffers occasional acne breakouts, and/or has a history of severe teenage or adult acne? 

The reason I say that is because sometimes, having acne prone skin makes it tricky to find a moisturizing lotion that isn’t either irritating to acne prone skin, or doesn’t contribute to the clogging of the pores, as many of the heavier moisturizing lotions, serums and creams can do as we all know. 

Well, I feel that Virtual Laser has a product that is made for wrinkle appearance reduction that is very reasonably priced, and also helps to dramatically illuminate aging skin, even skin that is still acne prone, like mine, without clogging pores or causing breakouts, or irritating the skin and creating bumps and redness for those with sensitive skin. 

It’s not really a well known product line as far as a I know, but Virtual Laser has a cream that is called the Wrinkle Eraser, and I really love it because it helps to make the wrinkles around my eyes look less noticeable, and helps to also illuminate the rest of my face (yes, I apply this everywhere, and generously, even to my T zone, and have had no problems with it making me break out).  So, I thought I’d share this with those of the readers who are dealing with both aging skin and acne at the same time. 

I have been using the same old trick at night for years when it comes to a blemish that I can just feel blanching the surface of my skin, before it becomes a full on red, erupted and scar-worthy zit on my face.  It’s really nothing special.  All I do is apply my mask, whatever kind it happens to be that I have laying around.  For a while it was a zenmed acne mask, then it was an anti acne mask, and now I have a mini sized Murad acne mask that has lasted me forever that I got free with my face wash last time I purchased from them.

They are all a mud type mask, that is very thick and almost a chalky consistency, so thick that it will stay put as soon as you slick it on over a zit, or a burgeoning zit, as I do.  You should just need enough so as to cover the zit itself and only then the immediate surrounding area, careful not to put too much on around the radius fo the bump itself so that you don’t accidentally overdry the skin around it, which can end up looking worse than the zit itself.

I do this at night and then I leave it on all night long, and sometimes it works to clear it up, but if it’s a really hormonal zit that’s destined to come through the surface and hasn’t stopped gathering inertia toward becoming a full fledge boil sized zit on my face, it will only make it a tad bit more dried up, and I’ll still have to go through the motions of caring for the zit once it completely breaks through the skin’s surface.

If you catch a new zit when it has just started to hurt a little bit, and you can see a faint bit of red and a very beginning of a bump or irritation in the spot where the bumpd is about to sprout into a full fledged zit, then you can often catch it and get it to go down if you just apply some sort of reputable acne cream, or my favorite is a thicker mask because it stays put and doesn’t come off all night until you wash it off, as long as you don’t accidentally rub it while it’s still wet.

As I sit here typing this, I have a dot of the mask on my face, on a brand new bump that surfaced today because of the massive stress I’ve had to deal with today getting things organized and looking over documents that I didn’t understand for hours, as well as catching up on many things for work that were on deadline.  One minute it wasn’t there, the next I happened to look in the mirror and there it was!  Oh well, what are masks for.  Hopefully this one will be tamed by the mask!

Well, I had promised to keep you posted on my newly purchased everyday moisturizer, the very popular Aveeno Positively Radiant lotion for the face with SPF 15 in it.  I really liked the fact that this particular lotion was expressly made for both improved skin tone and clarity as well as additional protection from the sun’s damaging rays. 

I get a little bit of sun protection from my Bare Minerals makeup, but after I found out that powder SPF may not be so effective, I decided I wanted additional protection in my daily moisturizing lotion.  I also found out that with Bare Minerals, your Mineral Veil does not contain any SPF, only the actual colored foundation, and since I use way more Mineral Veil than I do the actual foundation color, I figured I needed additional SPF quickly, because I wasn’t getting the kind of sun protection factor that I thought I was when I initially started using the foundation.  Don’t get me wrong, I still like the Bare Minerals, but I need something a  little more.

Anyways, didn’t mean to get off on a tangent like that, so back to my original point now.  I purchased the Aveeno Positively Radiant daily moisturizer, and was a little leery, as I always am of new moisturizers on my skin, that it might do more harm than good and cause me to break out, especially because it has SPF in it, and many times any type of SPF will make my skin break out faster than you can snap your fingers.

It’s been about 4 weeks now that I’ve been using the moisturizer, and so far so good, I haven’t had any breakouts or even an increase in bumpiness on my chin as I many times do when my skin gets irritated.  I can’t say it would be noncomedogenic for everyone, but it appears to work pretty well on my personally acne prone skin. 

I’m pretty bummed, actually, that what I’ve always pretty much known to be true is actually really true still after all these years.  Sunscreens ALWAYS made my face break out when I was younger.  I thought maybe it might have been since when I was younger there used to be harsh additives to sunscreens, and a lot of those irritants have since been removed from common sunscreen, especially facial, but I really think I have a sensitivity to sunscreens that may not be all that common. 

I purchased a new moisturizer that has a 30 SPF in it.  It’s by Aveeno, and since I kind of like the acne wash I purchased by them, I figured I’d try another product in their “radiant” line.  So I bought the Radiant moisturizer with soy extract (good stuff usually) and an added benefit of having the extra sunscreen in it, in addition to the sunscreen my Bare Minerals makeup offers (which may not be full coverage as I’ve been told recently). 

I’ve only been using the Aveeno moisturizing cream for a few days now, but I noticed yesterday that I was getting small bumps on my chin, which is exactly where I get the acne bumps when I irritate my skin with stimulants, caffeine, and other things my skin rejects as toxins.  Well, the only common denominator is that I did have a small cup of coffee – and I mean SMALL at my moms two days ago, but that amount normally would not make my skin rough, and this time it either did, or my new moisturizer with 30 SPF is to blame. 

This is a shame that they can’t make sunscreen lotions for the face completely noncomedogenic.  I thought this one would have been but I may be wrong.  I’ll keep you posted on whether it’s the sunscreen or not.  Hopefully not since one of the best natural acne treatments is to stay out of the sunlight, which is contrary to what some may think!  Also, I owe you a review of the Aveeno foaming acne face wash, but I’m too tired to do that one now, so it’ll have to wait

It occurred to me that I used to constantly do this, so I thought I might share the knowledge that it’s not such a good idea for those that didn’t really think it was a big deal. I’m referring to the use “acne spot treatments”.

Clean & Clear acne products have been around for ions, at least in my book they have. These cheap acne products, specifically geared toward teens with acne who do not have a lot of money to spend on acne skin care, were one of my first forrays into the world of acne skin care.