Stop eating dairy products.
Don’t sleep on your face.
Avabeth, I feel your pain. I’m 37 and my skin was getting worse every month. My skin was fine when I was on the pill, but I had no need to be on the pill anymore since hubby got a vasectomy. So I knew it was hormonal. My dermatologist tried just about every combination of products, to no avail, until she finally exhausted all the options. Then she gave me two choices: Accutane or an anti-androgen pill (forget the name) that they can give you in small amounts daily to counteract the increased testosterone. (As an added bonus it would have helped eliminate my newly acquired moustache (oh the joys of aging).)
I chose the Accutane simply because it only had to be taken for 4 months while the anti-androgen pill would have had to been taken every day.
I’m sooo happy I did it!
Downsides: definite dryness in the eyes and the lips and sinuses. Bloody noses. Put me in the doldrums. Blood work every month. And decreased libido (as in I didn’t want to have sex EVER). You CANNOT get pregnant on this stuff or your baby may have serious birth defects.
Upside: I can finally go without makeup at the pool, etc. I don’t have to worry about being embarrassed around little kids who ask me if I have the chicken pox. I am starting to enjoy wearing makeup again. My self esteem has increased considerably.
So, there you have it. Would I do it again? Absolutely. Except I would have gone a lot earlier to alleviate a lot of the scarring that resulted in the ten years post-pill that I battled acne. It’s not for everyone. But I would definitely advise you to quit doing the self-help method and get ye to a professional.
There is a brand of herbal face soaps I recommend. The company is Thursday Plantation, and the product is Tea Tree oil soap. VERY good for skin ailments. It’s used to treat eczema, and psoriasis.
Whatever you do, if you buy Tea Tree oil products, make certain they comes from Australia. Look for the kangaroo seal saying it’s from Australia. It may not be processed correctly otherwise, which makes a BIG difference. There are a lot of different active agents in Tea Tree oil, and they must be properly balanced.
Processed one way, its an antiseptic, another a skin treatment. (This depends on the proportions of the 2 main active ingredients.Can’t remember or find the names though.) The antiseptic might irritate the face.
Tea Tree oil is wonderful stuff, it promotes healing,lessens the chance of scarring, kills pain, and kills many kinds of mold, and bacteria. A wonderful anti-microbial agent. It’s been shown in studies to kill all forms of strep,and most forms of staph. Yes, I have both Tea Tree soap, and Tea Tree oil in my medicine cabinent. It’s treated some nasty wounds very nicely too. I have poor circulation in my legs due to genetics, and arthritis. I had a cut on the bottom of my foot that got infected. The infection died quickly once I began misting my foot with a solution of Tea Tree oil and water.
I’d also go to the dermatologist, and see what other options you have. Herbal treatments can’t replace medical care.
Good Luck.
Penaten cream to treat acne? I’ve never heard of that, and I don’t see how that would work. It’s heavy, it’s thick, and it’s greasy. It’s commonly used for diaper rashes. It wouldn’t allow the skin to breathe, which would make the problem worse, me thinks.
Something that I find helps (not completely eliminates) is Spectro Jel face wash. If I see a small or medium sized whitehead developing (I hate whiteheads), I wash the area with spectro jel a couple of times throughout the day and the whitehead will be gone before it even got a foothold on my face.
I use moisturizer. Marcelle is the brand name, and it’s called Aquarelle Oil Free Aqua-Matte Hydrating Fluid. (Sounds vaguely like something I’d put into my car instead of a skin care product!) It absolutely doesn’t irritate my acne-prone, extremely sensitive skin.
I know doctors say nowadays that what we eat does not impact acne, but I know from my own experience that when I eat better and drink enough water, my skin looks better and I have fewer breakouts.
Yes, drinking plenty of water is an excellent idea too. It helped me.
Believe it or not, I had to quit using soap on my back almost entirely. I went to the doctor 2 years ago, because at age 28, I was having big acne breakouts on my back.
I was told that the soap was drying my skin too much, and to stop using it so often. Since I eased up on the soap, my back hasn’t really had any zits at all. Some skin is just to delicate to use soap on frequently.
Penaten rubs into the skin quite nicely if you don’t use too much. It totally rocks for anything that ails the skin.
Wow, you guys are awesome. I’ll definitely start drinking more water. That’s something I need to be doing for weight loss anyway. And I picked up some moisturizer at the store last night - I just have to get over my unnatural fear of using it. Hopefully, I’ll see my face clearing up soon.
Thanks!
Ava
They’ve been mentioned earlier, but I’ll repeat things that have worked for me. Water, lots of it. Not washing too much, once a day is enough for me (but I don’t wear makeup.) Make sure your pillowcase is 100% cotton and change it often. I love the Body Shop’s tea tree stuff. They have a moisturising gel in the range that my skin loves.
I’m very fair skinned and I’ve found that even a tiny amount of sunburn on my face will make me look like a pizza factory. Anyone else have this problem?
Do not put toothpaste on zits - I did that and ended up with a nice crater scar on my cheek.
I’m 29, and have run the gamut of remedies to solve my acne problem. Oral antibiotics - check. Topical prescription astringents (Cleocin-T) - check. Retin-A - check (at $70.00 a tube, it was not worth it to fry my skin with acid. How can women put this stuff around their eyes?). Roseaca medicine - check. Proactiv - check. Can’t do the Pill to clear it up - too much family history of strokes/blood clots. And yes, to me Accutane is a last resort.
They would all work for a while, but then the buggers would come back. And the oral antibiotics every day was messing up my immune system - I wasn’t getting sick enogh and building up immunities, so when I would get sick it knocked me out for two weeks. So I stopped those in my early twenties.
But, over the past two years, I’ve started doing the same thing people above mentioned - using moisturizer. I thought that I didn’t need it because my skin was oily enough - but that’s exactly why I did. My skin was trying to compensate.
The ticket is to stay with oil-free stuff, also as mentioned above. I use L’Oreal Plenitude Nutra-E oil-free SPF 15 - it’s inexpensive, works great and provides sunscreen for my very pale skin. I can wash my face with whatever’s around, but have started using a mild exfoliator - Neutrogena’s Pore Clearing Facial Scrub - mild alpha hydroxys and manmade exfoliation beads. Apricot scrubs can cause some damage - the rough edges of the apricot kernels can cause micro-tears in your skin - smooth manmade beads don’t. I use Neutrogena Pore Clearing astringent on my chest and back to keep acne away from those areas, and on my face when it’s feeling especially slick.
Even my father commented on how great my skin looks, and was astounded when I told him what I was using. Oh - and stay out of the sun. I still get the random zit here and there, but hardly ever a big Beacon Zit, and they go away much faster.
Good luck!
I was thinking the same thing. When I was going through your more traditional teen zitfest, I used astringent because I thought I was supposed to. Noticed every time I used it with any regularity, I got more zits.
I have an antibacterial hand gel (not sure what brand, it’s a drug company promo thing in a tube advertising Celebrex!), and if I have an embarrassingly placed zit coming on sometimes I dab a little on the spot. Seems to dry it out a little quicker…
Avabeth, I know how you feel! I am 27 and have the same exact problem! I agree, Acutane is pretty bad. I went on it when I was 17. It really dries your face up, and your lips get all cracked, and I had a lot of hair loss. But it worked–for a while, at least.
Anyway, it’s fine to take some of the advice offered here, but you REALLY need to go to your dermatologist! I have used Retin-A in the past and am using it now. It really works, but you have to go through a lot of peeling the first few weeks. You should really try Retin-A. Your doctor might also recommend antibiotics, which I did not like because they caused yeast infections. You doctor will most likely not recommend Accutane, unless nothing else works.
Retin-A works so well because it works directly on the main culprit–dead skin cells. This is what causes acne–dead skin cells clog pores, thus they get infected. Get rid of the excess dead skin cells, and voila! acne goes away. And no amount of scrubbing or exfoliating can do the same job as the Retin-A. Popular products that are anti-bacterial become obsolete, because if there aren’t dead skin cells to clog pores, then there is nothing to get infected.
AND there is a new type of Retin-A that came out recently that is much more gentle to your skin–it’s called Retin-A Micro. ask your doctor about it!
Also I agree that moisturizer is very important. Use an oil-free lightweight moisturizer and use it every day. Even if you have oily skin. This is very important, especially if you use Retin-A.
And STOP using those harsh acne soaps and astringents! Those will only make it worse. The absolute BEST face cleanser to use is Eucerin moisturizing face cleanser. This stuff is the best–and I should know, I have literally tried every single product on the market!
Good luck, avabeth!
Can I get an Amen, sisters? This stuff KICKS A$$!! I am 29 and acne-prone, also have trouble keeping my hands off my face. Got married last fall, went out and dropped $18 on the tiny pink bottle before I even found a caterer.
One of my bridesmaids was on Accutane in HS–she has ‘real’ acne, not the kind I have which is sort of a testament to my poor diet, bad hydration and severe chocolate addiction. [I know they say chocolate doesn’t make you break out, but then why do I turn into pepperoni pizza the morning after Easter?] I recall being terrified by the little silhouettes of pregnant women with red NO symbols stamped on the foil backing. How can anything that harmful for a fetus be harmless for you? Plus she lost a lot of hair, took her ages to get it back. SHE TOO tried it and was really pleased. Think of it as a concentrated drying weapon; a zit nuke. Not to be slathered on the face.
InStyle magazine is a shameful habit I have–to me it’s a lot like science fiction–and every year they come out with a big fat list of the best beauty products, which makes that issue worth the huge price. [To be fair, it’s a big magazine, you could kill cows with it. In a pinch. In a mad-cow frenzy emergency. Value for money, is all I’m saying.] But this big beauty list is wonderful, even/especially for the girl-grooming impaired like myself. And that’s where I found (cue the harps and trumpets) Mario Badescu Drying Lotion, which is at least a two-time winner if not a Hall of Fame entry. If you can resist temptation long enough to get to bedtime, it will nuke that thing overnight. Lives up to its advertising. I have even cheated and dabbed it on underneath makeup during the day, which I can get away with since I’m very pale.
Great stuff. If I had a hat on, I would take it off.
Sucks, don’t it? I’m 42 and still get a zit every once in a while. I have one today, as a matter of fact. I got up and looked in the mirror and thought, “Fuck! Zits and wrinkles!” I felt like just getting back in bed and pulling the covers up over my hideous head.
BTW, my teenage kids have had good luck with the bacterial face washes – the generic kinds are just as good as the brand-name ones and a lot cheaper. I can’t use them anymore, though – too drying. I’m going to order some of the Mario Badesco stuff, too.
Thanks, Jess, for unhijacking us. The OP really was a rant; it’s so terribly tempting to jump in there and try to fix. Zits we have suggestions for; stupid state senators or tiger-killing freakshows keep the flames burning.
I, personally, now have zits and saddlebags. It just ain’t right. Shouldn’t you get a grace period between the young uglies and the old uglies?
You have a problem with facial acne? That ain’t shit. What about the ones I keep getting on my penis? What’s up with that shit?
Shudders and edges away from Get Some, cause she don’t want any from him!
Methinks Get Some got too much and now needs to get himself to a clinic.
I just want to say I HATE this advice. Not because it’s not good advice, but I cannot sleep unless I am curled up like a shrimp with my face mooshed into my pillow. I have never been able to figure out how to comply with any advice that requires changing my sleeping position, including advice I’ve gotten for my acne, my arthritis, my snoring and my hairdo.
ARGH!
(PS- lots of other good advice here. I’ll pass it on to my daughter, just entering the teenage Bad Skin years. Let us know what works for you, avabeth.)
As some of the others have said, don’t use astringents or harsh soaps. Just makes things worse.
I find that most of your average drugstore products work fairly well for me; I use the Clean and Clear foaming facial cleanser typically, and my skin stays pretty happy.
Also, for those with oily skin, those portable Stridex facial wipes are good- they’re much less harsh than astringent, and gives your face a nice clean feeling.
LunaSea, you are the grand prize winner. Thank you for swimming in Lake ME!
Please come again! 