I've been on a journey toward smooth, clear, acne-free skin these past few weeks. My skin has always been very red, very oily in the T-zone, dry spots, with 4-8 pimples at time, and dozens more of those under the skin bumps that don't head to a full blown pimple, are unpoppable, and generally annoying.
Several weeks into my new routine later, my skin has lost 75% of its redness, all the under-the-skin bumps are gone, and i'm down to 2-4 pimples, with hopes for more progress. My skin has never looked so even or smooth before! Now if I could get my remaining pimples under control and the remaining redness down a little.
Here are the things I've done so far:
1. Wash my face in the morning with water only. Cleansing 2x a day was making my skin oily I think. Some people swear by cold water washing to keep the face firm and youthful... maybe I'll start doing this when I live in a warmer climate where my bathroom isn't freezing too. For now, I wash my face in the shower and rub Jojoba Oil into my skin while my pores are open from the steam. I believe this helps with oil production too, look up oil cleansing for more info. Gently pat face dry. Remember, any extra irritation causes pimples to form, so you want to be gentle anytime you touch your face.
2. Eliminate ALL silicone (including dimethicone) products. I had to throw away my toner, my moisturizer, and this was the big one-- my primers. Within a week of eliminating these, 90% of my under the skin bumps were gone. All those unpoppable little zits that would never come to a full head finally disappeared. I stopped using toner completely, found a silicone free primer (Tarte's Flawless Silicone Free-- i love it!), but am still looking for the right moisturizer (Jojoba oil isn't quite moisturizing enough).
3. At night, I remove my eye makeup with Coconut Oil. Put a glob on a cotton ball and hold over your eye for 10 seconds and then wipe away gently. Make sure you don't get any coconut oil on the rest of your face -- I made that mistake early on and broke out badly. It should be fine on your eye area only though, especially if you wash your face right after.
4. I use baby shampoo to gently wash off the rest of my make up.
5. Here's my favorite new product so far: Likas Papaya soap. This phillipino whitening soap is AMAZING. You can buy it online, but make sure you get the real stuff because apparently people try to switch it out for fakes a lot. I bought mine at a local asian foods store. The real stuff should smell faintly of oranges, not any chemical smell, and the package has a hologram thing on it. This stuff is responsible for getting rid of almost all my redness. It can fade acne scars, rosacea, and other hyperpigmentation. It also has a chemical exfoliant. It does dry your skin out at first, but my skin got used to it within a couple weeks. My skin has never been less red.
6. AHA (Glycolic Acid) is another chemical exfoliant. I use Paula's Choice. Then I use a spot treatment of Salicylic Acid on any significant pimples and benzoyl peroxide on an acne-prone areas like around my mouth, or any areas that have tiny pimples. I just use a cheap drugstore brand for these two.
I'm still looking for a good moisturizer that doesn't break me out or have silicone/dimethicone in it. It seems like mineral oil based moisturizers are too heavy and break me out. Jojoba oil is great but doesn't moisturize enough on dry patches, but is good enough for places that only need a little moisture.
I'm hoping to get my few remaining pimples under control, a little more results with decreased rednessed, and then the only problem i'll have is dark circles under my eyes. Then I wont even need foundation! I've never felt better about my skin. This is coming from somebody who used to sneak off to the bathroom in the morning to put foundation on after adult sleepovers for fear of people seeing my bad skin.
Hopefully this info can be put to good use by somebody else. If you have a moisturizer recommendation, let me have it!



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