So normally I try not to buy into a lot of hype about things, but I saw this advertisement for a “black head eraser” and I had to try it. Its this little hand held device and you put a special pad on it when you want to use it. The pad already has the acne cream or wash or whatever you want to call it on it and you wet it then turn on the little device. The device vibrates and you wash your wash with it.

It builds up this great lather, gives you a good clean, it really feels like it is genuinely cleaning deep into your pores and the nature of the pad makes it feel like it is scrubbing the skin well to remove dead skin as well as the simple vibration makes it feel effective as well. The pads are a one time use and quick and easy to change. But of course, there in lies the problem. You have to buy replacement pad and that could get costly, depending on how often you use the device. If you use it everyday, that would be not cost effective, but if you use less often, like I do, the cost isn’t bad. Of course, using it less often means that it isn’t quite as effective either.

So when I think acne cream, the most common acne cream ingredient that comes to mind is benzoyl peroxide. So I decided to look up BENZOYL PEROXIDE on Web MD so that I could actually find out what this cream is and learn more about how it works. What I found out was that it works by reducing the amount of bacteria that causes acne after you apply it to your skin. This was news to me. I never though it had antibacterial properties at all.

So earlier I was writing about what the Mayo clinic said about acne creams and the different types of ingredients in the acne creams. I read that at times there are antibiotics in the acne creams. This reminded me of something I wrote about last week. I had said that my astringent contained aloe, but I was wrong. I assumed it was aloe because it was green, but in fact, it turned out my astringent is an antibacterial astringent.

How great is that? I am killing two birds with one stone. I get to use an astringent to close my pores and I get to use the antibacterial product that the Mayo Clinic says can be so helpful. It’s always great to find out you are doing something right, even when you didn’t mean to be doing it! That actually helps better explain why I feel a bit sticky when I put on the astringent, which of course is a drawback. No one wants their face to feel sticky, but even worse, as I strive for clean healthy skin, I often will wash simply because my face feels yucky. The astringent won’t be able to work if I am immediately tempted to go wash my face because it feels unclean.

I decided to do some research on acne creams on the Mayo clinic website.

The site says that acne creams can work by a variety of ways.  Acne creams can dry oil.  Some acne creams can kill bacteria.  Other acne creams even support removal of dead cells from the skin.  The Mayo clinic says that there are numerous creams that contain all sorts of medical ingredients (too lengthy to list here).  The Mayo clinic states that these ingredients are helpful in treating the acne that we all wish we didn’t suffer from.  The Mayo Clinic even discussed some creams that were created from vitamin A!  (Perhaps this means I need to reconsider a daily vitamin). 

Finally when it comes to creams, the Mayo Clinic talked about antibiotic creams that I could put topically on my acne.  The site says that the antibiotics kill bacteria on the skin (presumable this bacteria would be a cause of acne if not killed).  Overall a very informative site that gave me some things to think, and write about.   My mom recommends the antibiotic cream.  My doctor recommends the prescription strength cream with the medical ingredients.  As my mother suggested, and I agree, I would imagine that to some degree it depends on the type of acne as to which cream works best.

Most people don’t think of an astringent as a cream.  But from what I have heard and read about astringents they are important and despite the fact that they appear to be more of a water base chemically speaking, I think that since there is no “water base face product” category in life, I will mention here how important astringents seem to be.  So as I understand it, astringents actually close you pores up.  How cool is that? If your pores are closed, then junk can’t get in them and if junk can’t get in them then you don’t have to worry as much about acne. 

Clean pores appear to be key in preventing and maintaining healthy skin and reducing acne.  What I have learned from the internet is that if you have just cleaned out your pores, you really need to close them back up.  If you don’t close your pores after you opened them to clean them out then even though you have nice clean pores, you will still get them clogged again because open pores are like lint traps that will gather every particle from the air and food bit that fly’s from your mouth… yuck! So what I learned was that astringents are key.  However I picked up an astringent that had aloe in it.  I don’t think this was a good idea because my face feels very oily after I put it on.  I think that I should have stuck to the plain astringent.

So why are acne creams so popular now?  Why is it such “big business” now more than ever for acne creams and washes?  I think the answer goes back to something that I wrote about yesterday.  In the “old days” this was not as much of an issue.  Perhaps historians just didn’t feel that acne was as important to write about as other things.  But when I think of all the old pictures that in my parents house of their parents and ancient relatives born over 100 years ago, they all have great skin.  So why is my skin so full of acne? 

I think our modern times are part of the issue!  For starters, we have food that is higher in fat, but I don’ think that’s it, because they did have high fat food back then.  I think it’s partly the environment.  We live in a smoggy smoggy world.  And in my opinion, that smoggy world does damage on our skin.  Also, I think people don’t wash as much as they should.  It used to be that people would go “wash up” after every meal. 

Now I see children out and about with dirty faces, facebook users who’s albums are full of kids that with dirty faces.  I think that ironically, we just don’t have enough hygiene.  Washing my face after I eat is an important way that I can not only reduce acne, but increase the effectiveness of the acne creams I use.  They creams can’t do much if they are put on top of grease and grime.  They  need a nice clean surface to work with.

So I mentioned the kittens in another post.  (They all have homes now.)  I think I mentioned too that one night last week after I had gotten ready for bed, my neighbor called to say that one of our other neighbors was outside playing with the kittens and he had totally calmed down this kitten that was so scared it kept spitting at me.  It was adorable to see the big gruff man holding the tiny kitten that he nicknamed “spits” and to see the kitten all calm. 

But enough about the kittens, the point is, I had already gotten ready for bed, which of course meant I had washed my face and put a healthy amount of cream on my troubled acne spots.  Maybe I put on too much.  More isn’t always better and in this instance it was a pain in the neck because I was trying to get outside to see my gruff neighbor with the cuddly kitten and I was having trouble washing it all off!!!  I find that perhaps in my effort to be proactive and really get the acne to go away I tend to equate more cream with more effectiveness.  But I’m not sure this is the case.  When the cream is slathered on like that, does that caked up cream really do anything more than if I put just a small amount on.  To answer my own question, no I don’t think it does.  A small amount will work and I will save money, because I won’t be wasteful!

Just so you know, the kittens are all gone now.  I’ll miss the fun they brought, but I’m glad not to be itchy and rashy!!!

Back to my blog topic…..

I have some “rules” when it comes to acne cream.  These rules are a few things that I try to not do ever.

Firstly, I don’t do “tinted” cream.  Each human has their own skin tone.  When it comes to “tinting” one size (or tint) most certainly does not fit all.  When a fair skinned person uses a dark cream, they can end up exacerbating the appearance of the blemish.  When a darker skin person uses a lightly tinted cream they end up looking like they have chicken pocks.  Tinted creams create a silly appearance.  I prefer to use the acne cream then use a bit of cover up makeup over the blemish.

My second rule I learned the hard way.  I don’t use creams with a high concentration of a potentially bleaching substance.  I ended up bleaching out my pillow case.  And I ended up bleaching out my pajamas because I put some of the cream on my back/neck/chest area. Also I found that these creams don’t really work as well as the other creams, and to make matters worse, bleaching my skin makes it have an uneven tone which can make the blemishes even more noticeable.  I feel there is no winning with a bleach based cream.