Since We're Doing It - Help My Sister's SkinCare

[secretlyevil]

I'm going to introduce my little sister to AB. She has some major hormonal/cystic acne problems and has had them since puberty. Her birthday is at the end of September so I thought I'd put together a box of products for a basic routine and also include a shit ton of samples. 😂

Be right back with some deets.

Here's her current routine:
Exfoliating brush with cleanser, essential oil during the day, moisturizer; 10% salicylic acid cream and moisturizer at night

Skin Type:
On the oily side of combination, I guess
Might just be oily honestly, I think the dryness is only because of topical treatments really

What else do I need to tell you?

[secretlyevil]

Just gathering some info from other threads into one place for myself.

Jun 21, 2017 14:05:29 GMT -5 SallyJ said:

Thank you for recommending some good products! I have had significant improvement in my skin since switching to AB routine. I think I've also more clearly narrowed down what causes my acne - stress and likely coconut oil derivative (fatty alcohols like cetearyl alcohol). I am not really willing to do much more trial/error to be sure, but I don't think it's silicone (yay!).

Here are the photos at before, 2 weeks after, and 2 months after. Sorry for the poor lighting on the first one, it doesn't even show how uneven my skin really was. I had just tried TO Natural Moisturizing Factors two days before the last picture and the two new cystic acne spots showed up.


**poof**

A few things I started doing: sleeping a minimum of 7 hours per night going to bed at the same time very night and not hitting snooze on my alarm, drinking more water, started listening to audio books again rather than political podcasts in order to keep my anxiety low in the car when I tend to do more face picking/touching.

I check all ingredients on this website and stay away from anything that has a 2 or greater in the acne column: cosdna.com/eng/ingredients.php

Routine:

AM:
Rinse with tap water
CosRx AHA/BHA Toner
The Ordinary 12% AG VitC product
The Ordinary Caffeine solution under eye
Manyo Galactomyces Niacin Treatment
CosRx Snail Mucin 96
Biore Water Essence Sunscreen + 3 drops rose hip oil

PM routine:
Boscia Make-up Break-up Oil Cleanser - massage into face, use hot microfiber towel to steam, wipe clean, repeat with hot towel
Neutrogena Naturals Cleanser
CosRx BHA, CosRx AHA on Night 1
The Ordinary 5% Alpha Lipoic Acid on Night 2
The Ordinary 10% Argireline
CosRx Snail Mucin + 5 drops rose hip oil
The Ordinary Squalane as additional eye moisturizer

Jun 27, 2017 20:21:29 GMT -5 SallyJ said:

Cleanser: dual cleanse is better, so one oil and one regular soapy type but low ph.

Active: these fix skin problems like aging, spots, acne. For aging maybe consider getting new skin to turn over more frequently using acids, or something that will help with anti oxidants or collagen boosting like vitamin c.

Serums: these are like nutrients for your skin to help with texture, balancing, extra hydration. Consider things like nianicimide, hyaluronic acid, snail mucin.

Moisturizers: important for aging skin, healthy skin, and prevent extra oily skin.

Sunscreen: use daily. High spf. Don't skip.

[secretlyevil]

Jun 27, 2017 15:19:07 GMT -5 ESF said:

Here are the basics:

A mineral sunscreen
A low pH cleanser
An oil cleanser
A moisturizer

Everyone needs all four of these, though if you use a moisturizer with mineral sunscreen, then you can kill two birds with one stone. Though you may want a sunscreen free moisturizer for the evening.

The oil cleanser breaks up your makeup and sunscreen better than regular cleanser. The low pH cleanser gets rid of the oil residue and restores your skin's natural pH balance, reducing breakouts and dryness.  The mineral SPF provides better sun protection than chemical SPF.

You don't need the oil cleanser in the morning, and some people just use water in the morning, no other cleanser.  You do need to double cleanse at night though.

There are a million other components that you can add on, but I recommend starting there, and once you find products that work for you, then figure out your next steps. 

[kategm]

I have hormonal acne. I used to get cysts monthly, and they'd take ages to heal and i'd have months on top of months of acne. I now will have one month out of every 4 or so that I break out, and they're healed within a week.

First rule of thumb is to double cleanse to ensure makeup is being dissolved.

I really like the Cosrx Good Morning gel cleanser. It has tea tree oil in it, and I think helps acne. Highly recommend.

The products I find do the most good for my acne:
- CosRx Skin Returning a-sol (I use as an all over toner after cleansing)
- azaleic acid (I just got from the Ordinary and its fabulous)

Make sure she's doing a 20 min wait time on her salicylic acid. Also, she should probably add a better moisturizer, or more moisturizing steps because if she's stripping the oils from her skin (you said she had dryness issues) that actually aggravates the acne more and makes it worse. I swear by the Moistfull Booskin (I can only find it on eBay these days) to help my skin stay properly hydrated. I put it on immediately after acids.

If she has bad acne scars or hyperpigmenation, good genes has helped me a ton with those. It's super pricey though, so I'm sorry. Lol

When my skin was at its worst, every morning I'd use the Fresh Umbrian Clay Treatment Bar. Get your hand wet, rub it on the bar, and smear the clay on your wet face. Let dry for 5 min or until whitish. Wash off with cleanser. I stopped using it after the acne went away. I used Kate Somerville Benzoyl peroxide at night. These helped me a lot when it was at its worst. I didn't start salicylic acids until much later, but I have a history of sensitive skin and was scared to use chemical exfoliating.

[secretlyevil]

kategm that's some great stuff, thanks. I am trying to keep her budget in mind (works for a not-for-profit) so I'll stay away from the $$$ products if I can help it.

[bowies]

Search Liah Yoo Acne on YouTube. She's a Korean beauty blogger who has struggled with cystic acne. Lots of good stuff in her videos.

[SallyJ]

The first thing for her to think about is what could be causing the cystic acne. Mine is a combination of skin intolerance to certain products - primarily high oleic acid oils, in particular anything coconut oil based; hormonal changes; stress; bad habits like touching my face/picking; and too much sugar or dairy in my diet. Unfortunately it has been more trial and error for me. I did more of an elimination diet with alcohol, sugar, dairy, minimal face products and then added back in one at a time to identify the issue. Stress and hormones I just tracked for awhile and noticed a pattern.

My routine listed above has been pretty successful for eliminating nearly all of my cystic acne. I get one spot during PMS week and using Cosrx acne patches seems to heal it the fastest (like overnight fast). I think the combination of dual cleanse, clay mask once a week, acids, and the right moisturizer has made a huge difference.