HEY Y’ALL!
Good morning! Happy Wednesday! By the title of this post I’m sure you can tell what it’s going to be about, my long 10 year journey with acne HOPEFULLY coming to a close!
If you read my skin care post back in January I talked briefly about my long time struggle with acne and how I’ve tried just about everything under the sun to try and clear my skin. I’m not even slightly joking when I tell you I’ve probably tried over 25 different products at various times in my life including 4 different three-step-kits, two different prescription medications, two different topical prescription gels, every Clean&Clear and Clearasil face wash known to man, astringent pads, spot treatments, masks and…..you get the idea. It’s been A LOT! A few of them didn’t work at all and some of them worked to clear up some of my acne but not all of it and when I got fed up I would go back to a regular face wash and my acne would usually come back a little worse. And it’s not just on my face, I have it on my chest, on my neck, on my back, on my arms…..it’s a huge struggle and sometimes a painful one.
If you’ve ever had acne you know how awful it can be. Constantly worrying about if people are talking to you or talking to your zits. Always trying to cover it up so people aren’t disgusted by the thousands of red bumps all over your face. Not really wanting to wear a bathing suit because you’re breaking out on your chest and back. Never fully feeling like your skin is clean because acne just CONSTANTLY makes you feel like you’re dirty and need to wash your face. Even having a zit cause you physical pain because it’s so much pressure under your skin. I’ve been there. I’ve felt ALL of these things for almost half my life and I sympathize with ANYONE who has ever had acne. It’s one of the reasons I really embraced make-up. It doesn’t cover everything, but it helps me have confidence! I recently saw this buzzfeed post and it spoke to my soul: http://www.buzzfeed.com/floperry/things-all-girls-with-acne-will-understand#.as6Od1zOam
So with little hope for clear skin until I reached my 40th birthday or something I kind of gave up. I was sticking to a routine that just managed my acne, but didn’t clear it up. But then I was clicking around on YouTube and found people talking about this product called “The Regimen” from Acne.org. It’s another three-step-kit and my initial reaction was “Seriously?? ANOTHER three-step-kit??” and I kind of dismissed it thinking it would probably work the same as just about every other one I’ve tried, moderate improvement but nothing drastic or permanent. So about a month later I started breaking out BAD. Probably the worst breakout I’ve ever had in my life. And I’m 23 going on 24 soon, I shouldn’t be having this bad of a breakout post-puberty, but HERE WE ARE. All of my acne seemed to be getting bigger and more painful so I opened my computer back up and dug a little deeper into these Acne.org products. I read reviews, I read the website front to back, I watched SO MANY journeys on YouTube of people just like me who were beyond fed up with their skin. So I finally decided “what else do you have to lose? If this doesn’t work at least you can say you tried right?” and I bought it. And here starts my clear skin journey 🙂
WARNING: Below will contain pictures of my skin that are not the most aesthetically pleasing, read at your own risk! (Lol)
It finally arrived at my house last Tuesday so once I got home from work I hopped in the shower because I couldn’t WAIT to try it. It comes with three bottles: a cleanser, the treatment, and a moisturizer.
It came with EXTREMELY specific instructions, which I knew going into it since I had read about it and watched so many videos. It tells you to follow the directions EXACTLY as they are written so that you’ll see results. It’s not that it’s a rigorous process but the directions are so specific that it can feel like a lot and I’ll let you read in depth on their website but the basic gist is this
- Dispense two pumps of cleanser into your hands and work it into a lather. Then GENTLY wash your face for no more than 10 seconds. Rinse and GENTLY pat dry.
- Dispense a pea sized amount into your hands and GENTLY apply it to your face, working up to a full finger-length amount at the end of week 2
- Dispense two pumps of moisturizer into your hands and GENTLY apply it to your face.
Do this routine twice a day every day, doing the treatment only at night during the first week and then twice a day starting the second week.
Are you seeing a theme here? BE GENTLE! I got it, Irritation = Acne. This is not news to me. I thought I was being gentle with my skin but you don’t realize how harsh you are until someone tells you to dial it down. With these products I barely touch my skin and I’ve almost completely stopped picking at my skin in between washes. But the hardest part is not being able to use my Clarisonic. You know how much I love that thing!!!! It was my savior two years ago and makes my face feel so clean, but it is not allowed in this super gentle routine. I digress!
So I bet you’re sitting there like “KRISTIN GET TO THE DANG RESULTS! DOES IT WORK?!?!” and I’m so happy that I can tell you that IT DOES! Now my pictures below don’t look a whole lot different. There is still some redness and definitely still pimples but I can feel and see it working when I look in the mirror. The website has a chart of the weeks and the results you should be seeing and for week one it says “Mild improvement. Skin is red, irritated, and itches while skin adjusts to treatment.” which is all very true. I have seen mild improvement and the Benzoyl Peroxide treatment has definitely caused my skin to dry out and start to itch…a lot.
So here are the pictures! The left picture is before I started and the right picture is one week. (My skin looks super yellow because the moisturizer is yellow! It’s not fully absorbed yet in this picture but Pretty Little Liars was coming back on and I couldn’t wait! haha)
Left side START – Left side WEEK 1
Right side START – Right Side WEEK 1
Forehead START (top) – Forehead WEEK 1 (bottom)
I feel like I can definitely see some results! And it’s only been one week so I’m not worried! I do still wear makeup every day and I use a makeup wipe at night to take it all off before I use the cleanser because I don’t think my skin gets as clean if I don’t take the makeup off first (which is probably not recommended so I’m going to try not to and see how it goes) but other than that I have been following The Regimen instructions to a T! I’m going to post my results every week so I can document my progress and hopefully help someone out there who has struggled with acne like me! Thanks so much for reading this and feel free to ask me any questions! I hope someone else finds this as great as me! 🙂 ❤
xoxo,
Kristin
Baking up Beautiful 