All Your Acne Care Needs

Question by : My sensitive skin problem…?
Well, I’m a 17 year old kid (male), and I’ve been struggling with acne throughout highschool and some of middle school. I got help from my dermatologist to get rid of my acne last year, she prescribed me: doxycyclen pills, tretinoin cream, and clindamycin gel. In fact, this did get rid of my acne prone skin – cleaning up my cystic and bumpy acne. But now I face a different problem that is sensitive skin.

Some days my face looks flawless, with a healthy glow, and I feel really good about my skin. But other days, it gets dull, uneven, sometimes blotchy red, etc. I don’t know what I do that causes these, but I really want to know how I can get back to those days where I have really nice looking skin.

Could be vitamin deficiency or an unhealthy diet? I take vitamin in tablet form everyday, and I eat very very healthy. I also drink a lot of water

I use Cetaphil daily facial cleanser for oily to normal skin, so I’m not using any soapy/foamy/dye cleansers.

I tone sometimes and I moisturize after cleansing every time. I use neutrogena healthy skin lotion with SPF 15, and it has a lot of very good antioxidants. I just started using it recently and it’s doing an okay job of diminishing acne/sun spots.

I also have had hive breakouts couple times a week, which I take Claritan for.

Exfoliating can sometimes be to harsh on my skin so I don’t do it often, maybe once a week.
I thought my skin irritation or whatever it is you want to call it was due to shaving my face, but I took extra steps to make sure I always get the best shave, so it’s not that.

I have a tan complexion, but when my face goes into irritation, dulness, blotchiness, uneveness, or whatever – it looks lighter, the skin around my eyes looks darker, my face looks more bumpy, and redness on my cheeks and bearded area.

Can anyone help me figure out why my face tweaks out? I have finally realized that i have sensitive skin, but i really want that skin that i get when it’s at its best (usually once a week or twice). I’ve done trial and error and I can’t figure out what it could be. Any advice would be cool.

Best answer:

Answer by Gia
Although I never had acne, I did have similar skin sensitivity problems.

First of all stop using anything on your skin that contains petroleum products. Most moisturizers contain them. You can buy pure, raw shea butter on the internet. It usually comes in a tub or something similar. It’s solid but melts at body temperature. Don’t use shea butter products you can buy at any drugstore. They have little shea butter in them but lots of the regular petroleum products. Or you can buy at Sally’s Beauty Supply a product called Hemp Body Moisturizer. It has hemp seed oil (no THC), coconut oil, sesame, jojoba, sunflower, olive, tea tree oils in it and seems to be OK on my face (although it does contain some parabens).

I WANT TO ADD: I find Aveeno Ultra-Calming Foaming cleanser (gently cleans and softens dry, sensitive skin) a good choice with no breakouts.

Even though you like Neutrgena HS maybe you can find SPF 15 in an all vegetable product.

Another product is Aubrey Vegecol with Aloe moisturizing cream for sensitive skin. Great ingredients but it’s a little more expensive. I think they make cleansers as well.

I like Shea the best and it’s cheap.

I also use Cetaphil soap but only on my chin and sides of nose or else I break out on my cheeks.

I take Fish Oil, Vitamin A and Biotin for skin and hair. It made quite a difference. Alpha Lipoic Acid and Co-Q-10 are really good antioxidents.

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