Don’t use harsh or irritating skin-care products. Throughout this book I discuss the need for gentle cleansing for all skin types. This concept is particularly difficult for someone with oily or blemished skin to believe, despite the research backing it up, because the desire to really clean the skin is almost irresistible. Yet a paper […]

• Oral antibiotics to eliminate bacterial growth. • Birth-control pills and hormone blockers to control oil production. • Accutane, the only prescription medication capable of curing acne. Experiment You need to experiment to discover exactly how to put these various steps together in a combination that works for you. Unfortunately, there isn’t one absolutely right […]

• Clean the skin gently with a water-soluble cleanser that doesn’t contain ingredients that can clog pores or irritate the skin. This helps reduce further irritation and red­ness, and reduces oil production triggered by nerve endings on the skin’s surface, which would make matters worse. • Remove dead skin cells and encourage healthy skin-cell turnover, […]

Effective blemish treatment works by reducing oil production, eliminating skin-cell buildup on the surface of skin and in the pore, and killing the bacteria, P, acnes, that caused the inflammation in the first place. That’s why the best course of action for blemishes is twofold, both topical (what you put on the skin, whether it’s […]

ThermaClear and Zeno are two handheld devices sold as being able to really zap zits. Let me start with the warnings for these two machines right from the beginning and then I’ll get to the details: Don’t use these devices if: • You have acne or blemishes that tend to scar or you get red […]

As I mentioned above you can reduce the redness and swelling of a blemish with a sali­cylic acid (BHA)-based product or with a benzoyl peroxide-based product, but treating acne that way is a bad idea. Myriad products promise clear skin, and several pledge to zap zits, dry up blemishes, and drink up oil. The commercials […]

Why my skin? Why another blemish or blackhead? Why can’t I have smooth, poreless skin? Why me? Believe me, I know this feeling. Why do you suddenly, at the age of 28 or 48, have blemishes? Why haven’t you out­grown the blemishes and oily skin that have plagued you since you were 14, and that […]

At the heart of the matter acne is an inflammatory disorder. Interaction between a whole series of physical triggers creates redness and swelling that ends in the eruption of a blemish. Understanding how to stop this sequence of events from taking place, along with reducing inflammation, will let you begin to create a successful skin-care […]

There’s no way around it: One of the most worrisome and prevalent skin-care problems many women suffer through at some point in their lives is some degree of acne. Whether it’s blackheads, whiteheads (milia—hard white bumps that do not contain pus and are not swollen or red), papules (inflamed, red, raised bumps that do not […]