My Face is Purging!

I always had okay skin up until my 25th birthday.

I think I probably had some kind of crazy hormonal shift around that time because I got the WORST hormonal acne of my life, centered around my chin and jawline. To make things worse, I had wintertime eczema around my mouth at the same time.

In a past post, I mentioned that my skin has been one of my biggest quarantine projects. Between the business of graduate school and watching my spending, I never really took the time to invest in a skincare routine that worked for my skin. Instead, I subscribed to Proactiv MD and hoped it would magically fix my skin.

Let me preface by saying this:  I would recommend Proactiv MD to absolutely no one with sensitive, acne-prone skin. Yes, my face cleared up for a few months, but my skin's moisture barrier was destroyed, the adalpalene (a.k.a. the presciption-strength retinoid that makes up the "MD" part of Proactiv MD) burned my skin and contributed to my eczema, and eventually my skin reflected the massive damage I had been unwittingly subjecting it to for about 8 months. The system truly does work to burn your acne away, but that ends up destroying healthy skin as well.

Fast forward and I've switched mostly to Korean beauty products made for sensitive and damaged skin. These were all soothing on my skin, but I wasn't noticing any real skin brightening, reduction of acne, or scar reducing going on. That's when I really started to do my research, which luckily coincided pretty well with the COVID-19 lockdown.

What I found out is that my skin needed to be renewed, and that meant both treating my existing acne, targeting early signs of aging, and promoting skin cell turnover to get rid of my nasty scarring.

Here are the products it looked like I needed to incorporate into my routine:

• Vitamin C - A powerful antioxidant that promotes skin brightening and correction of hyper pigmentation. The skin reacts to vitamin C by attempting to "heal" itself by producing more collagen and elastin. My skin is super sensitive, and vitamin C is the same thing as ascorbic acid which can be really harsh on the skin. I knew I was going to need a milder vitamin C derivative. I ended up going with The Ordinary's Ascorbyl Tetraisopalmitate 20% in Vitamin F. This is a very mild derivative, and, from my research, seemed like a good match for my skin.
• A mild retinoid - Retinoids also act as skin healers by promoting production of collagen. They're great for acne because they both unclog pores and prevent dead cells from clogging pores. This was going to be my best bet at getting rid of my acne. I just needed a mild formulation that causes significantly less irritation than something of prescription strength. I went with The Ordinary's Granactive Retinoid 2% in Squalane due to its low concentration of active ingredient, and squalane's moisturizing properties (it's a really great carrier oil for skincare products).

I'll probably make a post about my entire skincare regimen eventually, but these are the two products I've noticed making a huge change to my skin.

Because these two ingredients have been increasing my skin cell turnover rate, I've noticed that some HUGE cysts I've had deep in my chin for years are coming to the surface and breaking into massive, painful whiteheads. To be frank, my face looks really terrible in the areas I usually get clogged pores, but looks amazing everywhere else! That means my chin and forehead are breaking out like crazy, while my cheeks, nose, and jawline are smooth and bright. So what the heck is going on here?

Turns out my face is doing something called purging, which is a pretty typical reaction to products that cause an increase in skin cell turnover rate. These products are quite literally pulling absolutely all the nasty stuff deep in my skin up to the surface that's been down there for God knows how long, and bursting them at the surface. 

At first, I thought I was having a bad reaction to my new products. But apparently, you can tell a purge from a reaction by where acne is forming. If it's in the places you usually break out, it's likely purging. If it's everywhere, it's a bad reaction. 

Long story short, my face is bound to get "worse" before it gets better, but I'm so happy to get all of this nastiness out of my face once and for all! In the meantime, I'm continuing with my normal skincare routine including a gentle cleansing twice a day, serums at night, and sunscreen every morning. 

Hopefully I'll feel confident enough after this is done to post some before and after pictures!

- Anna