suncream, zits and wrinkles: rolling skincare thread?

next step -- buy a white balaclava and walk around looking like a germ

Or...green tea or peppermint teabags, steeped, then opened up to get the wet leaves, then make a paste with...colloidal oatmeal and honey? I mean these are all "calming," redness-reducing elements in popular "natural" products. Can't hurt?

Personally I find honey really emollient and soothing on skin. Plus, antiseptic!

I recently left my Aveeno body lotion at bf's for a week and tried to use some of the various more expensive ones at my house...the results were redness, breakouts, and finally widespread peeling & flakiness no matter how much I moisturized. Come baaaaack, Aveeno!

I think peppermint is probably irritating to skin, not calming.

Speaking of aging, this is good - https://medium.com/thelist/age-40-aint-nobody-got-time-for-that-96651b435bb4

At 55, I'm in the teen years of aging - wholly agree with all that.

i tried a sample of kiehl's midnight recovery concentrate just for kix
mega breakout next morning yeaaaahhh no thanks

Oh I've been using that for a couple months now and I really love it.

after years of thinking I was just some kind of human failure I talked to my doctor about flaky/scaly patched and he gave me some kind of glop to rub on it that helps
to share in the OPPOSITE direction
livin' in the desert tho; it was contact dermatitis

did submit to the snake oil & got a clarisonic; not sure if it's doing too much different
I have just succumbed to the fate that I will always have acne everywhere, that my skin is like a map of the world w/parts always warring against itself

I met a woman from Comoros who introduced me to using ground sandalwood as a face mask. It smells great and it was like a miracle mask for my face. The big problem is, I haven't found sandalwood sold as a block of wood to grind up on....a dried up piece of CORAL. I thought it was a rock but it's a huge piece of coral and she told me they just sell them for nothing in Comoros. I looked it up and sure enough the coral in that area is not doing well. So I gave up on that. I did however find some sandalwood masks, many out of India. Thing is, I just don't think it will be the same. I think the coral had a lot to do with this mask. It had a cooling effect, then it shrunk all my pores and evened out my skin tone like after two uses. Left my skin so soft I had no use for a moisturizer. So addicted but having to do without.

i've been trying so much stuff and my skin is being such a fuckin asshole lately! it's the worst it's ever been :/

i had some closed comedones around my chin that i hated, but mostly just the feel - they were tiny and virtually invisible to anyone else. now they have mulitplied and are turning cystic.

shit that i have tried recently:
st ives aha pads
a bunch of paula's choice samples
bentonite clay mask mixed with citric acid
rose hip oil
sea buckthorn oil
neem oil (NEVER AGAIN - the smell is the worst)
nivea creme (the german-made stuff)
first aid beauty repair cream
witch hazel rose water toner
vit c hyaluronic serum
cure aqua gel exfoliator (the number one selling skincare product in japan!)
some glamglow black face wash
mario badescu face wash
cerave face wash

currently trying the 3-step trial sized paula's choice bha stuff
got some frankincense oil this week
ordered some mandelic acid peel
have some BLACK SNAIL CREAM on the way

one thing - my actual skin overall *feels* really soft and hydrated, it's just the acne and blotchiness that's insane right now

Thanks to insurance fuck up, plus my laziness in correcting fuck up, I have been without spironolactone for a month or so. My skin has gone bumpy, hair oily, eyebrow + other facial hairs sprouty, ugh OK I am going to call to work out stupid insurance thing on Monday.

GIVE ME MY VANITY DRUGS MOTHERFUCKERS

xpost ugh justine that sucks!

maybe it's worth biting the bullet & getting a dermatologist involved?

the thing i found is that it becomes as much psychological as physical, and if you get stuck in that hole of trying to find a solution, it just becomes depressing not to mention $$$

i am running out of cosmetics, and $$$

hoping my imminent birthday will bring in a couple of bottles of estee lauder

i gott stop touching my face so much, too - it's certainly not helping matters! xp

i had to remember not to touch my face today bc i was wearing liner

face touching habit is soooo hard to break

i know! i literally like touched my eyelid and next thing you know i smudge my eyeliner

i'm rly going to have to brace myself this summer. winter skin is the easiest thing for me but in the summer i have to put in extra work.

Does anybody have experience/opinions re Makeup Artists Choice stuff?

The mandelic acid I ordered is from there - they get a lot of good reviews for there stuff on skin care blogs.

i had some closed comedones around my chin that i hated, but mostly just the feel - they were tiny and virtually invisible to anyone else. now they have mulitplied and are turning cystic.

I feel you on this SO HARD. I'm always in a continuous cycle of figuring out what's bothering my skin now and fixing it and then waiting for the redness to subside. Touching, products, sunscreen, clothes collars, the strap of a bag I carried that rubbed on my neck, pillowcases, did I eat wheat or dairy, blah blah blah DIE.

My go-to is expressing the clogs and washing them immediately with soap & water, exfoliating every day with either a clean cloth or corn meal, and using nothing but plain Aveeno on the area. And

http://www.lorealparis.ca/img/l10n/products/305x262/Cos21c_1_Large.jpg

i got one of those extractor tools a while ago, and that thing doesn't do shit, even on spots that are about to erupt! idk what i'm doing wrong. i've really got to stop squeezing tho :/

L, do you get a hard bump left behind afterwards? i'm finding that even after the spot has done it's thing and started healing over, there's a large hard lump underneath (not painful).

i'm also wondering if my hormonal IUD is a contributing factor.

just1n3, I'm super interested in hear how you find the MUAC mandelic acid toner. I bought that and their 8% BHA serum, and just finished the toner. I ended up tossing the serum about halfway through. My problem with the serum is that it contained menthol, like enough for it to smell like wintergreen lifesavers, which is so puzzling to me because menthol not only does nothing for skin, but it's also a known irritant. Like okay, you get the "cooling" sensation but I thought the whole marketing angle of MUAC was that they are designed for people with a basic understanding of skincare, so trying to fool people into believing your BHA exfoliant works through the cooling illusion of menthol just seems shady and insulting. Not to mention the first ingredient is SD alcohol. Plus it didn't seem to do much, other than break me out.

I thought the toner was fine, but it has SD alcohol as the second ingredient so I decided not to rebuy it.

I'm not a skincare chemist, but sd alcohol is not a good thing in skin care products: http://thebeautybrains.com/2015/04/im-confused-about-alcohol-in-cosmetics/, http://www.paulaschoice.com/expert-advice/skin-care-basics/_/alcohol-in-skin-care-the-facts

Anyway, here's how I'm rolling these days.

Morning:

Alpha Hydrox 12% AHA - I've been using this for about a year now, and it's really nice for brightening my skin and just making my face look... fresh (for want of a less creepy term)
PC Skin Balancing Pore Reducing Toner - I've tried a few PC toners and have not disliked any of them. This is my second go round with this one and for now it's my go to summer toner
PC Resist Ultralight Antioxidant Serum - another one for summer skincare. It also works like a primer.
Either PC Resist Superlight Wrinkle Defense or PC Skin Recovery Daily Moisturizing Lotion depending on how humid it is, how dry my skin is, whether I'm going to wear makeup, what kind of mood I'm in

Evening:

PC Resist 4% BHA retexturizing blah blah foam - I've only been using this for a few days so verdict's out. I've not had any luck with any PC BHA products to date so I'm not holding my breath, but we'll see. Also, as the reviews note, this stuff smells VERY BAD.
PC Skin Recovery Serum - This is more of a winter thing so I'm mostly just using it up. It's nice, although I'm not entirely sure what, if anything, these serums actually do.
Either Cerave Stretch Mark Cream or Cerave PM - also depends on how humid it is and how dry my skin is. The stretch mark cream doesn't do jack for stretch marks but it's a really nice, really cheap, really soothing and pleasant moisturizer for very dry skin. The PM is a lot lighter and my skin just LOLs at it in the dry winter months, but it's good in the summer.

That's a Total Turnaround (if you will) from my previous approach to skincare, which was way more minimal in both number of products and fancy ingredients. But at some point, about a year ago, I think, I was getting really fed up with my face and my skin - breaking out, looking dull and sallow, the visible effects of actual sun damage (yes yes I regret my previous no sunscreen in the winter stance. That was dumb! Dumb dumb dumb!). I remembered that I used to use and enjoy Clinique's Turnaround Cream, which always made my face feel soft and smooth and bright but I also knew it had changed its name/formula, so I went searching for reviews. That's how I found Beautipedia and Paula's Choice and while some of the sun damage is just the way my face is now (unless I get the money/urge to go to a dermatologist for a chemical peel or something, which I'm not ruling out as a possibility someday), overall my beautiful, beautiful face is looking and feeling much better now.

i use Cerave Stretch Mark Cream a lot thx to you!

It's marvelous hand cream, isn't it?

I bought some of the PC Resist line and it was so harsh and made my face really dry and tight I had to stop using it.

Cerave Stretch Mark Cream as hand cream & face cream for me. i've got very dry skin year round.

about 5 days ago i just cut out most of the stuff i'd been using/testing and started using the 3 trial sized bha products (cleanser, bha liquid, bezoyl peroxide cream) + rosehip/seabuckthorn/grapeseed oil + nivea creme at night, and witchhazelrosewater toner + vit c serum + FAB cream in the morning. the PC stuff is giving me a bit of dryness in one area, but it healed up a couple of major zits really quickly. the stuff really stings and is uncomfortable tho :/

carl, re the sd alcohol - i've read that alcohol can help skin products more readily penetrate the skin, and the 25% peel that i just got has insanely good reviews. i think it probably depends on what particular sensitivities your skin has.

i have one word for all of you: NIVEA

i tried the mandelic acid peel last night, first impressions: i like it! it stung for a couple of seconds when i first put it on, but that was it. and my skin felt really smooth and soft afterwards.

carl, re the sd alcohol - i've read that alcohol can help skin products more readily penetrate the skin, and the 25% peel that i just got has insanely good reviews. i think it probably depends on what particular sensitivities your skin has.

― just1n3, Thursday, May 14, 2015 4:55 AM (15 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I see! So much contradictory info out there. I don't think I'm sensitive to sd alcohol, so that is good to know.

apropos of nothing: i used clinique's 3-step cleanser/toner/moisturizer for almost 10 years...such a mistake. I am convinced that their #2 toner is what fucked up my skin. basically a twice daily cheap chemical peel :(

i probably had rosacea all along but that just made it sooo much worse

I was a long time user of that too. I was basically raised to believe there were two kinds of beauty products: Clinique and garbage.

right!? mum took me to the clinique counter when i was like, 16

clinique toner fucked up my friend's skin years ago, too!

it's the worst! better to exfoliate with battery acid

i can't use toner anymore. middle eastern skin doesn't support it.

for no reason, came across this in an old email
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ume40waXuM&feature=relmfu

lol

i just got the 50 or so tiny closed comedones around my jawline extracted. fucking hell.

my esthetician said they were almost certainly caused by mirena IUD i had put in last year.

And now my lower face is a big scabby mess.

Dohhhh :(
I found shaving made me break out a little! Hairless lip still wins imo

Owwwww, j! What did the derm say about the comedones they extracted? And how did they extract them??

whats a comedone?

ALSO: i want to do cryotherapy so bad. I really know nothing about it but get the impression its some type of reverse sauna?

The IUD is really doing a number on my face. j, are you still using the mandelic acid and do you have any other comedone advice? (sunny - comedones are 'white'/skin-coloured zits, I guess). Also, did you find they subsided after a while?

Also noted Laurel's use of cornmeal as exfoliator, which sounds like a good idea. As far as moisturizer, I use Aveeno right now but am running low and happy to switch.

I have gone away from cornmeal to a good old fashioned washcloth that I can lightly scrub in circles and then change out frequently for a clean one. Maybe as I've aged my face needs more careful treatment? I might go back to some kind of honey-based thing tho cos I think my skin likes it, it just might not be with cornmeal.