How I got rid of my acne – my acne story and advice

To be honest, I never thought I would get clear skin one day, certainly not a few years back, when I was having new clusters of pimple popping up every single day. Getting rid of acne still feels like a miracle to me.

Today, when I see some of my customers having bad acne, I really want to help them and offer some advice. However, I know clearly that acne is way too complex and there is no one miracle product that could fix. It is associated with the environment, the body, the mind and of course the skin’s condition. But after my 10-year battle with acne, I feel I could at least share with you my story, what I find working and not-working, maybe it could help some of you out there.

Background

I started to get pimples when I first started high school. It’s also the time when I first moved to Sydney. I feel that it’s all because of Sydney’s low humidity. The dry weather has dehydrated my skin and caused water-oil imbalance, which is then exacerbated by the time of puberty where sebum production is at its peak. My skin became extremely oily. Pimples pop up in clusters concentrated on my forehead, chin and around the nose. These pimples are red, inflamed and large. They contain a lot of liquid and take days to develop to a head. I would pop and squeeze them when they become white, they would bleed and heal. But new ones develop every single day at different spots.

My acne in 2010 and clear face in 2017

Things that didn’t work

Over the 10+ years, I tried many methods to try to get rid of my acne. However, none of them worked. These included:

  • Clean&Clear, Shiseido Pureness Series – these skincare products were the first acne targeting products I used. They were extremely drying to the skin and contained alcohol which didn’t help but irritated my skin further. My skin would hurt after I used these.
  • Benzac – I was allergic to it.
  • AHA/BHA including Neostrata, Peter Thomas Roth and ASAP – these acid products were irritating and painful to use, they also made my skin thin and vulnerable.
  • Doxycycline – This is an oral antibiotic prescribed by a doctor when I went to see him for a flu I had. I took these for 6 months and no improvement to my acne at all. It gave me horrible health issues afterwards, I would stay away from antibiotics at all cost. They destroy the good bacteria in your body and messes with your immune system, it’s simply not worth it.
  • Birth control pills – no effect to acne at all.
  • Removing fried stuff and chilli stuff from my diet – It’s normal to get one or two pimples if you’ve been eating oily or deep fried stuff. But if you’re getting clusters of pimples non-stop, there is something wrong and giving up these foods will not help.
  • Toothpaste – It was cooling to use and aided at drying out active pimples, but the effect was little and didn’t help with further breakouts.
  • Tea Tree Oil – Didn’t help at all, and was oily and stingy to use. Plus, I hate the smell.
  • Aztec Clay – This stuff is messy to use, drying to the skin, and didn’t help at all.
  • Mario Badescu – I used its Buffering Lotion and Drying Cream. The packaging of these products were extremely poor and unhygienic. I didn’t enjoy using these at all and they had no effects either reducing acne or further breakouts.
  • Taking supplements (fish oil, zinc, vitex) – I hate swallowing pills, but took these supplements for acne, but they didn’t help. Vitex was the only one that helped a little. I took it for a few years and stopped when my acne was gone.
  • Hyaluronic Acid – These were often in a thick sticky texture, which didn’t help with acne.
  • Needle extractions – Using needles to extract the pimple was not only extremely painful but also destructive to the skin. It didn’t help clearing the skin but had the potential to leave scarring.
  • Lush – I’ve actually had great results with Lush in Japan, but the Australian one is different and not as effective.

So the route to clear skin was not straightforward. At the end of my university years, I still had acne. By that time, I have already accepted the fact that I’ll have acne for the rest of my life. All I could do was taking care of my skin, so that I don’t leave myself with horrible scarring. I used whitening products which worked very well at diminishing the acne scars. During those years, I would not walk out of the house without foundation. I felt extremely exposed when I had to take off my makeup in front of other people.

Now you might have noticed that I never went to a dermatologist. I feel it’s because dermatologists are not readily available in Sydney, I didn’t know where to find them and I didn’t trust they could fix my problem.

How I got rid of acne?

So it’s time to tell what finally worked to get rid of acne for me. It’s all to do with killing the bacteria, in a gentle way. I believe the following two things are the main drivers in clearing up my skin.

1. Using an antibacterial soap cleanser

This is probably the best decision I’ve made towards my acne skin. I’ve switched to an antibacterial soap cleanser. At the time, the thought was very simple, that since ance is created by bacteria, then using an antibacterial cleanser would kill those bacteria and get rid of acne. It turned out that my skin liked the soap cleanser so much better than the foam cleansers. Soap contains so much less chemicals than foam cleansers. Because of the the way they are applied, they do not get contact directly with the skin, which makes them so much more gentle on the skin. They are also much less drying than the foam cleansers as they do not contain as many surfactants.

The one I used is the Dermaklear Acne Treatment Soap. It contains 5% sulfur which is an effective bacteria killer that’s not irritating. On top of that, it is mainly plant based. That said, I have stopped using it after my acne is gone, because I felt it was still a bit drying and irritating and I would like my skin to have its own bacterial immunity than relying on an antibacterial product. I am now using the Sulwhasoo Herbal Soap (Full Review), which keeps my skin balanced and clear of acne.

Dermaklear Acne Treatment Soap

2. Applying a topical antibiotic to prevent growth of bacteria

This is probably the cure for my acne. It was introduced by a friend that others have received good results for acne with this particular product. I didn’t believe it at all. But my friend insisted me trying it and bought several tubes for me. So I gave it a go, and it worked. It helped the active breakouts to develop quicker and killed them overnight. The best part is that it reduced further breakouts in the same area. My acne was cleared in less than a few months.

This miracle product is an eye ointment. The active ingredient is Erythromycin, which is an antibiotic that treats eye infections. I’ve got mine from overseas, but I’m sure there are similar products in Australia.

I feel topical antibiotics are much safer than the oral antibiotics. They kill bacteria in a targeted area instead of messing with your body’s immune system.

Other factors that may have helped

There were a few other things that I feel may have helped with my acne as well.

  • Weather
    I feel Sydney has been much wetter these few years. There never used to be so much rain. The humidity would have helped my oily-dehydrated skin, reduing the sebum production. I think weather is actually an important factor in acne or skin condition in general. The humidity in the air would greatly affect the skin’s hydration level. Constantly being in a dry environment would cause skin to lose its moisture to the environment very quickly. I notice everytime I go to a place that is more humid, my acne would slowly clear up.
  • Listen to my skin
    I learned to listen to my skin more than anything else. I no longer completely trust in product descriptions or ingredients list. I only trust how my skin feels. I examine my skin regularly, touching and feeling how it’s feeling. If it feels dehydrated, rough or irritated, I would immediately stop using the product.
  • Eliminating alcohol and other harsh ingredients in my skincare products.
    Switching to natural based products with an ingredients list that I could actually understand has helped a lot for my skin’s general health. It has become stronger and more resilient to bacteria and other environmental damages.
  • Be Gentle
  • Benton Aloe BHA Toner
    This is a toner that I’ve been using for a couple of years before my acne completely cleared. Although it didn’t work to stop my acne, it is a great toner that provides the slight content of BHA to clear the pores without you noticing it.
  • Lifestyle Changes
    Clearing up acne happened after my university years, where my lifestyle has become a lot more regulated. I sleep around 10pm and wake up at 6am to go to work. I drank cups and cups of tea daily. I no longer drink icy cold water or coke. All of these would have contributed to the clearing of my skin.

Things I still use to keep acne away

Although I no longer break out with clusters of pimples, I still get pimples every month. There are a few things that I would always have at my hand to keep my skin clear and whenever a pimple pops up, I could kill it as quickly as possible.

  1. Cosrx Acne Pimple Master Patch
  2. Cosrx One Step Pimple Clear Pads
  3. Manyo Factory Blemish Lab Proxyl Gel
  4. Manyo Factory Blemish Lab Proxyl Treatment Mask
  5. A’pieu Nonco Mastic Band Patch
  6. Clarisonic
  7. Sulwhasoo Herbal Soap
  8. A’pieu Nonco Tea Tree Spot Patch
  9. I’m From Volcanic Mask
  10. Etude House AC Clinic Series

Final Note

I really hope that this post would help some of you out there who are combating with acne. It’s not easy and can feel hopeless at times. But if you learn to accept it, work with it, you’ll feel happier in general. Listen to your skin’s needs, feed it what it needs rather than what the packaging says. Learn to love it, keep trying and don’t give up.

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