Ive Used Proactive for Awhile but Now Im Breaking Out Again

Win a free anti-aging serum from MOOD Skincare!

If you buy in to celebrity endorsements, y'all'd think that Proactiv was the best matter ever. (No more mentum breakouts for Jessica Simpson! Katy Perry uses the overnight mask!). Just, the story you're almost to hear is not that of a paid celebrity spokesperson (deplorable, Beliebers, he was as well busy hanging with Kris Jenner). This story reflects my own personal journeying from acne sufferer to enthused Proactiv customer to eventual Proactiv quitter.

Let me introduce myself: I am the Senior Editor of this site, and suffered from all-over breakouts, redness, cystic, painful zits, for 7 years until I STOPPED using Proactiv and realized how truly atrocious information technology was for my skin. If you've been using Proactiv, for 7 years or seven minutes, y'all should hear what I have to say. Like me, you might actually be doing more harm than good. I knowwwww – Proactiv feels so skilful and provides results. But hear me out.

Proactiv To The Rescue

My journey with Proactiv started in high schoolhouse, when my dad paid for subscriptions for my blood brother and I. We were both suffering from breakouts on our cheeks and effectually the mouth–it was conspicuously a genetic problem that we had both inherited, only I was a petty more sensitive about the whole affair existence a girl. (My brother could but grow a beard when he was having a bad breakout. Meanwhile, I'm over here, piling on the foundation.) I had tried topicals and antibiotics at that bespeak, as prescribed by an okay dermatologist I visited once (a expert dermatologist offers solutions–she doesn't tell y'all at that place "isn't much you can do." More on that subsequently.)

I had been washing my confront religiously with Nuetrogena Deep Clean, and I had learned what types of activities and foods triggered breakouts for me (the usual suspects: stress, chocolate, sunscreen that wasn't non-comedogenic, etc.). I never even put my fingers to my face without washing them with Ivory lather commencement (withal don't). I would take short spurts where my skin would clear up and acne would almost be a non-outcome, simply it never really stayed that way and I would NEVER say my skin was "not bad." I always felt like it could exist better, and I felt ugly and had a lot of insecurity issues as a event. Enter Proactiv.

Hey girl.

Similar Crack–For Your Skin

I savage in love with Proactiv the first time I used it. No joke–it's like heroin or crack to a person who has tried every lame, ineffective cleanser on the market. From the starting time use, y'all're hooked. Part of Proactiv's appeal is how gratifying/satisfying/deadline orgasmic it is for people who suffer from acne. Showtime, yous launder with the exfoliating cleanser, "Step ane", which feels so good scrubbing off dead skin, that from this point on, any other cleanser will have you left wanting. Even the Correct cleanser for your skin won't experience as practiced every bit washing with Proactiv (more on that later). I don't care if it gels, foams, tingles, has microbeads, aloe, mint or tea tree oil—information technology's not Proactiv Stride 1. I'1000 getting a craving for it as I write this postal service.

Later drying your newly-smooth face, y'all get a 2d layer of satisfying cleansing from the toner, Footstep 2. I would literally deluge my cotton fiber round with the stuff. It doesn't contain alcohol, and then it doesn't burn or tingle similar other astringents, but information technology does just feel and then good wiping all over the skin. And you lot can visibly see dirt/grime/acne grossness on the cotton round after. I'd compare it to that feeling when you'd pare a Biore strip off your olfactory organ and all those dark stalks of blackheads would be sticking up. *Sigh* – it's just so adept.

The concluding step is a medicated lotion that you employ all over the face after the toner has dried (give it 3 minutes–or the fourth dimension it took me to brush out my moisture pilus and wrap it in a towel). This is really the cherry on top–the "Repairing Lotion" feels cooling and medicated, like all of your problem areas are being smoothed over. It'due south not a moisturizer so y'all don't have to worry about clogging your pores (but if you do want to give Guthy Renker more money, they do take a green tea moisturizer sold separately). It dries well and doesn't feel residue-y. It does a lot of things right that other acne products just don't. Information technology leaves you feeling like a perfect complexion is just around the corner. And I was still waiting for that perfect skin 7 years later.

Worse Before It Gets Better

For a lot of prescription acne medications, like Tetracycline, your doctor will tell y'all that your skin volition become worse earlier information technology gets meliorate. I am non exactly sure why this is, but it'due south pretty common to hear that at different points in your acne treatment journey. Similarly, the myth with Proactiv is that your skin gets worse before it gets meliorate. I've been told precisely that by salespeople at the mall kiosks–who, by the way, make a commission when they sell y'all a canteen. Herein lies the problem: you'll always feel like you're in the "worse" state and things are about to become improve, just you don't go that bank check-up with the doc six weeks later like you would with a prescribed medication. And Proactiv doesn't say exactly how long you'll have to wait, so you're basically stuck in skincare purgatory waiting and waiting and waiting for things to become better.

Or at to the lowest degree that was my experience. I went through periods where my skin would get meliorate (probably due to a hormonal alter), and I'd be convinced that the Proactiv was finally working. But then I'd accept breakouts once more. Information technology went on like this for years.

On my wedding twenty-four hours. Pile on the foundation, girls!

Here Comes The Sun… Spots

About a year or and then in to my using Proactiv I went on holiday to Aruba with my then-fellow (now hubby) and did the usual lay-out-past-the-pool-for-five-hours-with-SPF-15 beach holiday routine. I wore Neutrogena SPF thirty on my face and a hat near of the time, but at the end of the vacation I had developed these dark, blotchy dominicus spots all over my forehead, the tops of my cheeks and–worst of all–on my upper lip, which from a altitude looked like a full-on mustache. Sweet.

The Proactiv label says to avoid sun exposure, merely I could accept never in a one thousand thousand years guessed that even through SPF 15 and a baseball hat I could get such awful, irreversible sun damage. And that's the wonderful affair about hyperpigmentation–it just takes 1 example of sunday exposure (in my case, 1 well-deserved calendar week in the Caribbean) to form, but it takes years and years of treatments and creams and lasers to come off. I am still dealing with them to this day, and now when I go to the embankment I wear SPF 50 or higher, reapplying constantly, and a huge wide-brimmed floppy hat. Thanks, Proactiv!

Can you lot SPOT the problem?

So Many Ruined Towels

Hither'southward a fun one: your boyfriend'south parents invite you to their beach house, and after a week of being incredibly gracious to y'all and cooking yous meals and letting you lot shack up with their son, y'all repay them by ruining all of the towels in their guest bathroom. Yeeeaaaaa.

Anyone who uses Proactiv knows that a WHITE face towel is the only mode to go because that sh*t bleaches everything in its wake. I accept ruined towels at friends' houses, sets my mom bought me for college, fancy towels off my wedding ceremony registry–any towel within arms length of my step 1 is a target. Information technology's because of the benzoyl peroxide contained in the cleansing wash–it just bleaches the heck out of pillow cases, clothes, towels, bathroom mats, you name it.

In all those years of watching Proactiv basically destroy my linens closet, I can't believe I never asked myself: if it does THAT to my face cloths, what the hell is it doing to my confront?

Improve Off Without Cha

Subsequently years of being hooked, what finally got me off Proactiv was becoming pregnant. Though the online message boards will give you unlike answers on this, you absolutely cannot use Proactiv while pregnant or nursing (the Benzoyl Peroxide, for 1, may cause birth defects.) When my OB-GYN confirmed this, I was crushed. How will I wash my face up, if not with Step 1? All other face washes suck. How will I ever feel truly clean without existence able to wash and tone and treat my acne bumps with Footstep 3? I was more than devastated to surrender Proactiv than I was to requite upwardly sushi and martinis (ok, maybe information technology was a iii-fashion tie).

My Derm suggested Neutrogena Ultra Gentle (derms really like Nuetrogena, huh??) and I immediately hated it. It was like washing with soap. Blah. But I had no choice, and for 9 months I used only cleanser twice daily–no toner (the derm told me that toner is redundant and not necessary) and no creams (virtually all the good acne treatments are banned during pregnancy-salicylic acid, rentinoids, etc). On the plus side, I did have a lot more time in the mornings and at night when I would otherwise be busy applying Steps.

Fast frontwards to present day and my skin is completely different than it was during my Proactiv years: the scars and sun impairment remain, just I don't have new batches of zits cropping up daily. I am breastfeeding so I couldn't become back on Proactiv if I wanted to, merely I genuinely don't want to. I now encounter it for what information technology was: a production that felt practiced to use and gave me promise that my peel would improve, just that never delivered on that promise, and in the end became a huge waste of time and coin.

I want to hear about your feel with acne and Proactiv: get out a comment below letting me know whether it worked for you. Was your experience different than mine?

tozernuad1961.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.shefinds.com/i-didnt-realize-how-bad-proactiv-was-for-my-skin-until-i-stopped-using-it/

Share this post