Hello Lovelies!
Today I have decided to tackle the awkward topic of pimples. Now I know a lot of teens (adults too!) suffer from really bad/moderately bad/moderate acne and try to get rid of it but it doesn't seem to fully disappear, even though you wash your face twice a day and use moisturiser so your face doesn't dry up. Okay so basically I am going to talk to you about my skin and the problems I have had and am having in regards to the acne situation.
Before we get too far into this post I wanted to point out that this is a review on the Proactiv system and how it has worked for me, but I am also going to be talking about products that are a little/a lot cheaper than Proactiv that also do a similar job. However I will not be mentioning any of the products that have not worked for me as this post is about all of the positives that have come out of the different products I have tried.
I am going to start off by saying that I am an extremely oily faced person! Like you know those little paper oil absorbing sheet you can get from the chemist? Yeah, those don't work for me. My face is just too oily for them. Though I will add that I don't have terrible acne, I do however have quite a few deep seeded black heads on my nose that just don't seem to want to come out.
Okay! So over the past year I have tried a few different acne related face cleansers, some have been really good and others not so good, and then there have been some that have worked amazingly for the first three weeks and then my face has gotten used to the chemicals in the product and it stopped being so effective against fighting the dreaded white head.
Biore:
I have been using the Biore Pore Unclogging Scrub for a few years simply because it was cheap and it worked at making my face feel smooth and soft. The consistency of this scrub is creamy with (yes this sounds funny) blue balls.
This is basically a simple wash, there is nothing special about it but it does a fairly okay job for me. I would recommend this product for people who don't want to spend heaps on a facial cleanser but still want to have nice feeling skin.
RATE: 4/5-10
PRICE: $10-$15
COMMENT: This is a good product for oily skin as it helps control the oils but a shine will occur quite quickly on a Summer day but also during Winter.
Proactiv:
When you first get this (at the counter) the assistant tells you to use it for two weeks and then come back in two weeks for a 'checkup' so they can check your skin and see whether its working, causing redness or drying out your skin too much. I won't lie and say I went back because I didn't, and that was just because I didn't see the point in going back to someone that wouldn't remember my face.
So, I bought the Proactiv Deluxe Pack which is made up of the Step 1 - Cleanse, Step 2 - Tone, Step 3 - Repair, Oil Free Moisturiser SPF 15 and the Deep Cleansing Wash. Obviously step 1-3 are pretty straight forward but I just want to point out that these steps are for the night time wash, the morning wash starts off with Deep Cleansing Wash followed by step 2. I just want to point out that step 3 is only a night time cream because it is so potent and strong that if too much is applied to the face parts of the face will dry out and become flakey.
Okay so I had been applying Proactiv for a few days, and the first thing I noticed was that the redness in my face had calmed down dramatically and most of my white heads had totally dried out to the point where I could just scratch the head off and the core would just pop out. My only problem was still my blackheads, but I just put that down to only using Proactiv for about a week.
Jumping to today I have to say that I have been known to not clean my face for a few days or only clean it once a day, but I just want to point out that when using the Proactiv system you can get away with only washing your face once a day as long as you really scrub and take your time. But the end results for me have been that my face is totally clear of white heads, I haven't had a single white dot since about a week and a half into using Proactiv! But I still have my annoying blackheads, they just don't want to move.
RATE: 6/7-10
PRICE: $49.99 (online price) to around and above $100 in store
COMMENT: I do like Proactiv and I will most probably repurchase it when I run out, but I do think it is a little too expensive for most teenagers to just start using because they are unhappy with their skin. It really is something you need to plan for and budget for, even if you just put a few dollars away each week.
