Good acne spot treatments?

Sep 7, 2016

Kelsi H.

I have really painful, red, blemishes and nothing seems to help them. Do you know any good spot treatments?

Sep 7, 2016

Dana E.

Following

Sep 7, 2016

Dana E.

How fast do you see results Patty? Does it shrink a pimple overnight like it says it's supposed to? Also where can you get the drugstore version?

Sep 7, 2016

Angela J.

Mario Badescu drying lotion for regular pimples, but for deep painful cystic acne (the kind that takes forever to go away and feels like there's a lump beneath the skin) Mario Badescu buffering lotion is the answer. Either one you put on at night and the swelling size and redness will be pretty dramatically reduced by morning.

Sep 7, 2016

Angela J.

It absolutely shrinks it overnight. With the drying lotion for me the zit will be gone after 2 nights usually. The buffering lotion is working on much more difficult deep pimples so that one does take a few more nights to get rid of it completely. It says to use every other night for the buffering lotion but I do it every night making sure to just get it on the spot and not the surrounding skin bc with both products they will severely dry your skin out. Another tip...do not shake the drying lotion! It looks like you should but be sure to read the bottle! You can buy both at Ulta for around $16 I think and they will last you literally a year in my experience at least, so to me it's more than worth it.

Sep 7, 2016

patty s.

The acne free $8 at Ulta but I order it online because it's not available in my store. Mario Badescu $18 also at Ulta available at my store
Also in my case they last 2 nights. there's a spot treatment from neutragena but I haven't use it.

Sep 7, 2016

Leuca S.

Your skincare regimen should be more preventative, so I hesitate to simply recommend a spot treatment, but a 10% benzoyl peroxide treatment should effectively kill the bacteria causing an active blemish. Most of the ones you can find at the drugstore at that % are fine formula-wise.

However, to reiterate on my first point, you should have a regimen that is actively preventing acne while also treating your skin well so that spot treatments are not as necessary. What does your skincare routine currently look like?

Sep 7, 2016

Dana E.

Sorry, even though this isn't my thread Leuca I do have some questions, lol.

I find no matter what I do I can not entirely avoid my hormonal cysts. (Which is why I think they're hormonal).

Lately what I'm using, which works for basically everything except cysts is
-clarisonic with Clinique liquid face soap
-the Clinique toner (step 2)
-dramatically different Clinique moisturizer

And on cysts I use tea tree oil.

What else should I be doing to prevent cysts?

Sep 8, 2016

Leuca S.

There are a lot of things I would recommend over the Clinique 3 step system in terms of formula, but I'm going to assume that for the most part it is keeping your skin clear.

With that in mind, do you find your hormonal cysts are consistent with your cycle, and do they tend to appear in the same location each month?

Sep 8, 2016

Dana E.

Yes, they are either on my chin a majority of the time, or they are in the area where if you smiled, where dimples would appear.

Sep 8, 2016

Sophia G.

The Burts Bees herbal drying stick has helped me a lot and I have heard that it has help a lot of other people.

Sep 8, 2016

Leuca S.

I would recommend grabbing a good salicylic acid product (Paula's Choice makes my favorite), a good benzoyl peroxide, and make sure you are using sunscreen everyday. Daily use of those products should help speed up recovery from spots. I recommend branching out into a more advanced routine once you have a basic set of products that give you consistent results.

If your hormonal acne seems to respond to tea tree oil, that's a good sign that it will do well if you improve your skincare routine. The worst kinds of cystic acne are really hard to do anything about with topical treatments, because they start deep within the pore where most topical treatments (short of prescription retinoids) cannot have any measurable effect.

Sep 8, 2016

Dana E.

Thank you so much! I'll check out Paula's choice :)