Acne and cleansing

Read this on Caroline Hirons' blog that is quite interesting :

As a rule - stay clear of 'foaming' on the bottle (there is the odd exception, but they are few and far between) - to get foam you need to use a surfactant - and a surfactant turns your skin alkaline. Alkaline skin is like a petri dish for bacteria. The irony being that so many cleansers pushed on to acne/combination skins are foaming. Naughty, nasty companies should know better.

When I had acne, the dermatologist said soap and water. A moisturiser was a no no. In fact nothing except soap and water. I needed strong drugs in my 30s to sort out my acne, nothing else worked. I now have a nice skin and saved myself a fortune as could not wear makeup nor use any skincare products despite what those scummy sales assistants in the department stores told me is you have a combination skin and you need x,y and z. Now I indulge a little as I know hope that anti ageing works but really that is another lot of cr*p.

I have to agree a lot of the products on the markett designed for Acne/ spotty skin types make the problem worse , I learnt the hard way but thankfully sorted my skin out by keeping it simple.

I think the Emma Hardie foaming cleanser is liquid in the bottle and then when you press the pump down- air is added to make it foam.

I was always told the harsher the cleanser the more it strips the skin of it's natural oils. This causes the skin to over-compensate by producing more oil which attracts bacteria. So the gentler the better if you want to encourage the skin to balance itself.

If the cause of acne is hormonal it needs to be balanced with hormone medication, not antibiotics or cosmetics. Acne on the chest or back is often hormonal, and being put on a certain type of high oestrogen contraceptive cleared mine up in 2 weeks (antibiotics failed). I only needed to take them for 18 months and I never had the problem again.

me and my teen skin daughter use l'occitane facial soap and its fab. then a touch of alpha h rejuvinating cream. i dont love cream cleansers but will use it for make-up removal. the less i use the better my skin

Acne is a curse! My DD was on The Pill from age 13 for her skin and was under the hospital - two courses of Roaccutane and her skin looks much better these days but she has to be so careful, the slightest thing can still bring forth the dreaded spots and she's in her 30s now..unfortunately she has scarring tho.

I have extremely sensitive skin that reacts to everything and the less I do to it the better too. My DD had reactive skin too but since going vegan she only gets the time of the month isolated spot on her chin.