The acne struggle is real! And how do I know? Because I deal with it firsthand.
Acne has always been my skin issue. At 37, I don’t really have lines and wrinkles (thanks to Botox and fillers), there’s barely any evidence of sun damage on my skin and dryness isn’t even a concern—it’s the opposite for me, too much oil.
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As a beauty guinea pig, I’m constantly trying and testing out new products and treatments, and one such experiment didn’t agree with my skin. A few days after trying out a treatment for the first time, my skin freaked out like a 9th grader in need of a serious dose of Accutane. And of course, I freaked out, too.
Not only were my chin and jawline covered in painful, cystic acne lesions (they showed up on other hard-to-cover-up parts of my face in the coming weeks, too), but my skin was red, too. Makeup wasn’t really doing the trick and the breakouts weren’t subsiding, so I knew it was time for serious intervention.
I frantically arrived at my dermatologist’s office and explained to him what happened. After I got the “you shouldn’t have ever done that to your skin” lecture, he put me on a course of oral and topical antibiotics (I stuck with the topical for awhile merely because the bottle wasn’t empty). And even though it helped with some of the major doozies, the redness was still there and the breakouts kept on coming. So, I decided to do a little investigating and see what else was out there that could help. My skin hadn’t been this bad in years, so in my mind it couldn’t get any worse.
A little Googling and perusing Instagram and I ended up with more search results for Rodan + Fields Unblemish ($171) than I could possibly imagine. The before-and-afters were mindblowing—full-blown cases of acne were magically cured in just a few months with no sign of pigmentation. I just had to give it a try and I’m glad I did.
Photo courtesy of Rodan + Fields
I followed the instructions explicitly, easing my skin into the regimen (you start off using the products every other morning for one week, then every morning for the second week, then every morning and every other night for the third week, and both morning and night by the end of the month—after the first two weeks I added in some retinol, too). By week three, I started to see a calmness in my skin that hadn’t been there before. It was like one day I woke up and my complexion was smooth and virtually bump-free (minus a few tiny pimples). And, the redness and pigmentation were diminishing, too.
The big sister to the infamous Proactiv line, Unblemish makes use of sulfur and benzoyl peroxide to clear your skin. But, it does it in a way that actually heals it without making it dry or red—genius!
Now that I found something that actually works for my acne-prone skin, I’m sticking with it. For the first time in probably a decade, I’m happy with my skin and may actually venture out one day soon makeup-free.
