Skin News

Heard about the mineral makeup craze? By now, probably.

How it doesn’t block pores, how its great for acne prone, oily and sensitive skin etc. But before you go out and grab your minerals, here’s one thing to look out for before you fall for pretty packaging. Hey, if you’re looking, you might as well go for the good stuff. continue

accutane is banned

Remember our warning on Accutane? This latest worldwide move practically bans accutane.

If you’re looking for effective acne treatment, the good news is there are plenty to go with.

accutane is not a good acne treatment

We’re frequently informing our clients during our Skin Type program consultations, using Accutane as an acne treatment is a really bad idea.

Here’s why.

It doesn’t actually stop acne. Rather,  it reduces your skin’s oil glands and hence the amount of oil your skin produces. The acne causing P. bacteria needs this oil to survive so the logic is that less oil, the less likely P. bacteria is to thrive.

So what’s the problem?

Accutane works on hormones and they get told to stop producing oil by means of suppression. This “suppressive” nature has been shown to cause bouts of depression in teenagers and birth defects and deficiencies and fertility complications.

Accutane was invented in ‘79. Last century.

It just isn’t clever enough to choose how the hormones are suppressed hence the complications.

There are now easier and safer ways to treat acne, and we eliminate the guesswork by getting on the Skin Type program, it shows us what your unique Skin Type is and it shows you, what products and treatments you can do, very often without spending more than you would need to.

birth control and acne

Yes you must have heard or read about this one; contraceptive pills can help acne.

It’s true but before you start buying some, you need to know which ones to look for.

Most birth control pills contain both estrogen and progestin (synthetic progesterone).

Progestins can act either as androgens (that is, they can act like male hormones) or as anti-androgens (which means that they block male hormones); androgens trigger oil glands to produce sebum, thus worsening acne. That’s why birth control pills work for acne management, due to their anti-androgenic makeup.

SO if you’re looking for pills that could help with acne as well, you can look at the labels for brands that contain progestins with less androgenic activity such as norgestimate, norethindrone, desogestrel, ethynodiol, or levonorgestrel.

Ortho Tri-Cyclen, Estrostep, and Yaz are all approved pills you can consider. Another option, Yasmin, is similar to Yaz (they both contain drospirenone, another anti-androgen) but not specifically approved for the treatment of acne.

Not everyone may necessarily like the idea of using birth control pills to control oil production and improve acne, while I think it’s perfectly fine, I also like to think that there are other more elegant methods to treat such as retinol, alpha hydroxy acids, and salicylic acid, for example, are also important treatment tools.

Besides,  where birth control pills are concerned, they typically take three to six months to really start working and not many people with more serious acne would like to wait for such an extended period – another reason that you’ll want to use other approaches simultaneously.

Special: 50% off acne treatments for the first 10 readers of this post.