Long time readers know that I have acne-prone skin, and have battled with it throughout my adult life, with spouts of good skin, and spouts of bad skin. As anyone who has had acne can tell you, it’s an ailment that is more than skin deep. It affects your self esteem, your social life, and your wallet.
My most recent bout of acne was probably the worst I’ve seen since my high school days. Around Thanksgiving of last year, my skin broke out very badly. I’m not even exaggerating, every pore on my face was clogged. It was disgusting touching my face, because I couldn’t find a smooth spot on my face. I went to work and came home, praying that this would pass. It got to the point where I avoided meeting up with friends, and didn’t even want to chat with my boyfriend on Skype, because I just didn’t want anyone to see me.
My New Approach
Previously, I would run back to my dermatologist and he’d give me topical lotions or load me up on antibiotics. This time, I wanted to do something different. I didn’t want to go back to my dermatologist and get medicine, and I wanted to have more control over my skin.
I was seeing my dermatologist for about 4 years, and my skin was continuing to get worse and worse last year. All the topical lotions were drying out my skin, and yet, my skin was super oily. My dermatologist kept advising me to stop using moisturizers since my skin was already so oily. And yet, my skin felt so tight – it was very frustrating.
I continued doing more research, reading blogs and especially found Lani’s Island – Holistic Skincare and Well-being and Meghan Telpner to be great resources. I also started seeing an esthetician recommended by a friend, and spent $$$ on facials and peels. With the encouragement from my esthetician and Mochimac, I went on a detox and completely change my diet. I also went to see an acupuncturist/Chinese medicine doctor.
I read even more beauty blogs and came across the beauty buster, Daniel Thompson, and went to see him and bought a bunch of products from him. More on him and his products on a separate post.
After about three months, I can say that my skin is in a much better place than when I first started. I still get a pimple here and there – but it is much more manageable now.
How Much I Spent
It was very painful tallying this all up, but in the midst of trying to heal my acne, please try to imagine my desperation. I made a lot of impulsive purchases based on a sale’s pitch, with the promise that this will finally be the product I’ve been searching for. And I hope that in sharing my experience, I can help even one person and avoid some of the mistakes I’ve made.
I want to do a separate review for the product or brands which I used since, it’s a lot of information to sum up here. But I would like to point out that the items I thought were really worth the money and made the biggest impact for me were:
It’s still a lot of money, but it’s almost half of what I spent in total. As you can see, I spent the most on services, and the rest was on products. I will post a separate review the Pure + Simple spa, and if anyone in the Toronto area is looking for an esthetican specializing in healing of acne, I highly recommend Aga at the King and Bathurst location. She was wonderful and a complete life saver for me.
Please note, I did not include the money I spent on food for my detox and diet overhaul. For a rule of thumb, I spend about $150 a month on groceries and that includes eating a lot of vegetables, organic meats, (almost) gluten free, and includes specialty groceries (i.e., almond milk, buckwheat, quinoa, etc).
Before and After
I debated if I should post up pictures, since I don’t like seeing my skin in this horrible state, and would much rather pretend it never happened. Alas, I think this is part of the process of accepting me for me, and loving myself, acne and all. I couldn’t bear to take photographs when skin was at its worse, but I my “before” picture was taken right after my first facial.
I tried to use the same lighting with flash for my progress photographs for comparison. As you can see in my “before” photograph, my skin is very much inflamed/irritated and very bumpy. In my “after” picture, my there is still some hyper pigmentation, but skin is a lot smoother and there are no more red bumps. All photographs are of my bare skin, so with a bit of mineral foundation and concealer, I feel much more confident in my skin now.
Conclusion
Even though this was a very painful process, it was a huge wake-up call from my body telling me to make some major changes in my life. I’m glad I made those changes, and I am also very thankful that I was in place financially to be able to spend the money that I needed to heal my acne.
Readers, do you suffer from acne, a skin condition, or another health issue? How does it affect you and how much have you spent to heal or address the symptoms?
Sincerely,
{ 41 comments… read them below or add one }
I feel your pain, although my skin isn’t as bad as yours. I teach teenagers, and when I break-out, my skin is worse then theirs – how is that possible?? I was put on medication as a teen to control it, but I’ve been trying every product out there since to try to manage on my own.
Currently, I’ve found a routine using LUSH products that I’m happy with – it’s not perfect, but it’s finally manageable, and not too hard on the wallet. I use 9 to 5 as my daily face wash, dark angels every few days, grease lightning as a toner and/or stop treatment, and then glaxal-base moisturizer which was recommended to me by a dermatologists years and years ago. I once tried using the Shoppers Drug Mart store version of the product, and broke out like crazy.
My sister has dealt with bad acne too, and she traced it back to an allergy to yeast. I’ve wondered if cutting that out of my diet is the solution I’m looking for to be break-out free.
So many of us still have adult acne, and don’t listen to what our bodies are telling us and/or are unwilling to change our lifestyles to be better to our bodies.
I’m sorry you’ve had to go through this ordeal, and this expense, but I’m so happy things are getting better finally. And thanks for being brave enough to post this – I know how embarrassing it is.
Hi Miss Amanda,
Thank you for your kind words
I think I also have some sensitivity to a lot of food that I was eating, as well. Gluten, dairy, sugar, and cutting them out really helped with the acne. I’ve slowly figured out what works for my skin, now (again!), and it’s so relieving.
As you well know, I haven’t suffered the kind of acne you’ve suffered but I have had bumps over the years that I couldn’t seem to heal without another one popping up.
My main thing was diet. I started reading ingredient labels, and two things became clear to me:
1. Processed foods make me break out — anything in a box, made from a box, not made fresh from scratch (or close as possible)
2. Anything with a lot of fat made me break out — a lot of butter, creamy pastas (I broke out after eating with everyone that one time), creamy desserts, CHEESE (some of it is 50% fat), and things like oil added into drinks (almond milk), or eating curries more than one meal in a row (a lot of coconut milk fat which makes me break out).
I could eat fat, but only ONCE every 3 days, and in ONE meal out of the 9.
Even then, I am very careful around food in general, desserts with whipped cream is a no (tiramisu), and lately, I’ve noticed that chocolate makes me break out because they use crap ingredients in there, and use processed fats to make chocolate with palm oil rather than butter.
Agreed. I didn’t realize how big diet was until I realized it (duh!). I think that the your rule for fat applies for me for fats and sugar. Generally, I try to eat healthy for 6 days of the week, and allow myself one “cheat” day where I don’t limit myself.
I think it’s brave of you for posting this.
I’ve been controlling my acne through diet and lifestyle change because I believe that acne is a side effect of a bigger problem (liver problems, allergies, etc.). I’m glad that you took this route. A tip for getting rid of blemishes (or whitening) is to use fresh tumeric on the spot. Just dab the juice on the blemish for the tumeric to “stain” it. It’s a passed down Asian secret. 
I completely agree that acne is my body’s way to waving a flag that I need to make changes in my lifestyle. Thank you for the tumeric tip, I do have some powder tumeric lying around. Where do you find fresh tumeric?
The costs are astounding, but the before and after pics are amazing! I think it’s well worth it.
Thanks, Anna. Yea, it was crazy expensive, but worth it.
Have you thought about accutane? it saved my life!
I was on Accutane when I was in high school and it really worked for me for a long time. Then, I just started to get breakouts again and I’ve been battling with it for the past 5 years.
Having said that, I won’t go back to Accutane, again, because it is really harsh on my body, and I’d rather not ingest those chemicals, again.
There is such great improvement in such a short time! I’m glad you found out the triggers for your acne. I can understand your spending in the quest to clearer skin and I don’t think you should feel bad about it. Dealing with acne can be very painful emotionally.
Agreed. It’s not so much painful physically cuz it doesn’t really “hurt”, it’s much more emotional.
Definitely. When friends at school would comment it really struck to the bone. Like, do you not think I KNOW how bad my skin is? That I’m trying to do something about it, but it’s not as simple as that? That it’s actually painful for me to look in the mirror?
Exactly. This was EXACTLY how I felt!
I’ve done a post on my skin care spending as well – I think I spend around $1,000 a year. What has worked for me are 1. spironolactone (prescription only) and then Tazorac gel (also prescription). I typically get breakouts around that time of the month, but I’ve seen a real improvement with the spiro. I also try to drink a lot of water (not sure if it helps, but can’t hurt!) and I try to get facials and masks once every 6 months.
The extractions really helped clean my pores and the peels helped to get everything under control. I haven’t decided if I should be going back fro “check up” facials since my skin is doing pretty well now.
Now that I’ve tallied up what I spend, $1,000 doesn’t seem so much. I guess it’s all relative!
Girl, I totally know what you mean. I’ve had terrible skin since high school and it’s always been a big sore spot for me. It does do a toll on your confidence and just make you feel like you aren’t pretty but have something to be ashamed of. I feel like I’ve tried almost everything but the current topical stuff I got from my dermatologist seems to be working. I still get the odd pimple which is frustrating but I think I’ve come to place where I’m happy if my skin is clear enough and should expect it to be perfect. I’ve also tried changing my diet and exercising more, and avoiding dairy for some reason has helped me also. Great post!
Diet was a huge one for me, so I’m going to be sticking with it!
I’m so glad that your skin has cleared up as well. Life’s too short to be lamenting over bad skin.
Oh FF. So sorry about this, but glad you’ve found something that worked for you. I used to have terrible acne as a teen (deep painful cysts + icky whiteheads). Age and going on the pill has totally cleared me up now, though. If I still had bad skin you can bet I would spend WHATEVER it took to clear it up. Your skin looks SO much better in the after photo
Thanks, girl. Age and the pill helped, but I went off the pill some time ago, due to other side effects. I remember talking to a girlfriend, that if there was some guarantee that I was not every going to have acne again, I’d gladly spend thousands of dollars on it.
It’s a big difference for sure but I think totally worth it as you’re seeing the results. There are many times I know I’ve paid for many things expecting certain results just for no change. So while you spent $2000, your skin has cleared up well.
Yea, that’s how I rationalize it
I’m in my forties and finally my acne days are coming to an end! Here’s what I’ve done – accutane twice – didn’t work. Series of any and every dermatologist reccommended pill and topical lotion. I did use Proactive and it was a miracle! I don’t need it anymore though. I have found things that exacerbate my acne were soft water. I went to a university in a town that had soft water and it was hell! I will never ever get a water softener installed. I noticed this when I went away on vacation and my acne flared up. Secondly, chocolate. I have read tons of articles that say what you eat, doesn’t show up on your face. I’m here to tell you it does! Any time I eat an overabundance of chocolate I break out. It may be something different for you. Eat clean and healthy and keep trying to find the products that work for you and really take notice when your skin break out! Just figuring out that soft water thing was a mini miracle. I remember not wanting to take swim classes in phys ed because I wouldn’t have cover up, not wanting to go on overnight camping trips and many ways acne affected my life in a negative way.
I completely agree with you about how food affects my skin. I don’t care what anyone says, I see it when I eat dairy, fats, sugar and alcohol. And too much gluten. Since I live in the city, I haven’t noticed anything about the water, but I do know that salt water does wonders for my skin.
I remember breaking out really badly and I had to go on a camping trip with work people. I was embarrassed that I had to wear makeup. I mean, I’m not a high maintenance kinda gal, but I just couldn’t bare to go bare-skinned
I have other skin issues, along with the occasional REALLY annoying and painful acne breakouts. I’m not sure there’s a cure for the other skin problems but I’ve been able to pretend it’s not a problem because I can cover it up with clothing. My skin would probably benefit from some of the changes you’ve described, thanks for going into so much detail and putting this out there at all!
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Thanks, Revanche. I’ve often wished that my acne would be on my back or something so that it’s less visible, but I know it will still be painful and I will still be self conscious no matter what. I hope that you are able to find a way to treat your other skin problems.
I’m with everyone else – considering the results, it’s worth it. I have adult acne too and emotionally, it’s so much worse than when I was a teenager, because everyone told me I would just “grow out of it”. Well, I haven’t yet and I’m 26! I feel like when I have a giant zit on my face people don’t think I’m a real grown-up, and I get embarrassed and super self conscious. I tried Proactiv and I was on Accutane when I was 14 with some effect, but everything just came back eventually.
I’m considering going for a facial to get extractions done, since I have a ton of blackheads on my nose and chin. How do the extractions work? I’ve actually never had them done and I’m kind of afraid – do you break out afterward?
Thanks for sharing, it’s made me feel like I’m not alone in the battle against adult acne!
I’m 28, turning 29 this year (yikes!), and I still struggle…
Make sure you take precautions if you do get extractions done. The process includes washing your face, then steaming it (this softens your skin and makes it easier to extract the blackheads), then the esthetician extracts the blackheads. It’s quite painful, especially if your skin is dehydrated (which mine was) and your blackheads are really tightly lodged in your pores.
I find that I may break out for a bit a few days after, and then it’s better. You need to make sure the esthetician is experienced (I’d ask for a recommendation via word of mouth), and the facility and the instruments they use is sanitized. If not, it could make your skin a lot worse.
Good luck and you are not alone!
I spent A LOT on high-end products and facials/ microdermabrasion peels in my 20s when my skin was really bad. I had gone to dermatologists for years during teens /early 20s but nothing kept the acne from coming back or would excessively dry out my skin. It really affected my social life (and even work life). For me, regular peels and glycolic acid-based products really helped. Also, pro-activ oil control. I’m fortunate that I’ve finally found cheaper drugstore products that have kept my skin acne-free and smoother. Olay makes some amazing products! and I had good experience with different drugstore brands that contain either salicylic acid or glycolic acid. Anyway, just wanted to say that anyone who has experienced truly bad skin totally get the spending!
The peels really helped me to heal my acne. I’m thinking of returning for another peel in a few months, to help with fading some of the hyper-pigmentation in my skin.
Thanks for understanding, and which drugstore products do you use? I’ve tried the Olay moisturizer and remember liking it. It might have been a bit too oily in the summers though and I stopped.
Oh yes, I second KB – Pro-Active was the first product that really helped. And although now I don’t need to use it regularly, it seemed to help prevent the worse breakouts during ‘that time of month’.
As a confirmed cheapskate, I don’t think that spending is at all unreasonable. It’s too bad you can’t get it covered by health insurance: acne is a health problem. Just letting it go could end up costing even more, every which way from Sunday.
I was extremely lucky not to have any serious acne issues as a young thang. But one of my friends did, and I know how much she suffered not only from the pain and discomfort of the inflammations themselves, but emotionally over her skin’s appearance. IMHO, treating this condition is worth any amount of money.
It seems that only prescription medicines are the only ones that are covered by insurance, and those were the products I used for a long time, until they ended up making my skin worse (dry and oily). I really wish that something like this can be covered – it’s so expensive.
I am in early 30s. I have had acne as bad as yours throughout my teens and twenties. I went three courses of accutane to no avail and various over the counter products including Pro Activ…I was desperate and willing to try anything that might work. It affected my self image, self esteem, self confidence… the whole nine yard! I had it and I went back on the pill. I had been on and off the pill for a long time. I didn’t want to be dependent on the pill so I would come off thinking/hoping that I had grew out out of it. But unfortunately not the case after several trys. Now I just stick with the pill and don’t dare to come off of it. My skin is totally fine when I am on the pill. I eat fairly healthy in general. I don’t restrict myself to any food. I eat very little refined sugar, dairy, bread, greasy food, chocolate, etc but if my body is craving for it I have some. After reading your post, it has inspired me to look at my diet more closely, thank you. Best of luck!
A Dash of This and That, I was also on the pill for several years, and I also had clear skin when I was on it for about 7 years. I did notice that when I got off the pill, my skin worsened, and when I was on it, it was better, but I didn’t want to be dependent on it.
I’ve noticed that all those foods you mentioned really aggravate my skin, and I try to stay away from them on a day-to-day basis, but have them as treats. Best of luck!
My wife once used Acutane (not sure about spelling), and she found it really worked. However it is a VERY strong chemical, and you have to absolutely make sure you will NOT get pregnant during or shortly after treatment. You need a medical doctor to prescribe it, but cost-wise, it is covered by many extended health plans.
There are also some good hyperpigmentation treatments described here . Just be careful not to use any product or ingredient that could damage or dry out your skin.
Peter Thomas Roth 10% Glycolic Moisturizer: Well it doesn’t have to be Peter Thomas Roth’s glycolic moisturizer. I’ve used Neostrata (from Shoppers) and I’ve had good results with that as well. As long as glycolic acid is present, the moisturizer is going to work hard over night to shed any unwanted dead skin cells to reveal the pretty healthy smooth skin underneath. If you have never used glycolic or salicylic acid before, I suggest you try Neostrata’s Smoothing Cream in level 1. It only contains 6% glycolic which means it’s going to be gentle and by the time you’re finished with the jar, your skin is going to be used to gentle chemical exfoliating and will be able to tolerate a higher concentration. This most definitely is a super performing ingredient and is my best friend in dealing with hyperpigmentation caused by acne!
SheaMoisture sells a black soap bar. It is actually black. It’s got other ingredients in it other than black soap, like aloe vera. I use both raw black soap and SheaMoisture. Neither break me out. They are not a cure for acne, but they are a chemical-free alternative to your cleaners that strip the skin. I also love to slather on shea butter at night and let it soak into my skin. Get 100 percent unrefined shea butter. It has never broken me out, and my skin is very sensitive. It really helps moisturize the skin.
I’ve been looking for an dermatologist that specializes in African American skin because I’ve tried regular dermatologist and the products they give me don’t work that well. In addition, I get the feeling they aren’t used to treating black skin by the puzzled looks I get and because their brochures have at most maybe one example of black skin. I’ve had acne and really bad hyper-pigmentation for about 7 years. I’ve tried generic Acutane, products with salicylic acid, benzyl peroxide,sulfur(which kind of helped), proactive(didn’t work at all), basically everything. I’m currently using black soap(only have been using it for 4 days it seems to work ok), and ambi fade creme for oily skin with hydroquonine 2%. I’m tired of experimenting, I can’t find a dermatologist who specializes in black skin care in AZ, and I just want a product that works well and is safe for long term use without thinning my skin or making me look old in the future. Does anyone know if this blackskin.com product works like it says. I’ve tried Murad and my skin still had spots I’m skeptical to believe any of these commercials anymore. Someone who knows what they are talking about please help. Also I don’t want to hear black skin is similar to Caucasian skin cause its not. If that was true then I would have had success a long time ago.
If you struggle with acne, you know how important (and challenging!) finding the right concealer can be. My current favorite is Physician’s Formula Conceal RX. It hides my hyperpigmentation completely, and it’s ridiculously inexpensive for how good it is. However, the color selection isn’t great and I find its finish isn’t quite matte, which leaves my skin looking cakey after a few hours. Estée Lauder’s Double Wear Concealer is more than double the price, but it does eliminate those two problems.
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