Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsIt works, start slow to adjust to exfoliation
Reviewed in the United States on November 26, 2018
Discovered this product when pregnant. Incorporating it into a truly consistent cleansing schedule/routine truly helped with my always acne-prone skin. After pregnancy I continued using it at night on my T zone, which is more prone to breakouts, prior to a gentle non-active cleanser (on entire face). It helps with blackheads on my nose, and practically eliminates my need for benzoyl peroxide.
As time passes obviously I age and perhaps my skin changes. However, historically, I have a greasy T-zone, and am prone to breakouts (whiteheads and cystic acne) especially where my hair or hands touch my face a lot (in and out of the T zone). Through experimentation, I know that if I touch my face a lot, don’t wash my face within 18ish hours of prior washing, and don’t manage two washings a day generally, I will experience some cystic acne about 2 weeks later. Very consistent. Benzoyl peroxide has historically been my preferred acne treatment product, until pregnancy. Salicylic acid never worked quite as well for me in terms of reducing redness/inflammation or healing zits or preventing acne, but helped.
Even with a consistent routine, I need some help from a product for added exfoliation. And I particularly rely on products like benzoyl peroxide if I have strayed from routine. The lactic acid in this face wash offers a boost of exfoliation that my cleanser doesn’t provide (which the more sensitive and dry skin on my face does not need or tolerate generally).
The literature on skin and acne (the same that say acne takes two weeks to form) indicate that physical exfoliants (towels, scrubs) just scratch up the facial skin and allow bacteria into the skin, leading to acne. For years I wasn’t sure how I felt about this, or the thing about taking two weeks for acne to form, or the other thing about moisturizer helping to even out oil production! For twenty years it seemed like literally anything I did or used could make acne worse within a couple days (and my skin was flaky and irritated). The two week time period, if true, made it very difficult to really tell if there was a cause and effect for any product or action, since acne was popping up all the time. Eventually I got desperate and rather than chase antibiotic creams, I stripped the routine down to one cleansing product for over two weeks to get a baseline, tracking my product use and skin/acne status in a calendar, and introducing one new product (lotion, acne treatment, new cleanser) only after at least two weeks had passed. This is how I confirmed the routine/scheduled I need, and that some moisturizers are terrible for me while others are great. This made it much easier, since, to see when something like a product or schedule change impacts my skin (yes, two weeks later). In fact, scrubs don’t help sensitive skin.
All of this to say, this product is definitively part of my life forever more while I continue to get adult acne, and certainly when I am pregnant.