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Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Proactiv—Solution? Part III: Good & not so good

When I started on Proactiv, my skin looked great. It dried everything out. Then I guess as my body adjusted to the new program, I was mega-oily all the time and developed little red bumps. It seemed while I was on the Proactiv products, I had many red bumps all the time. I finally went off Proactiv, and it took my skin about three weeks to get back to normal.

My skin is doing better although I have really been working on eating better. When I choose to be bad and have a treat, there are usually consequences, but they are under my control—I choose when.

That email was written by my client, Tori. She started using Proactiv four months ago. Within a few weeks, she said it was like a miracle. Most of the old spots had cleared up, and there weren’t many new blemishes coming up; her skin truly had cleared up.

After two months on the program she started noticing an overall oiliness to her skin that hadn’t been there before. Her forehead was especially oily and in fact little whiteheads were starting to form there. I told her it was probably the benzoyl peroxide—that it both helped to temporarily clear her skin and was also creating an oil slick on her face. She was essentially drying out her skin, and in rebuttal, her oil glands were pumping more oil than necessary to compensate for the dryness on the surface.

I think Tori’s story exemplifies the need to monitor your skin when you are using new products. This is especially true if they are products meant to clear problem skin. If your skin is clearing up, great, but is it also showing signs of dryness? Remember, over time the dryness can have detrimental effects negating anything positive you may have achieved.

Here are comments from another client:

I thought Proactiv was pretty good when I first used it. Thankfully I never had full-blown acne. It did make my skin look very ragged out, not subtle and balanced-looking. It seemed to enlarge my pores as well.

Two of my friends use it and seem to like it. Using the abrasive cleanser every day cannot be good for skin. Proactiv did not make my skin dry, just flat and not very good-looking.

The flat look is probably due to moisture loss in the surface skin cells. They lose their plumpness and aren’t able to reflect light, which does make the skin look dull or flat.

This client, like so many people trying to clear up their problem skin, has run into the main problem with using benzoyl peroxide. It dries out the skin and creates its own set of problems. It is great that her friends use Proactiv and like it, but for her skin this product just doesn’t deliver the results she is looking for.

There are so many product lines available to choose from. Not all products will fit the needs of all people. Proactiv may be what you have been looking for, but be careful and watch the hydration level of your skin. Don’t trade one problem for another; trading in blemishes for dehydration. I believe that you can have all good results with none of the bad if you follow my recommendations for healthy skin. Mine is not the quick-fix remedy, but perhaps the long-term solution—the real proactive solution.

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