I've been using this for 3 days and I have already seen a difference in my skin. I have tried EVERYTHING known to man to heal my cystic acne. I am on Retinol for prevention and reduction of cysts and take a series of supplements (Fish oil, Folic acid, vit a, vit e, acidophilus, & zinc) along with this product as my face wash. I've noticed in the past with other washes, I was stripping my skin of all its natural oils which caused cystic acne. After using this for just three days I have no new break outs and healing of past breakouts. With other products I would have a purging period and my skin hated me! This has no purging period. It is so gentle and feels incredible. My face doesn't feel tight and like rubber anymore. I actually can feel my blood circulating again! I was scared to use something that didn't use suds like regular soap and water, but since I have tried everything else known to man, i figured why not just try this too. This is probably not going to work for people who have really oily skin. In my case, since I washed my face so vigorously in the past with so many different products, I dried my skin out. People kept telling me acne is caused by oil. And yes, for most people it is caused by oil. But there is a difference between oil that comes in contact with bacteria and oil that your skin naturally produces. BACTERIA causes breakouts, NOT OIL! I think the combination of Retinol at night and a good sunscreen during the day after washing my face with Albolene, is the way for me. I got the smaller tube from Walgreen's and i think it was about $6. THANK GOD!

In the past, I've really dried out my skin with harsh cleansers containing SLS and then slathering on moisturizer to make up for the loss of water and oil in and on my skin. I think a lot of my pimples were caused by the harsh treatment of my skin. I had been researching moisturizing cleansers (once I found out that my cleanser was the culprit for my skin being dry underneath but oily on the surface) and I tried CeraVe hydrating cleanser for a while. It worked okay, but I just felt like it wasn't cleaning my skin as well as I wanted it to. I had always been afraid to try oil based cleansers, since I thought for sure it would cause me more acne. But I finally made the plunge and bought Albolene, a mineral oil-based, tissue-off cleanser.

Albolene only contains 5 ingredients, the top two being mineral oil and petroleum. That sounds like a no-no for those with pimples like me, but I discovered that neither of these two things are comedogenic, nor are the other 3 ingredients. What I did find was that these two ingredients are fabulous for cleansing the skin of bad oils, dirt, makeup, dead skin cells, etc., while also keeping the skin's natural barrier intact.

The directions tell you to apply a layer of product, massage onto the skin, then wipe off with a tissue. No water necessary. I liked this idea, since even using just water seemed to dry out my skin. I found that other people who use this product wipe off with a warm wet washcloth instead of a dry tissue. Washcloths are a bit too harsh for my skin, so instead, I wet a baby wipe, wring it out, then wipe off the product gently. I can tell its working because I can see dirt and yellowish oil (sebum) come off on the wipe! Since oil dissolves oil, I think it's cleaning deep in my pores and perhaps dissolving hardened sebum from my clogged pores!

To clean up a little excess shine from the product, I've been following up with my CeraVe cleanser, then patting dry with a towel. So far so good!