Salicylic Acid+ with the regimen

I just wanted to give some public love to Dan's Salicylic Acid+ and using it with the regimen (for experienced users only of course). I haven't heard too much discussion about it but I think that many regimen users could benefit from it. I use it as my moisturizer at night (while doing the regimen twice a day) and have been since it came out last November.

After I cleared up my inflamed acne with the regimen, I gradually developed some tiny, non-inflamed skin-colored bumps on my chin, jawline, and temples. I never had these before. My theory is that these were clogged follicles that didn't become inflamed because I used the Acne.org regimen, but they didn't get unclogged very quickly (as in staying around my skin for months) because I wasn't using anything that would go deep into my skin and break up the buildup. For me, BP was great at killing acne bacteria (so no red pimples), and AHA was good at making my skin look fresher, but neither was doing much for these clogged bumps.

The SA+ has been amazing at busting up these non-inflamed clogged bumps. I went from having maybe a dozen or more of these very small but stubborn cloggies to just a couple in a matter of weeks, and that's how my skin has remained since incorporating it in to my routine. If you've been on the regimen for a while but still have some minor non-inflamed acne like blackheads or these cloggies, I definitely recommend trying out the SA+ as a moisturizer. It's obviously not nearly as good as BP is at managing acne (which is why I would never ever stop using BP and depend on the SA+ alone), but the combo of them has gotten me as clear as I've been since I was 10 years old. You can also alternate the SA+ and AHA+ as night moisturizers if you want the benefits of both without overirritating your skin.

Any other BP and SA+ fans out there?

attn BP tube fans: they're back!!!

Those of you who don't follow the Acne.org blog might not have heard about this, but Dan has switched the 8 oz. BP from bottles to tubes for orders placed now. The tubes are demoed in this video. The 16 oz. size will apparently remain in bottles, though, so bottle fans can stick with those. No price increases on either product.

I loved the old 4 oz. tubes for the BP (easier to travel with, easier to get every last bit of BP out of) and am very pleased to see tubes make a return!

8 oz. BP tubes

16 oz. BP bottles

tips for locking and packing the pump bottles!

I think I've finally got the hang of traveling with these pump bottles down!

Okay, so let's just say you're flying off in the afternoon and finishing packing in the morning, as I am. Well, before you do the morning regimen, take the pumps out of the bottle. Let's say we're talking about a cleanser bottle, though it's the same for the BP and moisturizer. Carefully scrape the cleanser off the pump stick back into the bottle. Tapping the bottle lightly on a counter top will help everything to slide easily back down to the bottom. Then, once you have most of the cleanser off the pump wand and back into the bottle, pump the remaining cleanser in the wand into your hand and wash with that.

Now, you don't have much cleanser left on the wand, so you haven't wasted much at all. Just wash the rest of it off in the sink. Doesn't need to be super clean, but clean enough. Then, take a white towel (if you do this with a colored towel and BP, it will be bleached). In your left hand, use part of the towel to hold on to the base of the pump (not the tube, but the bottom of the pump part where it screws on to the bottle). In your right hand, use another part of the towel to simultaneously push the top of the pump down and twist to the right. It might take you a few tries, but it should lock down. The towel makes this much easier, and while you can do it without a towel, it's really frustrating.

Ta da! Now you can screw the pump back on to the bottle. To get it back up, just futz with it a little. It should pop back up without too much trouble.

Be sure to keep all your bottles in plastic bags when traveling. I like using big freezer bags for the 16 oz. bottles. They'll probably stay locked down, but there's a chance they might come dislodged, especially if your suitcase gets inspected carelessly.

I might post pictures or videos of how to do this later, if I have time.

Anyone else have tips they want to share for managing the bottles while traveling?

product updates

Check it out!

http://www.acne.org/blog/2008/02/18/produc...ate-as-promised

Sounds like it will be about 3-4 months before we see any of these new products up for sale on danielkern.com, for those of you too lazy to read the post

problems with dryness or flaking?

Hey everyone,

I've done what I'm about to describe a few times to take care of my skin if it starts acting up and getting flaky, and I thought I ought to share it. It might be similar to something you're already doing if you use jojoba oil before applying BP. I think of it almost like a combination of a mask and a scrub, but very different in a lot of ways, and simpler than most homemade concoctions.

You would want to do this BEFORE cleansing your face or taking a shower, either morning or night is fine. You pour a good amount of jojoba oil into your palm, probably 10-12 drops worth or so, but basically just a large amount so that you can rub it all over your face. You start dabbing the jojoba oil all over your face, and once you have it all on there, you start massaging it in with your finger tips. At first, just lightly spread it around, but then build up pressure a little. Be very careful around active acne if you have it, but definitely rub in the jojoba oil. Don't be aggressive, but you don't want to be quite as gentle as you are when you apply BP, for example. You should feel some grittiness to your skin as you massage the jojoba oil in, which is a combination of the skin that was flaking off and maybe some residual BP/moisturizer, since after all, you haven't washed your face yet. The massage helps to loosen a whole bunch of flakes and is also good for your circulation as a bonus. I give my face a massage for several minutes straight, just rubbing it in and picking up more and more grittiness. You might put a couple more drops of oil on very dry patches partway through to help loosen those flakes even more. When you feel like you've loosened all that you can and that new gritty stuff isn't coming up (or if you get the the point where you think your face will start to get raw if you go for much longer, which means you should have used more jojoba oil, I suspect), then stop. Just leave the jojoba oil on your face for about another 10 minutes so that your face is really nice and moisturized, like leaving on a moisturizing mask. Then, just wash it off! You might want to wash your face off in the shower since the heat will make removing the jojoba oil easier if your cleanser is really mild, but it shouldn't be too hard to clean up. You mostly just want to get rid of the grittiness and leftover crud you had on your face, nothing wrong with leaving some jojoba oil behind. Then do your regimen as normal following cleansing, perhaps even using more jojoba oil before BP if that's what you like to do.

You might wonder if this is excessively irritating. I think it's a good deal less irritating than using a brush of some sort to physically remove flakes, and since a lot of people seem to be able to handle that as it is, this should be tolerable for even more people. I also think it's less irritating than a scrub because you're loosening the flakes with a moisturizing oil (technically jojoba oil is a liquid wax but whatever ), rather than ripping them off with some abrasive bits. Plus, as a bonus, you have this moisturizing, protective barrier on your face for a little bit while you're massaging the jojoba oil in and leaving it on for the 10 minutes, so it's like a therapeutic moisturizing mask. If you know that jojoba oil makes you break out, obviously, this is not the flake treatment for you, and if you have such sensitive skin that massaging your face for a few minutes would leave you feeling irritated, then this is also not for you. For everyone else, though, I think this is a nice way to deal with flakes as they come up, either as regular treatment several times a week or just something to do once in a while when they get bad.

Hope this helps! If you try this and like it or hate it, definitely leave feedback so that others may benefit; after all, I'm the only person with my exact skin, so I don't know how other people will handle it. I wouldn't expect perfect results at first if your face is very dry and has too many flakes to deal with, but if you try this every other day or so, I think you'd see an improvement in your skin's texture and dryness pretty quickly.