6 replies to this topic

[hmkharp]

For some reason I tried to post this last night and I guess it didn't work. Here's my re-do.

I've been using Tretinoin .025% for 6 months now, as a post-Accutane treatment. So basically I've been dry as hell since I first started Accutane July 2010, almost a year and a half ago. Obviously, I'm sick of it. I read somewhere that if you're on Tretinoin long enough the dryness goes away completely. IT HASN'T. The dryness I can handle, though, it's the incessant peeling that is sending me over the goddamn edge.

I sleep 7-8 hours a night on a silk pillowcase as not to draw out moisture, I drink a buttload of water, I use the smallest amount of Tretinoin possible while still covering my face, morning and night after washing my face without fully toweling off and while the pores are still open I PILE ON the Cetaphil cream (yes, the much thicker kind for body). I glob on probably 3 layers of moisturizer and add extra still to the driest areas (under my eyes, my chin, and upper lip). Before doing my morning makeup I add even MORE to those areas then use Bobbi Brown Moisture Rich foundation & barely any face powder.

Yet, by the end of the day, without fail, my chin is very visibly flaking. Dead skin all over the goddamn place. My skin is that of a Mummy. How long on average does it take to reach the end of this Tretinoin dry spell? Anything more I can do to combat this? Products? Chants? Voodoo rituals????

[gems2889]

lmao sorry but the voodoo rituals got to me have u try jojjba oil ? that stuff great add it to ur regime and see how it goes.

Edited by gems2889, 13 November 2011 - 11:58 PM.

[hmkharp]

Hmmm, well I have some left over from when I tried to use it as a makeup remover for a while. But how exactly should I use/apply it? Sorry, I'm sort of jojoba clueless.

[May853]

There are some people on here who massage the jojoba in with their fingers. It is supposed to loosen the dead skin. It's a sort of gentle manual exfoliation. I get dry around my mouth from time to time, but usually if I use my fingers in the shower to kind of rub the dead skin off, it helps a lot. I know you're supposed to be really careful with exfoliation while using retinoids, but gentle exfoliation is the only way I can ever get rid of the skin sloughing off. Piling moisturizer doesn't help (as you seem to know).

I have heard that evening primrose oil is supposed to help balance skin dryness/oiliness. Also fish/krill oil can help with skin dryness. Do you use any of these? I am getting ready to buy the EPO today to help with PMS symptoms. Plus if it helps my skin, then yay.

[hmkharp]

So would you do the jojoba thing before washing your face morning and night? Or after washing, then rinsing it off, and last moisturizing?

The evening primrose oil sounds interesting, I'll have to look into that. How does it help PMS? And by fish oil do you mean in capsules? I have those around here somewhere.

Thanks for the help and sorry for the 20 questions

[unlovely2011]

before i started my tretinoin regimen i gave proactiv a shot (bad idea) and it dried the hell out of my face. i looked like i was 40. it hurt to smile. and the flakes were unstoppable. i happened to have something called bio-oil laying around which i had used for scars in the past. i started covering my face with it at night and bought a gentler cleanser than proactiv and my skin was back to 'normal' within a week. i use quotations because it alleviated my extreme dryness but did nothing for my acne, which actually got worse as a result of my 8 week extremely drying proactiv experiment. even now, if my skin is dryer than usual, i use the bio-oil to rebalance. i have never tried jojoba oil but i intend to whenever i run out of this bio-oil. it's great because a tiny bit goes a long way and it's never caused me to break out. it's available at cvs as a name brand or a cvs brand. (i use the cvs brand myself)

[Wicketts16]

Try aquaphor. Thats what I use.