3 replies to this topic

[Nyanco]

So quick intro...Hi I'm in my young 20's and I have light to moderate acne. I did Dan's full scale regimen for 4 months. Gentle cleansing, lots and lots of Dan's BP, and even his moisturizer. I did it all religiously twice a day. I admit yes I had less red acne than before but a couple of months in I started to get little ugly milia all over my cheeks. On top of that, even though I was moisturizing twice a day my skin was red, dry, tired looking, and becoming wrinkly! The were around my eyes (despite using my usual eye cream to help keep in moisture and chase away those tired dark circles), and around my mouth. Being a young girl this was extremely traumatic and I felt awful about how I looked. I was ready to cry. I use Physicians Formula Organic makeup just like always but after my skin became damaged it started to make my already tired skin look even worse. Despite this I continued to use the BP thinking that it was just temporary and that my skin just needs to get used to the regimen just like Dan himself said. Well 4 months was enough! I stopped the regimen completely.

I was desperate. I still needed to wash my face but I wanted to repair the horrendous damage that BP caused. I always used this really nice all natural hair care line called Jessicurl to keep my curly hair super moisturized and healthy. And I try to eat lots of natural foods too so I thought hey lets try doing this the natural way. So after hunting I found these really helpful videos online posted by a cute girl known as Bubz (http://www.youtube.c...feature=g-all-a). I also found the Yes To line of natural facial products (they are pricey!) and bought the Blueberry repairing eye cream, Carrot night time repair lotion, spf 15 Carrot lotion, Tomato Pore Scrub, and Tomato Spot Treatment. After following the diy videos that Bubz posted for homemade facial masks, toners, and scrubs I noticed my skin didn't look as...well...dead. So when my Yes To products came in the mail (I found some sales so it was better than buying it from Walmart) I started using the Tomato Pore scrub, the home made toner, the Blueberry eye cream, the Carrot lotions (one for day and one for night), and a moisturizing dyi mask everyday. Oh and I did the dyi sugar scrub every 3 days. And what a difference! My wrinkles are gone after two weeks! My skin is glowing and lively again. But it's still not acne free! All those milia are slowly surfacing and turning into big, red, subsurface zits! Well the Tomato Spot treatment seems to be very slowly working...but I'm impatient!

So on the the next idea! I heard that natural tea tree oil is great as a zit zapper so I ordered some. I also ordered some 16+ active culture Manuka honey (yay natural stuff!). I am hoping these two will clear up these giant zits. I figure I will use the Manuka as an overnight mask (sticky yeah but people are saying great stuff about it) and the tea tree oil as a daily spot treatment. I will post results when I get these in the mail!

And for anyone going.."well why did you use a chemical like BP in the first place if you like natural stuff so much?" It's because my long time boyfriend used Dan's regimen when we was in his late teens/young 20's and said it was amazing. So I went out on a limb. However he bought the regimen the same time I did about 4 months ago since he was breaking out again and he got wrinkles and rashes way worse than mine after extended use. So I won't recommend the regimen to anyone unless they have EXTREME acne, not even moderate just extreme! Otherwise you will be a haggard, wrinkly mess! I would rather have zits than be elderly looking at 20!

[dejaclairevoyant]

I don't get it. I used Dan's BP every day for a long time. Years and years. No wrinkles here.

I don't do the "regimen" anymore but I still use his BP if I have a breakout. It has never caused me any problems, but I'm sorry you had such a horrible reaction to it! If I had heard of such things before I probably wouldn't have touched it, thank God it didn't do that to me.

To be fair tho, before changing my diet I did have "extreme" acne. I had to use the BP or I would get staph infections in my face and that was very scary.

Natural is always better, but nothing (imo) can prevent those big nasty zits other than fixing your lifestyle and removing the triggers. Medicating them (natural or otherwise) only helps treat them and keep them from getting infected worse.

[Ukulala]

Yeah, BP and I don't get along. It makes me oily AND flaky - which is such an odd combo to deal with. -___-

Retinoids I've had better luck with, but I was still hella oily when I was on 'em (Differin, for years). Since not washing my face, the thing I'm most impressed by is how much my oiliness has evened out. No more midday sheen!

Good luck finding the right regimen for you. Everyone is going to ask the question I, too, am curious about -- what is your diet like? Eat lots and lots of green things. Tons. And supplements - do you supplement? Supplements are your friiiieeend.

But yeah, good luck!

[Nyanco]

After leaving the Manuka on for about five hours and washing it off my zits do look less red and bulbous. Huzzah! I will keep at it. And I have the tea tree oil on my spots for the first time right now. This stuff smells terrible. I ended up dabbing some lemon juice on top of it because the smell was getting to me. It feels all tingly and refreshing (the sensation of dying zits?).

To dejaclairevoyant:
Yeah I'm working at removing things that I know trigger my face to break out. As it turns out since I moved in to a rental place my face got a lot worse and I found out the water here is very very hard. I have had soft water up until that point. So I installed a shower filter, and for washing my face I used purified water from my Brita pitcher. It seems that alone has made my skin relax and I haven't seen any big new zits It's been about a week since I swapped over to cleaner water. I only have drank the Brita water since I moved anyway since the water tasted bad. I wish I would have put two and two together right then!

To Ukulala:
my diet is nothing extreme and it's the same as it's always been. I usually eat some low sugar, high fiber cereal with 1% milk in the morning, then for lunch a home made sandwich with either lean meats, tuna, or a sugar free PBJ, and some carrots, celery, and a fruit like a green apple, some grapes...etc. For dinner I try to cook as many nights as possible and its usually a meat/vegetable dish or meat/rice/vegetable dish. Sometimes I eat low cal frozen meals or mac and cheese. I know everyone says to avoid dairy and bread but I've always eaten them and I never really broke out very bad (except for during my period). I thought I could avoid all breakouts if I used BP and now I gotta work really hard to fix my face back up. Wouldn't you know my silly vanity about a few pimples caused a facial epidemic. Oh and for supplements, I haven't been taking any. I know zinc, chromium, and all the vitamins with letters are important for skin so I have been eating a wide variety of things that contain those. Do you think I would more than that?

Edited by Nyanco, 02 February 2012 - 03:51 PM.