Hi Victoria, congrats on starting the regimen. I hope it works as well for you as it has for me.

The first bit of advice im going to give you is to contain your excitement and GO SLOW. A common mistake is to get a little bit gungho with the BP in the early weeks and end up chemically burning your skin. The trick is to go slow but to regularly up your dose. Its not until you're eventually using large amounts of BP (two pumps) twice a day that you will get completely clear, but you have to build up slowly to that. Once you're clear you can then start to experiment and work out what your 'maintenance' amount of BP is that keeps you clear.

As for AHA+, only introduce that in the 4-5 week at the earliest and only when you're face has fully adjusted to BP and is no longer red and irritated (It can still be very dry and flaky, just not red). If you start using AHA+ too early it justs adds irritation to your already irritated face.

Another thing you mentioned is that Pro active made your acne worse. Well if you go by my own experience and many others, following the Regimen will also make your acne worse in the initial stages. In my second week I had the worse breakout that I have ever experienced. Following the regimen is not easy, and I found it to be quite painful in the first 4 weeks with the dry, itchy burning skin. But I was mentally prepared to get through that to the other side.

As for makeup, I hear you girl! That was the hardest thing for me too. Not only was I used to wearing my 'public face of makeup" to work everyday, I actually had to get used to not wearing makeup to work when my face was worse than ever in the early weeks. I was given a tip from someone on this site who said, even if you arent going to wear foundation, at least you can still put on eyeliner, mascara and lipstick. And do your hair! Basically do everything you can to make yourself presentable, but just dont wear foundation. I then just pretended to myself that I was wearing foundation to work. And you know what? Not one person at work batted an eyelid. I truly thing we are our own worse enemies when it comes to critisising our own appearance.

Foundation I changed to since following The Regimen is Almay. I found that it didnt break me out, but I have to be honest and say that my skin was so dry in the first 7 weeks that the foundation didnt look so great. What I would do whenever I wore foundation is to apply the BP as normal, but when it came time to apply moisturiser I would mix in 6 drops of jojoba oil into it. My face would look like a complete oil slick, and over the top of that I would apply the foundation. It looked terrible but within half an hour my skin would have absorbed the moisturiser/jojoba oil and the foundation would 'set' into something reasonable. Not great but reasonable. That worked for me, but I'm sure you will experiment until you find something that works for you.

Good luck to you, and I'll be really happy to hear how you progess. Persistant and consistant will bring you success! (Oh boy, I sound like a self help book!!!!)

Hi Victoria, congrats on starting the regimen. I hope it works as well for you as it has for me.

The first bit of advice im going to give you is to contain your excitement and GO SLOW. A common mistake is to get a little bit gungho with the BP in the early weeks and end up chemically burning your skin. The trick is to go slow but to regularly up your dose. Its not until you're eventually using large amounts of BP (two pumps) twice a day that you will get completely clear, but you have to build up slowly to that. Once you're clear you can then start to experiment and work out what your 'maintenance' amount of BP is that keeps you clear.

As for AHA+, only introduce that in the 4-5 week at the earliest and only when you're face has fully adjusted to BP and is no longer red and irritated (It can still be very dry and flaky, just not red). If you start using AHA+ too early it justs adds irritation to your already irritated face.

Another thing you mentioned is that Pro active made your acne worse. Well if you go by my own experience and many others, following the Regimen will also make your acne worse in the initial stages. In my second week I had the worse breakout that I have ever experienced. Following the regimen is not easy, and I found it to be quite painful in the first 4 weeks with the dry, itchy burning skin. But I was mentally prepared to get through that to the other side.

 

Thankyou so much for replying! 🙂

Im not sure if i started out with too much BP because my skin is really dry around my mouth and and chin area. When i apply the moisturizer it burns a lot! Did you experience this?

Yes, the burning after applying moisturiser is pretty normal and goes away after your skin adjusts to the BP (4 weeks or so). I would say that if you're already dry after 2 days, then you've started a bit too quickly with the BP. I would suggest a pea size of BP all over your face once a day for a few days, and then the same amount but twice a day for a few days, and slowly increase from there. Make sure you moisturise, and apply more moisturiser throughout the day to areas of your face that need it (ie around your mouth and chin area).