Acne.org Products
So I have sensitive facial skin I discovered over the years after wondering why my facial cleansers caused my face to get super oily and my acne to get worse. I have moved on now to using the Aveeno Active Naturals Ultra-Calming Foaming Cleanser and a Earth Therapeutics Basics Complexion Pad with my nightly shower and a Neutrogena Naturals Nourishing Multi-Vitamin Night Cream to help my face out. My skin type is sensitive, but not dry or oily, my nose and forehead do get oily, not super oily, but oily.
The issue I have is some damaged pores that either just clog up and become inflamed repeatedly, or the pores stay enlarged along the side of my nose and below the eye and become bad black heads quickly. I also have discovered if I stop using my face pad, I get bad acne(as in large sore bumps filled with all the nasty compressed white crap, but not pustules) under my chin and on the jaw line right below my ear, and on my neck for some reason.
I also get bad hormonal acne, those big deep painful bumps, but I have discovered a hot black tea compress helps fix those up within a few days.
Another fun thing I have is an autoimmune disorder, the docs are not sure what it is, but if I ever get sick or eat certain foods (corn being one of them and in the USA avoiding it is more or less impossible) it causes my skin to itch really bad and sometimes it leads to minor break outs on the face but chest and shoulders.
I also have an anxiety disorder, but it rarely causes breakouts for me.
So I get hormonal acne and immune being a jerk acne and I get anxiety acne, with some damaged pores that keep getting clogged up(there is one pore dead center of my forehead that clogs up real bad and swells painfully often) I wanna know what treatments there are that I can use to help during these flare ups to reduce my symptoms and what I can do to help tighten my pores.
With my skin being so sensitive, if I use my face cleanser more than once a day it causes my skin to get super dry and sensitive and then become super oily, even face mask cause me burning pain, and I have used stress relief face mask to bentonite clay. All these things burned my face, especially along the sides of my nose where I have those bad pores and it leaves me with oily skin for a day or two, even putting my moisturizer on after the mask hurts me
I also have a hard time putting a moisturizer on in the morning, I feed my animals before I go to class and I cannot have the stuff on my hands when I touch their food.
I also have super sensitive skin, eczema and all that. I stopped using make-up, any cleanser and moisturizer a couple of months ago. I only use vaseline now, at night all over my face which kinda works great. I used some oils, but I just got so red from them, so I don't know. I don't excessively wash my face anymore and so no new zits. I don't know, but all these 'sensitive' cleansers aren't really sensitive at all, I don't get why we should wash our faces so much considering I never washed it like this when I didn't have acne. Feel like it only got worse when I started with all of these products in the first place.
It has been hell after BP and stuff, my face can not tolerate the stuff, I never scarred before, now I have a bunch of them. Take it easy with all that stuff and keep it as clean and simple as possible. And, that does not have to cost you a fortune either. Vaseline will cost me like 2.5 pounds a month. I shudder to think of all the money I've spent, just leave it alone as much as possible, and I know that that is irritating advice but letting your body take care of it by itself is best.
Ps. I also have anxiety + health anxiety, and when it got bad so did my acne. There is a connection, so try to take care of that. Maybe try an IgG food intolerance test to see if you have any one of those. I just started, got my results back a couple of days ago, I can keep you posted whether it helped or not. (Not really expecting any miracles but they did find eggs which I get stomach pains from so who knows)
Courtney, if you are still struggling with this, I would recommend using baby soap only to wash your face. I use Cetaphil's baby soap (it is very emollient and just a medium-sized drop is good for the whole face). At night, I would apply ROC's retinol cream for sensitive skin. PM me if you want more help; I have sensitive skin, too!