I did a search to see if anyone's posted about this product yet but didn't see anything, so hopefully I'm not rehashing someone else's post. I won't link to the company's website because I'm not affiliated with them (and you can google the product name and find them easily enough), but I wanted to share this because I know I've read helpful product reviews on these forums for years and tried many of them with varying degrees of success.
A co-worker recommended the Acne Battle Bar to me and I was kind of dubious (I'll post a brief "acne bio" in a minute and you'll know why) but thought "eh what the heck, it's not ridiculously expensive", and I loved that it had neem, olive, jojoba and tea tree oil as the active ingredients, not a long list of chemicals. Also it has oatmeal and bentonite clay and I knew that my skin appreciates both those although I'd never seen them blended. Within a days of using it, my acne is disappearing rapidly, and I didn't get the usual several cysts I get around that time of the month. Also it's fading the dark marks and scars that always make it look like I've got more acne than I really do, so I've been pleasantly surprised by that aspect. I don't want to tout this as a miracle cure-all because everyone's skin is so different, I just thought that since it's been working so beautifully for me, it might be nice to share with others (although take it with a grain of salt because I haven't tested it long-term, I'm just so excited its working right now).
My acne story is not as long a battle as others' I've read here, nor as severe as some. I've been fighting it for eight years now, more or less since I turned 20, and it has gradually gotten worse. Last year I had a severe cystic breakout along my jaw line, and while my skin has calmed somewhat since then, I've always got acne (and now some very lumpy scarring from cysts on top of cysts). I've been on BC, oral antibiotics, spironolactone (the majority of my breakouts are hormonal, I know now), all the usual combinations of BP, glycolic acid, salicylic acid, you name it. Witch hazel, apple cider vinegar, crushed aspirin, all that home made stuff. I went no-dairy, no-sugar for a while as well, but to no avail. The derm aggressively pushed Accutane to the point that I stopped going to him, I'm happy it's a miracle for some people but with a history of depression I knew I couldn't risk it. I really had given up and just kept washing with an OTC daily BP cleanser and unhappily slathered on the concealer before work every day, until about a week and a half ago.
Yesterday was the first day I went out without makeup in a long time and it felt so nice. I've still got obvious scarring, but redness and swelling are at an all-time minimum for me with the Battle Bar, and because it's got such a nice combo of natural oils, it seems to be keeping my usually extremely oily face from overcompensating like it does with drying BP. Also I often have a problem with skin peeling in rings around healing acne spots, and that makes it extra difficult to get smooth looking skin even with makeup on, but the acne battle bar is helping me "heal with no peel" (maybe that's the oatmeal?). It doesn't smell nice, I can't lie. It's not nose-scorchingly strong, but its not a bouquet either...I guess it's just a strong herbal scent I'm not fond of. Still, smell is the LEAST of my worries as far as acne products go.
Anyway, sorry for the overly long post, just thought I would share if anyone else's skin sounds like mine and they're at their wits end and willing to give it a try. I think you have the option on Apple Valley Soap's website of ordering just a sample size which is quite affordable. Good luck to all of you in this crazy ongoing roller coaster that is acne!
Yes! I've only been washing twice a day with it, rubbing it in for about thirty seconds before rinsing it off...it seemed like it did take a couple of days for my oil production to adjust, I remember wanting to wash four or five times the first couple of days because my skin felt too moist, but I know sometimes with new products there's an adjustment period. So I held out and now I just feel moisturized, not oily.
I can't say my acne has 100% healed, it does seem like a few persistent blackheads are now coming to the surface but they're extractable whereas before I could never get them out. But the few I've been getting have then healed within a day or so, when usually I can think I've popped it and gotten rid of it and then it comes back...and comes back...and doesn't really leave until a couple of weeks later. I'm also extremely relieved about my dark marks finally fading somewhat, I wasn't sure they ever really would.
And it is possible that I'm just going through a natural unrelated lull as far as the cysts are concerned, because I never thought that anything topical would affect them either...however, it seems like a remarkable coincidence that they stopped appearing shortly after I started using the bar, especially considering that in the past year, it never failed that I'd get at least several painful, long-lived ones at that time of the month, and this month, not a single one. Maybe my skin, in spite of all the sebum, was never really moisturized? Or maybe the neem oil is penetrating deeper than I thought? If my skin clears up completely OR gets worse, I'll try to post an update here. So far it's been kind of a miracle product for me, hopefully it doesn't stop working.
Hiya Mel, nice to hear that someone else is trying the bar. I was just poking back in to say that I still highly recommend it, although I have an update: I did have a terrible hormonal cystic breakout this past month so I know that there are things the acne battle bar will NOT prevent. However, my scars are now healing twice as fast as they did the last time I had a spell like this and I know it's due to all the natural oils in the soap and the fact that it's gentle on my super-irritated skin. I don't have to use moisturizers anymore, and it feels like the soap has balanced out my skin's sebum production to where I'm not sometimes an oil slick and sometimes dry as a desert. When I was having the worst part of the cystic breakout, in desperation I used a Neutrogena product with BP and oh was that a HUGE mistake, it irritated my poor skin so badly that it was red and inflamed for a couple of days...so I went back to the battle bar and that seemed to soothe the rest of my face while the cysts took their good sweet time about going down.
So yeah it's not a cure-all, but I do still think it's one of the most gentle, soothing, healing cleansers out there on the market. Since last September, I'm still only on my first bar, so it's such an affordable, long-lasting product. I would have gone through at least three bottles of the Neutrogena stuff I used to use by now. Sometimes, less really IS more.
I've been using the Battle Bar for about a month now, and I am REALLY happy. My husband even commented on my skin las week saying it looks healthier! And he usually wouldn't say anything.
I know it won't solve everything. Sometimes our hormones get the best of us. But I do have hormonal acne, and I have to say... It's been manageable with the use of the Battle Bar.