My acne is about 50% better this morning.

Overnight.

I've never seen anything like this...

What did I do? Well I've been reading a bunch of threads on here and I saw this one talking about pityrosporum folliculitis, which I had never heard of. I googled it - essentially it looks more or less like acne but is fungal/yeast based rather than bacterial. And google images showed a whole lot of pictures that look a lot like what I have. Two of its main characteristics are that it doesn't respond to typical acne treatments (YES) and that it's more common in very humid environments - and my acne came on when I moved to Fiji earlier this year, where it is crazy humid especially compared to the very dry area I'm from. It's also more common on the back and chest than the face, and I have mild bacne for the first time in my life at the moment. Could this be what I have?

I started googling for what to do about it and came across things like eat less sugar (already done), use apple cider vinegar as a supplement and toner (is it just me or does the internet seem to think apple cider vinegar will cure everything?), and use yoghurt as an anti-fungal face mask (which my acne-free Fijian housemate has been after me to do for a while but I rejected as an old wives tale) and as a probiotic (I had stopped eating it due to the IGF-1 but yesterday I found some info saying yoghurt has very low levels of IGF-1 and has not been clinically associated with acne the way that milk has).

Then I came across this thread (which is a few years old) talking about curing pityrosporum folliculitis with Vaseline. The people in the thread seem to have a few ideas about why it worked, and the idea of starving the fungus of oxygen kind of rings true to me, though I couldn't find anything else on the internet supporting the idea. But Vaseline is cheap and I'm desperate, so why not? The supermarket was out of stock, so I bought a different brand called Basilini which is 97% petroleum jelly and 3% cocoa butter. Also it smells great.

So on Monday I bought the apple cider vinegar and started drinking it and using it as a toner that evening. I think it tastes yuck, but I'm having 1tbsp with water morning and night, and plenty of water to wash it down. I bought the vaseline at lunch time on Tuesday and put some on when I got back to my office (I luckily have my own office and don't have a lot of meetings so I don't have to worry about my face looking shiny). It's sticky but feels ok, and is a good incentive not to touch my face because of the sticky. I wiped it off after a few hours and then put on more. I bought some plain yoghurt after work.

When I got home, I wiped off the vaseline, washed my face with my super mild Aveeno cleanser which I've been using for around a week, and put on more vaseline. A few hours later, I wiped it off and washed my face again, then used the apple cider vinegar toner, ate a yoghurt for desert and put about a teaspoon full on my face as a mask for about 20 minutes, washed that off (with a little more cleanser), toned again, then put on another thick layer of vaseline and slept with that on. I did wonder if I was washing my face too much for one evening, but that's what I did.

And this morning? I actually gasped when I looked in the mirror. As I said above, I think my acne is at least 50% better. Yesterday at lunchtime I had around 30 whiteheads. This morning I have three tiny ones. I still have huge number of red spots, but I swear most of them are significantly smaller and the bumps are less raised. The pain of my acne is gone (and last week I was having trouble sleeping from the pain). The most inflamed spots which were dark purple with soreness are now the same light red colour as the rest of my bumps.

I just can't believe how much better my skin looks so quickly. This morning I washed with my mild cleanser, toned with vinegar, used a little of my breakfast yoghurt (oh how I've missed it!!! first time I've had breakfast yoghurt in months!!) on my face (but only for 5-10 minutes while I ate), washed that off with cleanser, toned again, and applied more vaseline. I walked to work (half an hour in the heat = sweaty), and wiped it off when I got to the office, then applied another thick layer of vaseline. I know I look shiny, but I don't care - less than 24 hours for a 50% reduction in my acne (which was so severe it was compared by a colleague to leprosy about 10 days ago) is worth looking a bit shiny to me!!

Hopefully it continues to improve today - I'll let you know!!!

I just can't believe this. I'm so excited!!

Thanks for sharing. Many people on this forum have folliculitis, not "regular" acne, but dermatologists are sometimes unqualified in terms of diagnosing the type of "acne" correctly.

What part of your new regimen do you think helped the most? I think you should post your progress photos, it might help a lot of people actually.

I might take some more photos tonight, I have previously posted a few but didn't take any this morning.

I actually think it's the vaseline that has helped, but I can't be sure. I have no idea why it's worked aside from the idea of suffocating the nasties which might be ridiculous, but it seems to be doing it. I've been keeping it on my face all day.

The only problem now is I'm going on a date and I feel like I should keep it on my face to keep the effect up, but I don't want to do that in front of him!!! hahahaha