I woke up yesterday morning with a pimple in that space between my top lip and nose (the moustache, or ‘mo’ area on boys I guess). It’s one of those ‘normal’ zits, the ones that start off small and red then after a couple of days form a pussy white or yellow head.
The weird thing is, this pimple has appeared in this exact same spot about four times now in the past 3 months. Yes that’s right, exactly the same spot. The first time it appeared it was really nasty, almost like two of them together, snuggled side by side. It has been getting smaller every time but I’m damn sick of getting it. It’s even weirder that I haven’t had a pimple like this for a while now. I’ve been enjoying clear skin except for this little persistent spot on my mo.
I think my problem is I seem to be a bit careless with this area of my face. I often miss exfoliating there, and hardly ever remember to use spot treatments on pimples in that spot. Perhaps it’s because that area gets lost underneath the curve of my upper lip, or disappears behind the shadow of the tip of my nose. I’m not entirely sure why, but I have been neglecting it, so I guess I’ve been punished with a persistent pimple problem in that spot. At least it’s in a perfect beauty mark location. Maybe I could get away with coloring it in with brown eyeliner and disguising it as a beauty spot. Then again, maybe not.
So yesterday, I finally started to give that area a bit of attention. I pasted my BHA onto my mo, then applied my spot treatment directly onto the zit. This morning when I woke up, the pimple had started to dry out which is great, it means my pimple is healing. Which got me thinking, what active ingredients are in my spot treatment, and does it really matter which ones we use? Continue reading →
I felt like a rebel last night. After I had cleansed my face then applied my BHA, I didn’t moisturize. I didn’t feel like I needed to. When I stepped out of the shower my skin did not feel dry or tight, and after I applied the BHA it felt as though it had been moisturized already. So it got me thinking, do we really need to moisturize our skin? Or is that just something the cosmetics industry tells us that we need to do?
I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago about not moisturizing my T-Zone, so I guess I’m now just taking it one step further. I had such good results with not moisturizing my T-Zone that I thought …why not just skip that whole step altogether. I’m still moisturizing my face in the morning, but not at night.
I’m leaving tonight for a trip to the U.S for two weeks, spending most of my time in Las Vegas and Sedona. I’m wondering if the dry hot air will send me back to moisturizing at night? So is this just a humidity thing or if we’re eating well, exercising, taking supplements and looking after our body, then perhaps our skin just balances out to ‘normal’ - as in not oily and not dry and we no longer need to moisturize?
Dr. Hauschka’s say on all of this
I remember reading a while back on Dr. Hauschka’s website that we actually shouldn’t moisturize our skin at night at all. I thought this was a load of bollocks at the time because I had quite dry skin …but now I’m wondering if there’s some truth to it. Continue reading →
I’ve always thought multi-vitamins were a little bit useless unless you were sick. I thought that if I was eating enough fresh organic food then my body was getting all of the nutrients that it needed and I didn’t need to take a tablet to supplement it. I always thought that taking too many vitamins and minerals that your body doesn’t need had an adverse reaction in your body. Even when I had no idea what that adverse reaction was.
Well, it turns out I was wrong.
I watched this amazing documentary last night called Food Matters. It featured some of the top medical professionals and nutritionists in North America, Europe and Australia. These teachers taught me a lot of good stuff about food and nutrition. Including how good it is to take a daily multi-vitamin.
Where do we get our vitamins and minerals from?
Whenever I think of vitamins and minerals I always think of this TV commercial we have in Australia. It’s for the brand of breakfast cereal Nutri-Grain. Everybody knows that Nutri-Grain is packed full of sugar and is not good for you at all. But the commercial promotes the cereal as a ‘power’ food because it contains added nutrients. But can a food this sweet and this processed really be good for you?
Our body requires a certain amount of nutrients to function well (how it’s supposed to). The only place we can get these nutrients from is from the food we eat, and the only place the food we eat can get these nutrients from is the soil the food is grown in. So if the soil that your food is grown in is lacking in vital nutrients, then your body is just not getting what it needs.
It gets worse. If you shop at a grocery store, and buy non-organic food. Then chances are your food is already up to a week old (nutrients in food decrease with the age of the food), and chances are the soil the food is grown in is of poor quality, and chances are the food has been sprayed with chemicals and pesticides.
So really, you’re eating something that is old, lacking in nutrients and covered in toxins.
I don’t think I need to go into great detail about why eating this kind of food is not that great for our body or our skin because it’s obvious. If we’re not providing our body with what it needs to function properly, then of course we’re going to get sick, and it’ll very likely show on our skin with excessive oiliness or dryness, uneven skin tone, clogged pores and possibly acne.
So what do we do about it? Eat organic food if you can afford it for starters. To be honest, I don’t have a lot of money at the moment, I’m a traveller living on ‘the edge’. But whenever I can I will buy organic food. I’ve put good organic food as the highest priority in my life. I’d rather do something less fun tomorrow if it means I can eat good, healthy food every day.
And find a good multi-vitamin and take it. I’m in downtown Toronto today. I’m going to find myself a decent looking health store and I’m going to buy the best multi-vitamin in store. I’m going to support my body as much as I can by giving it what it needs.
The more I learn about health, the skin and acne, the more I realize how holistic it all is. It doesn’t work to just treat one symptom, like clogged pores or pimples. You must work on making your body healthier and stronger as a whole. The only way to achieve healthy, clear skin long term is to lead as healthy a lifestyle as you can. Eat well, take supplements, exercise and relax.
I typically have very dry skin, so you can imagine my horror when the weather in Toronto turned steaming hot and humid (literally overnight), and the skin on my face turned into a greasy mess.
It wasn’t so much that my entire face went oily, it was more the T-Zone area. If you’re not sure where the T-Zone is on your face, here is a pretty diagram I’ve made for you. Just imagine a T shape on your face. The top part of the T is your forehead, and the bottom is a line drawn down your nose and chin.
And it wasn’t just oily skin either, I broke out with some small pimples, with two on my nose, one on my chin and a small scattering on my forehead. Not a pretty site and very unfortunate after I’d only recently be celebrating completely clear skin.
I don’t think I helped matters much either by using my ‘usual’ amount of moisturizer on the first humid morning. I slathered on a decent amount of my Olay moisturizer which my skin usually needs in the cold and dry weather. On this very humid day it just made my skin greasy and shiny. So much so that my house mate even made a comment at how greasy my face was looking! Eww.
So the first thing I knew I needed to do was to use less moisturizer. In fact, I’m of the belief that if your skin is oily or you feel as though you don’t need any moisturizer, then why bother even putting it on. I’m sure there are beauty therapists out there groaning and shaking their heads, but I’m positive that moisturizers only work on the top layers of the skin, so they’re more for aesthetics and making your skin feel better rather than being a ‘cure all’. So if you already have plenty of natural moisture on your skin, why bother?
As soon as I started using significantly less moisturizer, and leaving my forehead out completely, my skin began to recover. I also used my Paula’s Choice 2% BHA once a day (at night), and used my Miessence Purifying Blemish gel on the small spots that I had. It took about a week for the blotchiness and pimples to go away, but they did! And now I’m happily pimple free again.
So for those of you with oily skin or oily t-zones, consider perhaps how much moisturizer you’re using on your skin. If it’s making your skin feel oilier or greasier then do you think you’d be better off with no moisturizer at all?
FINALLY an acne treatment guide that I actually agree with. Although the author of the Clear Skin Guidebook has written in an ‘I’m talking to adult women with acne’ conversational tone, the 30 day ‘clear skin plan’ outlined in the guide will work for everyone (boys, girls, teenagers, adults …if you’ve got acne then you will benefit from this guidebook). It may not work-work, as in completely clear your severe acne, but it will very possibly completely clear mild to moderate acne, or at the very least reduce the amount of active inflammations you’re getting, and quieten down the redness and irritation of your skin.
I’m usually very wary when I purchase a new product like this because I know for a fact that the Internet is chocked full of crappy eBooks that you literally have to hunt through to find the ‘gold’. Well, with this download I did find a good one. Perhaps not quite gold but close enough to it.
What I love the most about this guide is how it’s written by somebody that has suffered from acne over a long period of time, and by somebody who knows what they’re talking about. Actually, she’s just like me …although she’s also a Beauty Editor (which I’m not) and a naturopath (which I’m not either). Okay, we’re kinda similar.
The beginning of the guide goes into great detail about what acne actually is, how it’s formed and why we get it. I thought I knew all of this stuff already and would find it incredibly boring, but she’s written in such a friendly conversational tone that it actually made the sciencey stuff a little interesting. I also learnt quite a few new things when I thought I knew just about everything acne-related already. I even found myself jotting down notes not only for inspiration for my blog, but also things that I could apply to my own skin care routine and acne treatment.
The 30 day clear skin plan
The guidebook recommends a 30 day ‘clear skin plan’ which is basically a combination of a skin care routine, diet modification and supplements. I love a guide that follows my line of thinking Continue reading →
I woke up yesterday morning with a pimple in that space between my top lip and nose (the moustache, or ‘mo’ area on boys I guess). It’s one of those ‘normal’ zits, the ones that start off small and red then after a couple of days form a pussy white or yellow head. 
I felt like a rebel last night. After I had cleansed my face then applied my BHA, I didn’t moisturize. I didn’t feel like I needed to. When I stepped out of the shower my skin did not feel dry or tight, and after I applied the BHA it felt as though it had been moisturized already. So it got me thinking, do we really need to moisturize our skin? Or is that just something the cosmetics industry tells us that we need to do?
I’ve always thought multi-vitamins were a little bit useless unless you were sick. I thought that if I was eating enough fresh organic food then my body was getting all of the nutrients that it needed and I didn’t need to take a tablet to supplement it. I always thought that taking too many vitamins and minerals that your body doesn’t need had an adverse reaction in your body. Even when I had no idea what that adverse reaction was.
Whenever I think of vitamins and minerals I always think of this TV commercial we have in Australia. It’s for the brand of breakfast cereal Nutri-Grain. Everybody knows that Nutri-Grain is packed full of sugar and is not good for you at all. But the commercial promotes the cereal as a ‘power’ food because it contains added nutrients. But can a food this sweet and this processed really be good for you?
It wasn’t so much that my entire face went oily, it was more the T-Zone area. If you’re not sure where the T-Zone is on your face, here is a pretty diagram I’ve made for you. Just imagine a T shape on your face. The top part of the T is your forehead, and the bottom is a line drawn down your nose and chin.
