Skin Care Journey: Treating, and Dealing with Hyper-pigmentation and Acne

So, I know my blog is usually devoted to music, but I haven't been feeing inspired to write or post anything for a while even though I have been collecting links and saving them. I even have posts drafted, but I don't post them.


At the moment, I'm inspired to do something for posterity. I'm a long time acne sufferer, I had my first break out in my late teens and it has been down hill since then. My skin has gotten better but, it is still lumpy and uneven.  During my acne journey I realised there is not a wealth of info out there for people like me - black women, acne suffers, who have hyper pigmentation. Most people ignore hyper pigmentation all together or recommend things like cocoa butter that just doesn't work!


So, for the 6 - 9 weeks (according to what the Retin A box says), I'll be blogging about my skin care journey. I've put together a quick summary of where I am at the moment, I hope to expand this soon and add some pictures of my progress.

Week 1

The first week was weird, I expected my skin to be dry, but instead it was oily and I broke out in tiny spots. I was using my primer (K by Beverly Knight) with my make up but by the end of the day my face looked like an oil spill and almost like I had no makeup on. My skin texture was terrible, I briefly considered not using this anymore, but I know bad skin is one of the first reactions so I decided to stick with it.

Products being used at the moment;

Morning

First wash: Sulphur soap used with scrubbing pads/poppy seed and goats milk soap

Second wash: Good things stay clear vegan face wash.

Toner: I was using Boots’ rose water, but it finished and I’m trying out Burt’s Bees’ Toner.

Face cream: Good things Matifying lotion – used to work brilliantly till I started Retin A.

Night

Neutrogena blackhead eliminating scrub.

Good things stay clear face wash.

Make up remover

Retin A

Week 2:

My skin has a weird prickly feeling; it makes me want to scratch my face off. My skin has also gotten dry and flaky.  I stopped using my face scrubbing pads because I was mostly using the poppy seed soap and the seeds exfoliate the skin. But, I’m not getting the exfoliation I need so I’m going back to using only Sulphur soap and scrubbing pad for week 3 (note: my weeks start on Wednesday, I know it is weird, but that was the day my doctor gave me the retin A.) . I also bought some Monistat chaffing gel and used that as a primer under my make up, it seems to have helped with the staying power of my makeup and the greasiness.

Side note: I missed two days of application this week.

Products used this week are the same as week one.