[acne] OCM before and after

Beauty Tips For Body Care
LONG POST. IF YA CAME HERE JUST FOR BEFORE AND AFTER PICS SCROLL DOWN ;DHi guys! I love reading other people's successes with skincare, so wanted to share what worked for me.Okay, so all through high school I had pretty bad acne. It wasn't quite like other people's, though. It was mainly small tiny bumps, red and skin colored, that seemed to fill every pore. I tried random treatments my freshman and sophomore years (benzoyl peroxide freshman year, random face washes and scrubs, sophomore year I tried going the more natural route with honey, etc. couldn't even list everything I used if I wanted to). My skin would react to literally everything, get super aggravated and red. All chemical exfoliants would give me rashes. I remember staying home a couple of days because my face was so red. All of my friends would joke about how easIly red my face would get (don't worry, I would laugh about it too). My junior year, I tried caveman. After a while of that slightly working better than whatever I used before, I decided to introduce a plain face wash. I used the aveeno moisturizing oatmeal bar. This is what my skin was like around that time:http://imgur.com/a/aYdQg (winter 2014 is wrong, this was summer 2014)I wish I had more pictures form before that. Before it was even worse and more irritated. Eventually I started using cetaphil, and just trying to keep my skincare as simple as possible. That worked better for me:http://imgur.com/a/onVyRAs you can see in the picture, better than before, but not great. I was even wearing makeup in this photo. I still had moderate acne, but my skin stopped being as reactive and it wasn't all over my face. My skin texture was awful, and severely dehydrated.During winter break of 2014, I started using Nivea cream and cerave foaming (woo, go SCA). Within a couple of weeks, my skin was so much better.With makeup: http://imgur.com/a/iIiRgTexture still not the best, but the best my skin had been in a long time.A couple months later without makeup: http://imgur.com/a/QSqPbStill using cerave and Nivea. Just slowly healing and scars fading. Texture not the best and dehydrated (dehydration lines on my forehead). My skin stayed pretty consistent after this, sometimes getting irritated if I used a new product, but eventually would go back to this when I went back to cerave foaming and Nivea cream.Until, I went to college. My skin didn't get quite as bad as my first picture, but I started getting closed comedones everywhere. This is the worst it got:http://imgur.com/a/MkVVeI'm really sensitive to water changes, and I had heard that my college town has really bad water, but I was not prepared for how badly it changed my skin (my back, legs, and chest as well). Every time I would come back home, my skin would clear up.So! I started washing my face with bottled water, and limiting my time spent in the shower. This helped a lot, and pretty much brought back my skin from summer of 2015. Unfortunately I don't have any photos from this time period. There were still a few small bumps everywhere, my skin was pretty dry, and it would get small rash like breakouts occasionally.About a month ago, I started using argon oil as a moisturizer. I loved it, and it surprisingly didn't break me out. Cue to three weeks ago. I've seen the oil cleansing method mentioned so many times. I tried it with just mineral oil a long time ago, but it didn't really work for me. I decided to give it a go with castor, grape seed, and argon oil after I found the argon oil didn't break me out (I also patch tested grapeseed). My routine would be oil cleanse with my mixture, cleanse with cerave foaming, and then moisturizer with Nivea cream. My skin started to get better, even with being at college! All of the little bumps got better, my skin seemed to be less sensitive (no small rashes), and the color and overall texture is getting better. Here are photos taken today in natural and bathroom light:http://imgur.com/a/zzEmtThe bathroom light makes my skin appear red, but my redness has actually gone down a lot. All I have right now are small hormonal breakouts! I am so glad I finally tried the oil cleansing method and found oils that worked for me. I still have a ways to go scarring and moisture-wise, but I am so much happier with my skin.Before and after photos:http://imgur.com/a/A2MOKI am so glad I found something that works for me. I couldn't use any chemical exfoliants (the usual treatment for skin like mine) because all of them would irritate my skin. I couldn't use most moisturizers to treat dehydration for the same reason. If you're on the fence about trying oil cleansing, give it a try! Sorry for the long post. Thanks for reading to the end :)
Girls Blog 2015
Submitted by iloveacorns