Beauty Tips For Body Care
Hello everyone,I've been lurking on this sub for a while now, probably read upwards of thousands of posts, struggling to find an actual solution for my stubborn sebaceous filaments. When I mean stubborn, i really do mean STUBBORN! I should be studying for my exams right now and it is rare that I make a post, but i absolutely felt the need to share my results with you. Most people on this sub seem to have sebaceous filaments that are not really observable, small little black dots. However, for the few of us that have ridiculously oily skin, our filaments are more pronounced than others. When I mean pronounced, I really do mean that! You can see it from a meter away. I have struggled with acne and oily skin my entire life, and been researching the topic since I was 15, (22 now).I believe that acne and textural irregularities (i.e pronounced filaments) have three different causes:Hormones - not much you can do here other than to aggressively attack the acne if your a man or balance the hormones if ur a female. Accutane/Antibiotics/Birth Control if you are a female. I think there is other products out there for women if hormones are an issue but for men who struggle with hormonal acne, antibiotics > retinoid topicals > accutane is usually the recommended route by most dermatologists. I’ve never heard of any method that seems to adress the imbalance of hormones for men. Imbalanced hormones might definitely lead to overactive sebaceous glands.Sebaceous Glands that are naturally more active - high sebum production - not much you can do here, a lot of people have this belief that dehydrated skin may cause more oiliness, but this is not true for some of us and no matter how much moisturizer we slather on, it only makes it look more oily! I'm currently trying to incorporate a high linoleic acid oil (i.e: Hemp) into my routine to see if I can get my oil production under control but this is another matter. There are some studies that Niacinimide/Zinc/L-Carnitine helping to address overactive sebaceous glands but its minimal. I don't think topicals have the power to slow down the activity of sebaceous glands, unless you have super dehydrated skin that is prone to oiliness. For the rest of us, the only other solution is low dow accutane 10 mg/week over an indefinite period of time. This is the dosage recommended by many dermatologists if u simply want to adress the oily skin. For reference: on my last accutane round, i was at 80mg/day for 4 months, that is the equivalent of 18 years of 10mg/week and its deemed safe for long term usage at such low doses but you should ask your dermatologist. You want to stay away from high vitamin b5 doses which can help oily skin but may cause hair loss. There are some anecdotal evidences of a Vitamin D deficiency also causing oily skin. If you rarely get any sun exposure and have super oily skin, you might want to get your levels tested and experiment with D3 pills in Cholecalciferol form.Skin that doesn't shed properly - This is so HUGE!!! . Have you ever seen some people with super oily skin but skin that is flawless? With this group of people, their sebum flows freely between their pores and from my understanding, doesn't lead to the accumulation/oxidization of oil, that eventually leads to acne. AHAs/BHAS/Retinoids help address this issue of improper shedding.Cause of my rough nose and sebaceous filaments: 2 & 3.The issue that I had was my skin would get so oily, and then it would lead to gunky pores, very rough to the touch, especially my nose! as the sebaceous glands here are the largest and most active. It became so bad that my filaments became these white strands (1/4 inch), and i literally had hundreds on my nose, especially in the crease area. I resorted to charcoal peel off masks to keep it under control but they would just fill up the next day and I don't think peel off masks are good for your skin. Here is a good picture I found on Google that slightly resembles what I had: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/QwUsYY6Wgt4/maxresdefault.jpgSo here is what worked for me!REMOVALhttps://fiftyshadesofsnail.com/2015/03/28/how-to-shrink-pores-temporarily-plus-3-pore-myths/ This guide really helped me to remove my sebaceous filaments in a manner that was not damaging my pores (i.e: pore strips) and really sort of reset my skin. The products that I used were: Paula's Choice 2% BHA, Aztec Clay Mask (With ACV, don't bother doing it with water only as calcium bentonite clay has a high pH and ACV will help to to neutralize it), and Simple Grapeseed Cleansing Oil. NOTE: Aztec Clay Mask is SOOOO GOOOOOD at drawing out your sebaceous filaments and textural irregularities to the surface, but in itself it is not enough and temporarily it will make your filaments look worse. But you absolutely must follow it with a cleansing oil, it will help to get rid of all those grits that's been making your oily areas rough and to sort of reset them.PREVENTIONSo after your skin has been sort of reset, now comes the prevention part. And it is absolutely necessary for you to do the removal part or your filaments won't get better. For me, my sebaceous filaments on my nose were my main concern so here is what I did:Regular nightly cleansing with an oil-based cleanser (You really wanna massage for 1-2 to minutes and get any grits. Grits basically refers to hardened sebum.Followed by a foaming cleanser. Really massage it in and let it stay on your skin for 1-2 minutes for the surfactants to dissolve all of the oil that has been accumulated throughout the day. I would only recommend you doing this on areas where your skin is really oily and doesn't get dry. I use cetaphil oily skin cleanser.Apply your choice of BHA. I use 2% Paula's Choice BHA Liquid. I'm going to try the AHA soon as well to see if it makes a difference.Apply VERY MINIMAL moisturizer. Ideally one that doesn't have that many ingredients and is simple. More ingredients means the greater the possibility for your large pores to lead to the accumulation of cosmetic ingredients/ hardened sebum/dead skin etc. I use the LRP Toleraine Sensitive Skin one. It has like 7-8 ingredients and is very minimalistic.Repeat these steps 2-4 both morning and night, and steps 1 at night only.Note: My sebaceous filaments still fill up, but after 2 weeks now as opposed to 1-2 days so this routine has been a saviour. I'm going to start experimenting with an AHA/High Linoleic Acid oil to see if it makes a difference and maybe a form of retinoid cream down the road. AHAs/BHAs really help to address issue 3) skin that doesn't shed properly, hence the large sebaceous filaments. If skin doesn't shed properly, you want to avoid putting on moisturizers and a lot of products that have hundreds of ingredients and rather stick with something simple. And hopefully, the linoleic acid oil will help to balance my oil productions. After two rounds of accutane, I get a lot less acne now but sebaceous filaments and super oily skin has always been a huge concern for me. 1 year after my second round, the oil returned and really caused me a lot of textural irregularities, not only on my nose but all across my face. Here is my current routine and what has really helped me so far:AMLRP Toleriane Sensitive Cleanser (All areas except my nose). All of my face is oily but only get sebaceous filaments on my nose.Cetaphil Oily Skin Cleanser (Only on my nose).Paula's Choice 2% BHA (Helps keep acne and textural irregularities under control)LRP Toleriane Sensitive Fluide (Minimalistic moisturizer)TO NMF + HA (Apply everywhere except my nose)PMSimple Hydrating Cleansing Oil (Only on nose to get rid of any hardened sebum build up). Will be very few grits but you want to do it every night to prevent large accumulation over time.Rest of routine is same as AM, but I also apply Vaseline all across my face. I know what you are thinking, Vaseline on oily skin??? But using BHA 2x a day for those stubborn filaments leads to some dryness, and Vaseline really normalizes skin. I'm kind of addicted to it now lol, it feels so nice putting it on my skin as it doesn't clog my skin and can also help prevent TEWL - Transepidermal Water Loss which is another huge issue in skin care and can lead to a compromised moisture barrier and therefore acne etc.Thanks for reading my long post. Hope you got something out of it. I should get back to studying now, good luck!!
Girls Blog 2015
Submitted by ayaan902
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