Acne Smarts: the dreaded undergrounder

This week my 15 year old daughter Amanda came running to her momma for skin care advice.  She had developed a deep, painful zit on her mid-forehead and was feeling beyond frustrated.  Before coming to me, she tried to extract it, which resulted in more inflammation, redness, damage to the skin around the blemish, and morphed it into a monster zit that closely resembled a “third eye.”  Although it was Halloween, she did not want this new and enhanced feature to be a part of her costume.

After delivering my “do what I say, not what I do” lecture on not squeezing at a deep pimple, I sent her to my bathroom closet for a few of my favorite acne spot treatment remedies.

Emergency Spot Treatments for Blemishes

The main objective of a spot treatment is to decrease its duration and severity, and accelerate your skin’s ability to heal and avoid scarring.

For whiteheads, small papules and/or pustules, I would recommend a bacteria-fighting spot treatment that contains Benzoyl Peroxide.   For more deep, painful acne cysts, a soothing Sulfur-based treatment can both reduce inflammation, while killing the bacteria at the same time.

A highly recommended sulfur-based mask that can also double up as a spot treatment is DDF’s Sulfur Therapeutic Mask.

Amanda noticed some improvements within 24 hours while continually dabbing on the PCA Skin (pHaze 33) Acne Cream.  It does a nice job reducing the size of the blemish without being too harsh and drying on the skin.

And for best results – keep your hands away, you will only damage the skin more and increase the severity of the cyst!