You are not alone. As a go-to solution, most people who are acne sufferers will just go to their local pharmacy and buy medication over-the-counter, based on whatever knowledge or information that they get. It could be recommendations from family members and friends, it could be that impressive sales copy from a magazine, it could be that television ad.
However, it is highly advisable to seek consultation with a qualified doctor before you get your hands on any kind of over-the-counter products. The doctor is able to give you his professional opinion on the best and most suitable course of acne skin care treatment for your case.
You can find large numbers of acne skin care treatment products hitting the shelves regularly, and so deciding on which is the best product can be a daunting task. You may be influenced by your friends. But what worked for your friends, may not necessarily work well on you. Your friends may have different levels of complexity of the acne condition, so it is really difficult to judge. The best way is to do your own research on the active ingredients in various acne skin care treatment medications. Here, I have outlined two of the most popular ingredients in acne treatments.
Benzoyl Peroxide
This is one of the most popular active ingredients in acne treatment medications. Found in ointments and gels, the benzoyl peroxide does it's job by fighting the bacteria which causes your acne. Not only that, it will also remove dead skin cells that collect on the surface of your skin. What has it got to do with skin cell? Well, it is these dead skin cells which, when combined with sebum, create the unsightly blackheads, whiteheads, and pimples.
Benzoyl peroxide has so far been proven to be safe and effective. It can also be used as an after-care solution to keep your skin free from the bacteria that causes acne. But like all the other ingredients out there, benzoyl peroxide does have one side effect. Prolonged usage of this ingredient will lead to dry skin. However, this can be prevented by slowly decreasing the frequency of the benzoyl peroxide that is applied to your skin.
Salicylic Acid
Besides the benzoyl peroxide, salicylic acid is another popular ingredient used in acne treatment medications. What this acid does is to mainly clear up the dead skin cells which may accumulate too quickly, clogging up the pores as a result. The salicylic acid should continue to be used even after your skin is cleared of acne, to prevent any future outbreaks. Like benzoyl peroxide, the salicylic acid will cause you to have dry and irritated skin.
It is safe to say that the benzoyl peroxide is the most versatile among all the other ingredients for the battle against acne. It can be used in cleansing liquids, lotion, cream and gels which can be applied directly onto your skin. The creams and lotions can be applied onto the affected areas as and when required, while the cleansing medications are usually applied once or twice a day.
Just a word of caution : avoid getting the benzoyl peroxide into contact with your eyes, mouth or nose, as it will cause inflammation and some irritation.
Acne Scar Treatment Over The Counter
Acne has become one of the few diseases that creates a collective form of unity around the world. It does not give any care whether what country you are from, what racial preferences you have, it only strikes and affects most of the world's population. So for those people who think that they are the only ones who suffer from this form of skin disease, you're all dead wrong. More often than not, you have the same problems as most people from other parts of the world. There has been an annual form of spending millions of dollars just for finding the most efficient and most effective cure for Acne.
Even today, people are still unfortunate because there is no prescription or drug over-the-counter that has created an effective Acne cure. Overall, you can only tend to see options that can provide treatment, control or reduce the damage of Acne. Due to the infamous status of Acne, there have been some conventional medicines that are present in today's market and each and every one of these would like you to trust and believe in their product's miraculous effects. But despite these promising statements, majority of these medications shows some side effects that may even tend to worsen a person's case of Acne.
However, to justify the thought, some people use the infamous over-the-counter treatment for Acne. One of them is Benzoyl Peroxide. The astonishing truth about this product is that when it is used as prolonged as possible, the bacteria fails to become resistant to it. However, despite this product's awesome capability, it still have some faults of its own because it has the capability to cause irritation and rashes. Every consumer must be keen on starting off with lower concentrations of Benzoyl Peroxide and then move up as time goes by to higher concentrations. Some examples of medications that have Benzoyl Peroxide present in them are the following: Clear By Design Gel 2.5%, ProActiv Renewing Cleanser, Fostex 5 Cream, and Neutrogena On-the-Spot Acne Treatment. There is another product that is not as infamous and as commonly used unlike Benzoyl Peroxide, this product is called Glycolic Acid. Despite being less known than Benzoyl Peroxide, Glycolic Acid is believed to be efficacious in providing cleansing of dead skins and making the production of new skin cells stimulated. Glycolic Acid is usually found in some anti aging and acne medications. Another nice over-the-counter treatment for Acne is Salicylic Acid. The dead cells are believed to be cleansed by Salicylic Acid which also turns out to make the skin more softer.
Another option for treatment of Acne is the home treatment method. It is the most used treatment in majority of households around the world. This has been the simplest and less complicated form of Acne treatment method. Improvisation throughout the years formulated this method. Its concept is to always keep the areas that are spot-prone to be very clean. Twice a day washing of the areas that are affected using cleansers is the only method of treating it at home. It's very simple and less costly.
Both Wyatt Lee & Jim Brown are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Wyatt Lee has sinced written about articles on various topics from Skin Care, Internet Marketing and Writing. Wyatt Lee has a passion for writing, and espacially on the subject of acne treatment. Do you like the above article? For more of such articles, and more useful acne treatment tips, please visit his. Wyatt Lee's top article generates over 12100 views. Bookmark Wyatt Lee to your Favourites.
Career In Fashion Merchandising Most importantly, if this is your dream, dont give up. Keep trying and I hope to see your images on the cover of my next hot fashion magazine