I hope everyone has recovered from their New Year's celebrations! I hope everyone's skin has recovered from all of the eating, drinking and late nights of the holidays!
Everyone has at one time or another been plagued with annoying pimples and inopportune breakouts. I am sure everyone has their own solutions for treating a pimple, be it an over the counter solution or an old wives tale.
Putting toothpaste on a pimple is definitely one of those theories deep rooted in fiction!!
Please, Please, Please
DO NOT PUT TOOTHPASTE ON A PIMPLE!
This myth may have started with triclosan. Triclosan is an antibacterial ingredient often added to personal care items like soap, deodorant, and body wash. Triclosan effectively kills bacteria. It is actually a common addition in acne treatment products, although as a preservative and not an active ingredient. Also, the ingredients found in toothpaste are extremely drying when applied to the skin, hence applying it to a pimple would most likely dry it out. Well toothpaste usually always contains some form of mint or cinnamon, as well as fluoride-all extremely irritating to the skin! Nowadays, there are so many high tech toothpaste to help with skin whitening, tartar control, etc-all of these ingredients do more harm than good when applied to the skin and besides irritating your skin can possibly burn your skin!
Also, keep in mind that when you over dry your skin, your skin will go into protection mode and your sebaceous glands will go into overdrive producing more oil to make up for the oil it has lost, which will most definitely mean more pimples!!
To treat an already existing pimple and to prevent new ones, you must do so gently so as not to over dry or irritate the skin.
1. Start with a gentle cleanser such as Aquanil (my current favorite) or CeraVe(drugstore).
2. Buy an over the counter Benzol Peroxide product and spot treat your pimples.
10% should do the trick.
3. Start using a gentle Beta Hydroxy Acid (BHA) product. I'm sure you can find a good one in the drugstore but I feel Paula's Choice 2% BHA Gel is the best BHA product on the market. It is gentle enough to use every night and I would only use this at night.
Another tip is to make sure you clean your makeup brushes on a regular basis to prevent bacteria from forming on the brushes and then being transferred to your skin and causing acne. I will do a separate post on how to clean your makeup brushes.
So to recap:
GENTLE CLEANSER
BENZOL PEROXIDE
BETA HYDROXY ACID
and save the toothpaste for your beautiful pearly whites!
BIG SMILES AND CLEAR SKIN!!
