Acne Cosmetica & How To Avoid It

By Laura Cooksey

This young woman, who already had acne prone skin, broke out terribly because her foundation and moisturizer had several pore clogging ingredients in them. We switched her to a good quality mineral makeup and put her on a home regimen designed to exfoliate her skin, keep her pores unclogged, and kill the acne bacteria. She came in for acne treatments every two weeks and she saw significant results within three weeks. The after-photo was taken after 5 treatments and she remains clear today by just doing her homecare routine twice a day. She hasn't needed a treatment for ten months.

Perhaps you have an acne problem or maybe you just break out from time to time. Regardless, when you go to the cosmetics counter and you want to buy makeup, moisturizer or anything to put on your face, you look at the label.

If the words hypo-allergenic or non-comodogenic make you feel confident that the product is good and safe for your skin, then you may very well have been duped. Many of the products that bear the label of some of the most trusted, most recognized cosmeceutical companies in the world, have ingredients that can clog pores or exacerbate skin conditions.

You may believe that you're safe with a specific product because it was a prescription from your dermatologist. Wrong. A prime example is Retin-A, originally formulated by Dr. James Fulton to combat acne. Unfortunately, the present owner of that patent is formulating the cream form of that product with isopropyl myristate, an extremely pore clogging ingredient. Several of our clients came to us with severe acne because their condition became considerably worse following their prescribed use of the cream form of Retin-A.

Isopropyl myristate is just one of dozens of ingredients used by cosmeceutical companies that clog pores and cause acne. So, if you want to take charge of your own skin care, you need to get a list of those ingredients and always check the label.

If you want to check the ingredients on the products you already have, you may have to go online to get them. Many skin care products only have the ingredients on the outside packaging; so when you throw away the box, out goes the ingredient list.