Remember What You’ve Got

It’s the beginning of summer, the sun is shining, the days are longer, and I just got back from a two and a half week vacation in beautiful Norway. Sounds pretty ideal, right? Well it would be if the only souvenirs I brought back were the ones I bought, like the beautiful silver ring and a handmade Sami knife, no, I also managed to bring home a face full of blackheads! Chock it up to my plans of going carry-on only and downsizing my skin care regimen to an acne-prone face wash, some makeup removing wipes and the occasional night-time toner. My moisturizer was a tiny trial cup filled with a combination of my daily SPF and morning acne treatment, while at night I boosted it up with a PM hydrating treatment, needless to say all the planning in the world doesn’t help when you go off the rails from your tried and true treatments. In my defense I was able to get a couple of hydrating masks in thanks to some generous people who left them in the refrigerator of my Bergen Air B&B apartment.

Here I am in Norway blissfully unaware of all the blackheads in my future!

Let this be a lesson to all of you, your vacation is NOT the time to try out new product samples or attempt to go minimalist with your skin care for the first time in months! So you would think, as a newly licensed esthetician with an arsenal of skin care and beauty products at my disposal, clearing up my skin would be easy as pie. Sadly, my anxious little hands could not be stopped, and despite my better intentions and clarifying masks I got right in there and forced those puppies out without a thought towards scarring or steaming. As expected my determination won and in addition to finally getting rid of the little nasties camped out on my face I was rewarded the next morning with a big ol’ red spot of inflammation! One of the hardest learned lessons of skin care is NOT TO TOUCH YOUR FACE, (a lesson I still struggle to implement on my own) but when you are trained on how to extract blackheads and you see them, not much can stand in your way. For the next week, I have worked on healing and clearing up the spot (or as I have come to think of it-the evidence of my stubbornness), that means: Neosporin, dark spot treatments, exfoliation, heavy concealer, and lots of sunscreen. It’s clearing up pretty well and thanks to a pigmentation class I just took on Monday in LA (ironic timing, I know!) it has made me more motivated to tackle some other lingering acne scars.

The real kicker came today as I was looking through the professional product I got in Esthetician school, I found my Dermalogica Scaling Fluid and Post-Extraction Solution- exactly what I should have been using to get those stubborn blackheads out! So as tempting as it is to think you need a new mask or a stronger serum to get your skin under control, sometimes the answer is right in front of you the whole time, right in your drawer.

In honor of my own stubbornness and stupidity, and to prevent anyone else from making the same mistake, I give you, Extraction 101! The first thing that should be acknowledged here is that you really shouldn’t do this yourself, a good esthetician will do this during a facial. That means your face is in a trained and objective set of hands, who are much less likely to fixate on the ones that just won’t come out. But, if you’re like me and too impatient to wait and you know you’re going to be picking at it until it is gone anyways, you should at least do it properly. So, gather ‘round my fellow skin pickers here are the dos and don’ts of extractions...

DO:

• Wash your hands first, the number one reason you shouldn’t touch your face is because of all those little germs on your hands from goodness-knows-where are hiding all over and up under your fingernails!

• Wash and exfoliate your face first, this gets rid of all the dead skin cells and build up that causes breakouts to begin with

• Use steam, fresh out of the shower or heat up a hot compress to open up those pores

• Wrap your fingers in tissue, we use gloves too professionally but the tissues will keep your fingers and nails from imparting anything into the pores

• Tone when you’re done, this helps restore the pH of the skin and contract the pore a little after it was stretched out from all the buildup

DO NOT:

• Touch the white heads or red pimples, you know that big painful one that you feel coming days before it appears like a volcano ready to erupt- leave it alone! (More on how to treat those later!) The only ones you should extract are the open comedones (aka blackheads), these little guys have remained exposed to oxygen and oxidized leaving what looks like little brown or black dots in your pores. Because they have remained open they are the ones to extract since you don’t have to break the skin and risk disturbing the natural healing process, which by the way are way more likely to scar!

• Push towards the blackhead or use your fingernails, instead take your index fingers parallel to the spot (like train tracks) and apply pressure down and then up in a swooping motion, this should form a mound with the blackhead in the center which you can now remove with a wiggling motion. Push down, wiggle out!

• Force it, try different angles keeping your fingers parallel and STOP if you notice redness and especially if it starts to bleed, if you pass that point it will ooze, scab, and scar- trust me that takes a lot longer to heal!

• Go sunbathing or work outside directly after, load up on that SPF and stay out of direct sunlight for at least 24 hours after extracting, your pores are wide open and UV exposure can cause hyperpigmentation deep into the skin, which is just another reminder of that blackhead that is no longer there!

Lastly, whenever dealing with acne-prone skin try and identify the triggers to prevent it from reoccurring. Hats, glasses, talking on the phone, resting your face in your hand, and even your pillow case are all common breakout culprits, so be sure to clean these surfaces often. Stress and hormone imbalance can trigger some of the nastier and more stubborn breakouts; these can be harder to control as having acne is sure to be causing you some more stress anyways! Luckily, most pimples are caused excessive sebum and debris building up on your skin, so washing your face twice a day with a good foaming cleanser and hydrating toner can keep it in balance, especially if you wear makeup, make sure you get that stuff off every night! Look for any debris on that cotton ball after you cleanse and tone. If you see it this means you should double-cleanse, preferably with an oil-based cleanser first to attract the oil/sebum sitting on your face and then with a deeper foaming or exfoliating cleanser. Acne-prone skin sheds dead skin cells 6 times as fast as normal skin, so regular exfoliation and cleansing are crucial to preventing buildup. Additionally, ingredients like Salicylic Acid and Benzoyl Peroxide are great at acne-fighting as they boost cell turnover and exfoliate the skin to bring out the bad stuff. They can be found in most spot treatment gels and several clay-based masks which help draw out impurities.

All the professional product from school that I forgot I had!

Now before you run out and buy a whole new skin care regimen, stop, go look in your bathroom and check those drawers to help you remember what you’ve got! What you really need might already be sitting there just waiting to be re-discovered. (If not, Target and Ulta are there to help you out, see below for a list of my favorite cost-effective acne-fighting home-care products)

Cleanser(s): Trader Joe's Pure Jojoba oil (use as oil cleanser on dry skin), Simple Moisturizing Facial Wash http://www.target.com/p/simple-moisturizing-facial-wash-5-oz/-/A-13903834 

Exfoliant: Simple Smoothing Facial Scrub (just make sure any exfoliating beads aren’t plastic or seed-based as they can do more harm than good) http://www.target.com/p/simple-smoothing-facial-scrub-5-oz/-/A-13903512 

Toner: Neutrogena Alcohol Free Toner (not too drying, unlike everyone’s favorite Clinique one!) http://www.target.com/p/neutrogena-alcohol-free-toner/-/A-11536489

Mask: Boot’s Botanics Ionic Clay Mask: Shine Away (use once a week, goes on dark, dries light, and darkens as it absorbs the oil) http://www.target.com/p/boots-botanics-ionic-clay-mask-with-willowbark-3-3-oz/-/A-11202939

Moisturizer: Boot’s Botanics Shine Away Day Cream with SPF 15 (especially for oily skin) http://www.target.com/p/boots-botanics-shine-away-mattifying-day-cream-spf15-1-69-oz/-/A-14497559 or Simple Replenishing Rich Moisturizer at night http://www.target.com/p/simple-replenishing-rich-moisturizer-4-2-oz/-/A-13904014

Spot treatment: Elf Acne Fighting Get roller ball (it has natural Salicylic Acid from willow bark and is only $2) http://www.target.com/p/e-l-f-acne-fighting-gel-clear/-/A-16601991