Cystic Acne Breakout – emergency kit

When facing deep cystic, nodular and inflammated acne, there are a few hero active ingredients one can rely on in order to tackle it. Below I will list some of my tips and must-haves in the emergency kit.

1# Use Benzoyl Peroxide to fight the acne bacteria

Benzoyl Peroxide (BP) is the gold standard topical ingredient to treat acne and it proved to be my most effective active to deal with deep acne breakouts.

  • Pros: Good for inflammatory type acne, anti bacterial (P.acnes), keratolytic and wound healing.
  • Cons: agressive side effects on the skin, ongoing use can cause skin damage, drying and aging, can bleach clothing.
I usually use Neutrogena Stubborn Acne 2.5% BP on a daily basis on my chin and jaw line in order to treat chronic inflammatory acne. It took a few weeks for my skin to adjust to it, but now I’m having good results, both with healing old breakouts and preventing new ones. 
 
I have BenzAkne Benzoyl Peroxide 10% BP in reserve for when everything else fails, as a last resort topical treatment. This product is very powerful, effective, as well damaging,and needs to be used with caution. 

2# Use Adapalene to fight acne scarring

Adapalene is another one of the star ingredients in my routine.

  • Pros:This form of retinoid is one of the best suited to fight acne. It helps to control the sebum and make the skin behave better, while being very effective in healing the acne scarring.
  • Cons:Should not be used in pregnancy, can be irritant and drying.

Differin Adapalene Gel 0.1% was my first strong acne treatment. I had a good initial reaction and experienced significant improvements on deep acne scars. 

When my cystic breakouts became more agressive, I added Benzoyl Peroxide to the routine and this caused major skin damage and irritation.

Currently I’m only using BP treatments and it’s working so far. 

As soon as my skin feels stable enough, I will reintroduce adapalene again and enjoy the long term benefits it provides on acne prevention and management.

3# Manage Skin Damage with Recovery Balms

I learned that while using powerful acne actives, one should also have a powerful defense shield againts their drawbacks. 

This shield is created by having a simple,fragrance free and active free routine that supports the healing and recovery of the skin.

One of my favourite must-haves when I’m dealing with strong actives is La Roche Posay Cicaplast baum B5 Repairing Balm. 

This is a powerful balm that brought my skin back to life very quickly after suffering severe skin damage and irritation.

Pros:

– The star ingredients, Panthenol and Centella, are excellent to help the healing of the skin barrier.

– Its occlusivity makes it very effective in preventing skin barrier water loss and speeds up the skin recovery. 

Cons: it’s a very heavy-duty and emolient moisturizer. If your skin has low tolerance for heavy moisturizers, use it only sparingly in the affected areas, as needed.