African Black Soap

If you read my article about Adult Acne HERE you may have noticed me singing the praises of African Black Soap, and for good reason; it's pretty much the best thing I have ever put on my face. Made by hand in Africa (I get mine from THIS eBay seller, who gets it from a fair trade woman's cooperative in upper east Ghana), African Black Soap is a traditional herbal soap made from cocoa shells, plantain skins, coconut oil, shea butter and water (no nasty chemicals - SLS etc not welcome here!). It has been used for hundreds of years and is legendary for its' abilities to treat acne, eczema, body odours, dry skin, rashes, ringworm and just about every other skin condition known to man. You can use it all over your body and even as a shampoo (I haven't tried it on my hair but apparently it's good for itchy scalps too.

I'm not going to lie... it looks pretty terrible. It's brown and lumpy and weird looking: everyone in my house calls it 'Mum's Turd Soap' and pulls faces whenever I happen to leave a piece in the soap dish with the regular soap bar. But believe me, appearances are deceptive and I am more than prepared to deal with the way it looks for the results it has given me. This stuff is amazing. In my first two weeks of using this soap, it cleared up ALL of the active acne on my face (acne which was even resisting the effects of Quinoderm, previously the only thing that even came close to curing it for me). I went from having at least 3 or 4 active spots at any given moment, to none at all. By the end of the third week, most of my stubborn blackheads that just. wouldn't. quit. despite years of trying to treat them had also vanished, and the few that remain are also decreasing. Two months later, I haven't had a single breakout. My skin is smoother, the patch of psoriasis that always tries to appear on my nose seems to have given up and gone away, and all my old blemish marks and acne scars are starting to fade too. 

The type I have is unscented: it smells a bit earthy and herbal due to the fact it's a natural product but nothing offensive or overpowering. I have seen scented versions too but can't vouch for them as I have only tried the regular kind. You can also get it pressed into solid bars or made into a liquid form in a pump topped bottle. Be careful if buying bars, especially if they are a commercial brand rather than the hand-made kind; many of them aren't 'proper' black soap at all. Instead they are a commercialised and beautified copy of the real thing and, while they look more like 'regular' soap bars they won't have the same medicated properties. Proper black soap is brown, not black (some companies add black dye to theirs), crumbly and a little soft. You can also get it with and without shea butter added; I'd recommend always getting the shea butter version as it can be a little drying otherwise (though no more than any other soap and this is easily rectified with a good moisturiser afterwards). 

What I like about this soap:

It's basically the holy grail for acne. This stuff has achieved more results for me in 3 weeks than 20 years of conventional acne treatments combined.

It's natural and gentle, has no nasty chemicals or additives

It's fair trade!

It's cheap and lasts for ages (£5 worth is about 6 months' supply for me as a daily facial soap).

What I don't like about this soap:

Let's just say it's never going to win a beauty contest :-p

If used on broken skin/active acne it can sometimes sting a little (nothing unbearable though and worth it for the fact that acne will soon be gone anyway!)

                                     

Beating Adult Acne : 7 Steps to Better Skin

Alright people, it's TMI time. (Yes, I know it's not Thursday. We'll call it TMI Friday instead, okay?)

Today I'm going to talk about Adult Acne. It's going to be a long one, but hopefully it will help some of you ladies who, like me, have been struggling to get clear skin despite no longer being in your teens.

I don't think there are many people whose faces didn't turn into dermatological pizza at least to some extent when they were teenagers, but for some people the hell doesn't stop when puberty subsides. 1 in 5 adults between the ages of 25 and 40 will suffer from acne and at least 80% of those are women. One of those women is me; I've spent the last 20 years fighting my own face (at least that's how it's felt) and quite frankly, it's been a long, expensive and emotional road. Until now. I'm glad to say that I have finally beaten my acne!!

This is how my skin looks now, sans make up.

It isn't perfect by any means. There are still blemishes, and acne scars, but it's a world away from the way it looked this time last year (pictures HERE, HERE, and HERE, hidden behind links to protect the squeamish!) and I can honestly say my skin is now the best it's looked for 20 years!












There's a ton of information about acne out there, but the trouble is, it's usually conflicting and confusing, and often just tries to sell you stuff (which is frequently nothing but snake oil anyway). Looking back at all the things I've tried, I realise that I wasted a lot of time and money on barking up the wrong tree entirely! There is a whole list of things I wish I'd known a long time ago: it would have made my struggle a lot easier and shorter! In the interests of maybe helping some of the other reluctantly spotty ladies out there, here is that list. Please note that I am NOT a dermatologist. I'm a biochemist, so I know a thing or two about science, but I wouldn't even begin to claim that I am an expert in skincare. These are just the things that I have learned help my own skin and they may or may not help you too.

1. Seek medical advice

If you have acne, the first place you should go is the doctor.  Do not be afraid that your skin is not bad enough for medical intervention, or that the doctor will laugh you out of the room. He won't. He has a whole arsenal of things that can help, as do Pharmacists (though there are some things only doctors can prescribe). While they may not be as attractively packaged or pleasantly scented as things you buy in the drugstore, the chances are they'll work a lot better and will cost you less money in the long run too. While you're showing your acne to the doctor, also have a discussion about whether or not you need to change your method of birth control. Acne is massively influenced by hormones, whether that's our own, or the artificial kind we use to stop ourselves from having babies. You can use all the acne treatments in the world but if your skin is freaking out over hormones (whether that's too much, too little, or the wrong kind), you're going to be fighting an uphill battle all the way. Often, starting, stopping, or changing the type of birth control you use, can make a huge difference to your skin. You may need to be patient and try a few things before you figure out what works best (and for me that was the progesterone implant), but believe me, it's worth persevering.

2. Keep it Simple

It is very tempting to rush out and buy every acne face wash, gel, cleansing wipe, scrub and cream you can get your hands on, and then scrub the life out of your face hoping that the spots will magically go away. Try not to do this as it can actually be counter-productive: acne products (especially those aimed at teenagers) can be very harsh and drying to the skin and it is very likely that your face will reward your efforts with twice as much acne as you had in the first place (I speak from painful experience here). Choose just one or two key things that you know definitely work, and stick to them; your skin will thank you for it.
My daily skincare routine only involves two specifically anti-acne products: Quinoderm cream (reviewed HERE), and African Black Soap, which is legendary for its ability to help treat pretty much any skin condition from acne to eczema and everything in between (I'll be reviewing this soon).

3. Keep it Moist

I make sure my skin is moisturised well at all times. It might seem like a bad idea to moisturise: people can get paranoid about greasing up their skin and think that moisturiser will cause their acne to get worse. Actually it's quite the opposite. You NEED moisture. Dry skin is unhappy skin; it will produce extra sebum to try and fix itself and extra sebum equals extra acne. The trick (which might require a bit of trial and error) is to find a moisturiser which will suit your skin, especially if you have dry areas - it's a myth that acne prone skin is automatically greasy skin, ya know. You want something that is simple and gentle, but not so rich it will block your pores. Things which say 'non comodogenic' are usually good, as they are supposedly not pore-blocking. Things which leave your face still feeling claggy over half an hour later are generally bad - ideally it should disappear into the skin within a few minutes and leave it feeling moisturised, but not greasy. My current favourite is the Superdrug Vitamin E range (again, review coming very soon!).

4. Keep it Clean

This might seem obvious, but nevertheless, I can't stress it enough: DO NOT SLEEP IN YOUR MAKE UP. I don't care how pure and wonderful the packaging claims it is. That make up has been on your face all day long, picking up germs, dust, sweat, debris, grease and dirt, and if you don't take it off before bed it's all going to sit there all night too, having a right old party in your pores, which will more than likely get blocked and infected. Nice. At the risk of sounding like a right old minger, I always used to sleep in my make up and take it off the next morning. I didn't think it made that much difference, but it really does. Now I take it off every night before bed and my skin is so much better for it. If I forget or get lazy for a few days, I soon wish I hadn't!!

5. Check Your Make Up

The day I switched from traditional liquid foundation to mineral powder foundation, my skin all but cheered. It turns out all that make up I was using to hide my acne, was actually part of the problem: I can wear as much powder as I like, but if I drift back to liquid, I get maybe two or three days grace, then dermatological Armageddon occurs. I'm not saying that powder is the holy grail, or that liquid foundation is evil; but everyone's skin is different and it's very possible that certain types of make up, ingredients or additives just don't agree with your face. (Silicones, waxes, fragrances and SPF are just a few things which tend to cause problems for acne sufferers). It's definitely worth looking at the things you put on your face and maybe trying to use different formulations for a while, to see if it helps.

6. Check Your Diet

Studies have shown that a bad diet does not automatically cause acne. However, there is evidence from both clinical trials and observational studies to suggest that diet CAN make existing acne worse. Particular culprits include dairy products, sugar, saturated fats and processed foods, so if you currently eat a lot of these, it might help to cut down. Dairy is definitely a trigger for my skin: the more I eat, the spottier I get, and my skin is definitely better when I avoid junk food!

7. Be Patient

The only thing that Acne does quickly is get worse. Whatever you try, if it doesn't seem to be doing much, give it a reasonable amount of time before giving up and trying something else: a couple of weeks if it's a cleanser, a couple of months if it's a treatment cream. If you've changed your birth control it may take even longer: it took almost a year for my skin to settle down from the enormous flare up I experienced when I started using the depo injection, though with the implant that I eventually switched to, it only took a few weeks for my skin to normalise. Go figure.

And... that's it! 7 steps to better skin. It worked for me, and I really hope it will help other people too!

Boots No7 Beautiful Skin Cleansing Brush

I do not have perfect skin by any stretch of the imagination. It's a lot better than it used to be, but I still get breakouts on a regular basis, and I am still very prone to acne and blackheads if I don't use a good facial scrub at least a couple of times a week. I've often been frustrated by scrubs which weren't... scrubby enough, if you know what I mean:  exfoliating 'grains' that are too sparse or insufficiently abrasive to make the scrub worthwhile. Not that I want to actually sandpaper my face, you understand, but I do want an exfoliator to actually exfoliate my face or what's the point? It's probably no surprise, therefore, that I've been coveting the famous Clarisonic skin brush for quite a while now. However, I just couldn't justify spending ~£150 on something just to clean my face!

About a month ago I was walking through Boots when something caught my eye: the No7 Beautiful Skin Cleansing brush.This little marvel is Boots No7's answer to the famous Clarisonic, but at a much more purse-friendly price of £25 (I got it for £15, as they were offering it at a reduced introductory price at the time, but even full price it's a fraction of what the Clarisonic costs). I wasn't expecting miracles at that price but just had to try it anyway, so it jumped into my basket and came home with me.

For your £25 you get the brush, with one head, and a set of batteries. They also sell replacement heads at £8 for two; pretty good value since I can't see the head needing to be replaced very often anyway. I've been using mine almost daily for a month now and it still looks brand new. (The batteries are still going strong, too).

The brush is a good size and has densely packed bristles; they are stiff enough to give your face a really good scrub, but soft enough that they still feel soft on your skin. Unlike the Clarisonic, which oscillates from side to side in a more obvious scrubbing motion, this brush turns continuously in one direction. I was worried this might feel abrasive on the skin, or else make it less effective at exfoliating, but I needn't have been concerned: as long as you move the brush in little circles while you're cleansing, the end result is just the same. The motor has two speeds: I have used both. I prefer the slower one for daily use (this would be the better speed for sensitive skin, too) and the fast one is great for a really, really thorough clean!

The box suggests that you should use either No7 Melting Gel Cleanser, or No7 Foaming Cleanser, however I have neither of these products and instead decided to test the brush out with a range of other cleansers to see how it fared. Over the last three weeks I have used the brush with Nivea Visage Refreshing 2 in 1 Cleanser and Toner, Nivea Visage Daily Essentials Gently Cleansing Cream Wash, African Black Soap, Garnier Skin Natuals Pure Anti-Blackhead Deep Pore Wash, and Superdrug Vitamin E Hot Cloth Cleanser. All of them have given good results, although I noticed that my skin felt a lot cleaner and more effectively exfoliated with the non creamy facial wash and the black soap than it did with the more creamy cleansers. Having said that, the brush also feels much more abrasive when used with non-creamy, foaming products, so these would be better for sensitive skin. 

 The verdict: after three weeks of using this brush, I am very, very pleased with the results. I have not been transformed into a magical goddess of skin perfection, but then again I wasn't expecting that anyway. But my skin is softer, smoother, and cleaner than it has felt in ages. My make up applies more smoothly, too, and the blemishes on my cheeks seem to be fading, along with the stubborn blackheads on my nose that just. won't. go. One major plus is that I have had a LOT fewer breakouts since using this brush, too - just one spot in the three weeks of testing, whereas normally I get at least one or two per week (the one spot I did get was right at that time of the month when most girls are pretty much guaranteed to get breakouts anyway, so I wasn't really surprised when it appeared. It's a brush, not a miracle).