One of the things I love about beauty is that it brings us together – we all have something we can’t live without, we all want to be beautiful in our own individual way and most of us have a beauty bug bear or question. I received an email a little while ago from a reader who wanted to find out some information about breakouts and scarring
Question
I’m on warfarin so I bruise easily and lately I have started to break out a lot. So whatever small scar I have, it turns into a huge scar! So, in short am looking for something that will clear my scar big time!!! I used to use Garnier cleanser/scrub and that was ok-ish but the Olay was on offer so I decided to get the Regenerist Polisher and Cleanser. The cleanser made me breakout a lot, I still use the Regenerist serum as at 26 pounds I wasn’t going to let it to go to waste! Now, am confused whether to treat my skin because it bruises easily or treat my skin breaking out from using Oil of Olay Regenerist Cleanser. What to do?!
Anyone who is a regular reader of my blog will know that the subject of scarring is one of my biggest beauty bugs – so I completely understand and sympathise
First up – you need to STOP using the Olay Regenerist Cleanser - It doesn’t matter how much it cost you, if your skin is breaking out then it sounds like your skin obviously doesn’t agree with something in the product and I don’t think continuing to use it is going to do you any favours. I personally am not a fan of the whole “oh your face needs to break out if the product is working theory” to me I have enough to deal with without also needing to treat my skin following the use of such a product. So unless you are sure that the serum isn’t causing you to break out as well then I would stop using that too
Next I would say you need to treat the breakouts first before you treat the scarring – with skin of colour we have more melanin in our skin which makes our skin more reactive, so a breakout, rash etc can act as a stimulus and trigger off the production of melanin which results in a dark mark or in scientific terms post inflammatory hyper pigmentation. As you mentioned being on warfarin means you bruise easily –so it’s important to reduce the damage and scarring being caused by your breakouts. You need a skincare regime that will help to deep cleanse your skin, exfoliate to remove the dead skin cells and a good moisturiser to put moisture back in the skin.
A cleanser/exfoliator that I have used and loved is Elemis Tri-Enzyme Resurfacing Facial Wash. It stimulates the skin's natural cell renewal cycle, actively smoothing and refining, whilst gently sloughing away dead skin cells which dull the complexion. I love that it doesn’t contain SLS which I find can cause my sensitive skin to be reactive and I found that it really helped to polish and improve the texture of my skin as well as help to fade my scars. The only thing with it is that you need to use it on already pre-cleansed skin as it isn’t a cleanser as such, that you would use to take off your makeup. In the mornings I just use it immediately but at night I pre-cleanse to remove makeup etc. I would also suggest that you look into using a mask once or twice a week – combined with a steam (but don’t steam your face more than once a week).
To fade the marks I would suggest a combination of exfoliation, skin brighteners, an oil and daily use of an SPF. Exfoliating regularly helps to clear clogged pores and to polish and break down the pigment in the scar. I prefer to use non gritty exfoliators and firm favourites that I turn to are the Elemis Tri-Enzyme Resurfacing Facial Wash as mentioned previously, Origin’s Modern Friction (read a previous review here) and Demalogica’s Daily Microexfoliant which I think is fantastic for creating an even surface and an instant brightening boost – they say it can be used everyday but I tend to use it every other day otherwise I find my skin seems to get slightly oily and sensitive. Skin brightening ingredients (completely different to skin lightening) will help to suppress the excess melanin and to even out your skin tone – ingredients to look for are Vitamin C, Mulberry, Bilberry etc. At nightime I love using oils and have used Bio Oil in the past which my face seemed to love, another oil that was recommended to me recently is Cosmetics a la Carte's Rose Elixir, It was recommended by Ateh, she used it on a scar on her hand and it faded it really quickly, see the review here atehjewelbeautyinsider.blogspot Follow this up with a good SPF every day to protect your skin from the sun’s rays which can exacerbate discolorations. If you would like to give your skin a big jump start then a professional facial that focuses on exfoliating and fading scars will really help and you can work on maintaining the results at home with the right products. Finally another important thing to note is that unfortunately there is no quick fix so you have to be patient and commit to a proper routine to keep it under control. I hope this has been of some help and wish you the best of luck. Keep me posted on how it works out
P.S check out my previous post on Lumecin Overnight Treatment and Darphin Clear White, they are both products that are meant to help with scarring and brightening the skin. However I have only just started testing them out so I can’t really tell you how they have worked for me yet but check back in a few weeks for a review.
Question
I’m on warfarin so I bruise easily and lately I have started to break out a lot. So whatever small scar I have, it turns into a huge scar! So, in short am looking for something that will clear my scar big time!!! I used to use Garnier cleanser/scrub and that was ok-ish but the Olay was on offer so I decided to get the Regenerist Polisher and Cleanser. The cleanser made me breakout a lot, I still use the Regenerist serum as at 26 pounds I wasn’t going to let it to go to waste! Now, am confused whether to treat my skin because it bruises easily or treat my skin breaking out from using Oil of Olay Regenerist Cleanser. What to do?!
Anyone who is a regular reader of my blog will know that the subject of scarring is one of my biggest beauty bugs – so I completely understand and sympathise
First up – you need to STOP using the Olay Regenerist Cleanser - It doesn’t matter how much it cost you, if your skin is breaking out then it sounds like your skin obviously doesn’t agree with something in the product and I don’t think continuing to use it is going to do you any favours. I personally am not a fan of the whole “oh your face needs to break out if the product is working theory” to me I have enough to deal with without also needing to treat my skin following the use of such a product. So unless you are sure that the serum isn’t causing you to break out as well then I would stop using that too
Next I would say you need to treat the breakouts first before you treat the scarring – with skin of colour we have more melanin in our skin which makes our skin more reactive, so a breakout, rash etc can act as a stimulus and trigger off the production of melanin which results in a dark mark or in scientific terms post inflammatory hyper pigmentation. As you mentioned being on warfarin means you bruise easily –so it’s important to reduce the damage and scarring being caused by your breakouts. You need a skincare regime that will help to deep cleanse your skin, exfoliate to remove the dead skin cells and a good moisturiser to put moisture back in the skin.
A cleanser/exfoliator that I have used and loved is Elemis Tri-Enzyme Resurfacing Facial Wash. It stimulates the skin's natural cell renewal cycle, actively smoothing and refining, whilst gently sloughing away dead skin cells which dull the complexion. I love that it doesn’t contain SLS which I find can cause my sensitive skin to be reactive and I found that it really helped to polish and improve the texture of my skin as well as help to fade my scars. The only thing with it is that you need to use it on already pre-cleansed skin as it isn’t a cleanser as such, that you would use to take off your makeup. In the mornings I just use it immediately but at night I pre-cleanse to remove makeup etc. I would also suggest that you look into using a mask once or twice a week – combined with a steam (but don’t steam your face more than once a week).
To fade the marks I would suggest a combination of exfoliation, skin brighteners, an oil and daily use of an SPF. Exfoliating regularly helps to clear clogged pores and to polish and break down the pigment in the scar. I prefer to use non gritty exfoliators and firm favourites that I turn to are the Elemis Tri-Enzyme Resurfacing Facial Wash as mentioned previously, Origin’s Modern Friction (read a previous review here) and Demalogica’s Daily Microexfoliant which I think is fantastic for creating an even surface and an instant brightening boost – they say it can be used everyday but I tend to use it every other day otherwise I find my skin seems to get slightly oily and sensitive. Skin brightening ingredients (completely different to skin lightening) will help to suppress the excess melanin and to even out your skin tone – ingredients to look for are Vitamin C, Mulberry, Bilberry etc. At nightime I love using oils and have used Bio Oil in the past which my face seemed to love, another oil that was recommended to me recently is Cosmetics a la Carte's Rose Elixir, It was recommended by Ateh, she used it on a scar on her hand and it faded it really quickly, see the review here atehjewelbeautyinsider.blogspot Follow this up with a good SPF every day to protect your skin from the sun’s rays which can exacerbate discolorations. If you would like to give your skin a big jump start then a professional facial that focuses on exfoliating and fading scars will really help and you can work on maintaining the results at home with the right products. Finally another important thing to note is that unfortunately there is no quick fix so you have to be patient and commit to a proper routine to keep it under control. I hope this has been of some help and wish you the best of luck. Keep me posted on how it works out
P.S check out my previous post on Lumecin Overnight Treatment and Darphin Clear White, they are both products that are meant to help with scarring and brightening the skin. However I have only just started testing them out so I can’t really tell you how they have worked for me yet but check back in a few weeks for a review.
Xoxo
