Zit update
'tis the season to be spotty, fa la la la la, la la, la, laaaa
You’re never too old for zits, as I endlessly prove. Mine come and go and they may or may not be linked to hormones or periods. I just can’t be bothered to pay close enough attention to work out any sort of link.
Most of the time, my skin is alright, thanks to the superior range of skin products, Decree. But Decree is so expensive that I tend to eke it out and use sparingly. And if you take the piss like this the spots - like caged leopards - find a weakness in your defence and attack without mercy.
Winter is also to blame, it brings out the spots in us all. I don’t know what it is. Dehydration, probably - that’s what all skincare people blame everything on. But perhaps also the reduced sunlight, spitty scarves, too much sugar, the Pret Christmas lunch sandwich applied directly to the face and so on.
So I have decided that we need a re-cap on products that can help with a breakout. I am very annoyed that Sarah Jossel ran a feature on this in Style this weekend because now it looks like I am copying her but I AM NOT.
1 If you are at a stage where you are happy to simply throw money at a problem, do investigate Decree. If you only get two things, get the Deep Cleanse and the AM/PM moisturiser. When you are having a bad skin moment, use mindfully twice a day.
2 Ice. I have rediscovered the effectiveness of icing very large, pulsating, under-the-skin horrors. This week I had one on my chin and rather than wrapping a dripping ice cube in a tea towel, I deployed my rose quartz face roller, which I keep in the freezer. I rolled it on the zit for as long as I could bear, probably two minutes. I really felt like I might be doing my skin or face some lasting damage by doing this - frostbite? - but I can confidently say I did not. Icing zits is not a madly pleasant process, but it does seem to kill the thing stone dead if done with determination.
3 If you’re really angry with a throbber, you can also track down Zit Killa stickers. These also work, you apply them overnight and the micro needles inject zit-killing unguent directly into the bastard. My objection to these is that they are single-use and not cheap.
4 Zit healing stickers. If you have tearfully hassled a zit so much that your face now resembles Culloden, you need these little things, which will literally suck all the bad joo-joo, lymph and anything else out of the mangled pore, vastly speeding up healing time. They also shield the wound from your grimy fingers, stop you picking at it and will provide a smooth, silicon surface over which you can put some make-up if you feel like it. Not completely invisible, but better than the alternative. Yes, single use but I’m afraid too good to be without.
5 Clinisept. I have the beauty journalist Madeleine Spencer and the dermatologist Pamela Marshall from Mortar and Milk to thank for this absolutely brilliant recommendation. If you have one zit or a nasty rash of them, add a spritz of Clinisept to your face-wash routine. Cleanse, spritz the Clinisept all over or apply to a single area with a clean cotton ball and then leave to air-dry before adding moisturiser. Clinisept is, I think, formulated to deal with post-surgical wounds but has this added excellent bonus. A bit like how Lansinoh is nipple cream but also a genuinely magic healing cream, excellent for chapped lips or that raw under-the-nose bit you get when you’ve got a cold.
How are your zits right now? And what is in your zit-prevention arsenal? Please leave a comment for the group in the handy box below.
So funny. I never think of ice. I had terrible post-viral skin last year, dry, grey, spots etc. Then I developed eczema on my eyelids, as though it had really THOUGHT about where the most painful and aesthetically annoying place to plonk itself would be. You did a bit on skincare on here, going into what ingredients actually might make a difference to your skin other than water/sleep/being a great person and you mentioned Vitamin C. (I’m sorry if this is actually quackery and I’ve placebo’d myself good and proper and falsely attributed it to you; or: thank you) Being the literalist that I am and knowing nothing about these things, I picked up a reassuringly orange coloured box called Superfacialist (sounds good, right? Super for your face!) Vitamin C night cream, it smells strongly but wonderfully of tangerines if fragrance bothers you, but I quite like it, it feels rather like smooshing a child’s gummy vitamin directly into your face. And one day when my kids are grown they’ll be peeling a satsuma at the kitchen table and have a Proustian dash back to the memory of me kissing them goodnight. Or they’ll at least remember to take their vitamins. Anyway, no more eczema, no more spots. I didn’t take it when I went away to Center Parcs recently, because only room for one moisturiser next to my sense of impending doom, and back to nature innit, and the eczema and spots came back with a vengeance. I mean probably it was all the chlorine and relentlessness but it was back to normal after a night or two of using the cream again, so now I’m happily worrying about the possibility of its being discontinued.
Have you tried Skin + Me? This has been life-changing for me. You send in pictures and description of your skin and they send you a cream monthly to apply before bed. They now do cleanser and moisturiser too. I’ve gone from monthly pulsating lumps on my chin to zero spots. Highly recommend!