My acne story

I don't have any personal pictures of the products I used, but I was writing a review for one of the products that I used in the past to fight my acne and released that I was going extremely in depth for a product review!

Background story: Growing up I was never into makeup. I was more of a tomboy, and didn't have the disposable income to buy any makeup at all. Therefore my skincare routine was simple. Wake up in the morning, wash face with water, done. 

But even then I still had big pores and blackheads (which I still have to this day),  but I had little to no acne. 

It was only after I started getting into makeup that my skin reacted quite badly, and in particular I blame it on the spectro jel moisturizer for combo oily skin. Spectro Jel is a cleanser only available in Canada (or so I've heard) and it's similar to Cetaphil, except that it's more a gel consistency. I bought the cleanser and it came with a free full size bottle of the moisturizer for $11 at the superstore. 

For me, when I do exfoliating masks, I like washing it off with a simple cleanser. At the time I only had spectro jel and it worked wonders for washing my face day, night, and when I was using exfoliating masks. 

After seeing the results of the cleanser, I decided to try the moisturizer. First off it smells SO bad. I'm used to strong herbal and weird Chinese herb smells, but this one caught me completely off guard and it almost made me puke! But I figured maybe it was better for my skin that way, the next day I woke up and my skin felt fairly nice. I figured wow what a good moisturizer! So I kept using it...

A couple of days later my cheek became bumpy, it spread to my jaw and my whole face was just completely breaking out.

Seeing that I had never had a really bad experience with acne, I treated it the same way I did. I picked and picked at my skin till I was left with MANY scars. Even then I was still breaking out like CRAZY!

Months and months went by and I ended up wearing a light layer of foundation and concealer to school because I couldn't find a way to stop my acne!

The solution: Thankfully for me, there were many youtube gurus out there spilling their experience on their battle with acne. I had considered going on proactiv, but once again the fact that I had to go to a store or order online made me extremely lazy. 

I watched quite a number of acne videos, but only one caught my eye - gossmakeupartist, his video about his acne cure really convinced me to go out and buy some benzoyl peroxide. BUT after going to several stores and seeing the insane prices for the amount of product you get, I held off on it for a while and I am so glad I did.

I was cleaning around the house one afternoon and saw Panoxyl Antibaterial Acne Aquagel 5% lying around. It was pretty much full, and I figured why the hell not! And decided to try it. 

HALLELUJAH. 

My skin care routine changed dramatically, I applied it every night all over my cheek and jaw area (where I was breaking out the most, and it was what goss said he did), slept, woke up in the morning and washed it off with cetaphil and a little scrubby (similar to the ones you get with loreal face washes) and my skin felt smoother, and my acne slowly disappeared.

After using this consecutively for a month, I realized that my skin was becoming extremely sensitive to everything and I needed to step away from this product. So I began using it once a week, and the rest of the nights I used a exfoliator and vitamin e cream to moisturize. I did this routine for a couple of months now and I am glad to announce that I am ACNE FREE.

With the exception of a few break out spots, my cheek and jaw area has never felt this smooth for at least a year now, and it feels even better than before I started wearing makeup!

I am extremely glad that my sister left this product lying around, I later found out that it didn't work on her skin at all! However halfway through my routine I felt bad for using up most of her product (I finished half the tube in the time I used it), and I went to buy the same product except for oily combo skin, which is exactly my skin type. But after using that for a while, I found it was ineffective and did nothing for my skin, so I switched back to using the aquagel version. 

Now all I have left is to clear up my acne scars and work on my pore and blackheads! I'm considering investing in a mia because my pores&blackheads have been a pain in the ass ever since I was 12!

But I have yet to bite the bullet and order them, so i'm going to more research/wait until I have more money.

Thank you all for reading!!