- Know Your BHAs (salicylic acid) From Your AHAs (all the other acids)
“I’ve had really bad closed comedones forEVER. I would attempt to extract them and damage my skin. I used BHA
for a while because cc’s=under the skin. BHA is for that, right? As it turns out, AHA works better on cc’s. I’ve been
using the 7 percent glycolic from [The Ordinary] and HOLY CRAP the purging is (slowly) happening and my face is
slowly flattening out. CC’s are/were the only thing in my way of ‘perfect’ skin.” —SUPPORTBUTNOTLUCIO
...Win Tough Skin Battles Take
fungal acne—a hot topic. It’s not
acne at all. Rather, it’s an irritation
of a hair follicle that’s caused by
an abundance of Malassezia, a naturally
occurring yeast on skin that multiplies
when we’re sweaty or the weather is humid.
If your “pimples” aren’t responding to treat-
ment, talk to your dermatologist. Or, if
you’re user ithoughtilostyou, head to ScA:
“You guys. YOU GUYS.
“At 22, I started getting milia on my
cheeks. Nothing took them down. I’ve spent
thousands on treatments, actives, and pre-
scriptions. Extracting resulted in the hard lit-
tle keratin plugs you’d expect, but over time
there were just too many. They kept coming.
At 36, devastated, extracting a few really bad
ones every single day. I was losing the battle.
“I lurked ScA last year, and hit the actives
hard. But I had a literal shield of keratin onmy face and nothing was working. After
Differin failed, I started on tretinoin .1%. Four
months later, the rest of my face looked
good but the milia remained.
“Then I came across another user asking
about whether fungal acne resulted in
‘plugs’ and thought, Let’s see. I grabbed
some Nizoral [Editor’s note: It’s an
anti-dandruff shampoo] at the grocery
store two days ago. I’ve used it twice. The
milia have receded 60 percent. I have
smooth cheeks. Tears come just typing that
out. I thought this was a life sentence.
“Thank you to the knowledgeable, car-
ing people in this sub who took the time to
answer my questions and share their expe-
riences. I can’t tell you what it means to
wake up like this after 15 years of struggling
with the pain of extractions and the
self-esteem issues that came with all of
this. This sub has literally changed my life.”Go andExpungeEvery Poreat OnceTo successfully
“grit” is a celebration
on ScA, akin to
birthing a baby.
Gritting is a Reddit-
popular technique that
involves cleansing
your face with oil,
putting on a clay face
mask, rinsing, another
oil cleanse, then
evaluating your face
and hands. If your face
is pristine, your hands
will be empty. If your
face is a minefield
of urban debris, you’ll
notice hundreds of
tiny, spongy, granular
gunk balls everywhere,
on your face and on
your fingertips. The
descriptions will
register as either
disgusting or deeply
satisfying, depending
on what kind of person
you are. (The most
evocative: “handfuls
of black dots.”)6
Yes ,
YouCan...