Acne

Whenever a teenage girl talks about having a pimple on her chin or forehead, I want to kick her in the taco (to quote Glee). I'm going-on thirty-two years old and I still have acne and it ain't one or two little ones. My acne is more like multiple puss-engorged, painful boils prominently featured like unicorn horns or like a hemorrhoid on my butt-chin. My breakouts are also like some kind of diaspora - the acne migrates, sometimes spending a month spread across my neck to spending a few weeks across my cheeks. Moving my face hurts.

Well, actually, that's all changing.

I began using three Neutrogena products a few weeks ago and the difference so far is actually astounding. First I wash my face in a cream-based acne wash with microbeads that moisturizes, then I wash with a gel-base that foams (which dries), then I moisturize again with a special lotion. Right now, there is no acne on my forehead or my chin, and there are only a few little tiny spots on my cheeks and some non-pussy bumps on my neck. They look more like knots than pimples. I can actually touch my face and not a) feel greasy or b) wince in pain or c) come away bleeding. The washes are also soft enough so I can use them three times a day without feeling like my face is on fire.

This was the problem with Proactive, Arbonne, Mary Kay, a special spa formula a friend who works at a spa gave me, and an old Neutrogena regimen that was split into night a day. When I was using the Arbonne, I had a customer at my job tell me that my eyebrows were bleeding. I had scratched them raw. Others asked me if I had a sunburn. Everyone told me that meant the medicine was working. You know that old commercial for aftershave where the grandfather says to his grandson, "The burn says it's working!" and then he realizes his new improved aftershave doesn't burn and THEN he realizes it never should have? Yeah.

Because I have acne scars and red spots, people (my mother especially) still try to suggest medicines. I tell them I have used antibiotic creams prescribed by dermatologists that only made my acne worse. I wish they would leave me alone. I've tried starting a routine like the one I have now for years but it kept getting interrupted by people giving me samples of what worked for them or whatever they're selling. I would tell them every time that Neutrogena works for me and is usually gentle enough so I could use it daily. They would look at my face (which of course I had only been able to use it for a limited time so it hadn't started working yet) and say I should try their products.

I understood they thought they were helping, but it often came off as incredibly rude. A little girl shopping with her mother once asked me what happened to my face. Her mother was horrified, of course, but I brushed it off as a little girl who didn't understand acne because she had never encountered it (this happened when I was walking down the street once, too). Adults who come up to me and basically say, "I noticed something is wrong with your face," is rude. It puts me in the position of either having to politely agree to test their suggestions or to politely defend myself (which makes them feel like I like being dirty - I'm obviously not interested in trying, you know?). It's frustrating and you know what? It makes me want to cry.

Anyway, hopefully those days are over.