This post has been sponsored by the PRIMP Network. All opinions are my own
I know I’ve talked about this before, but over the last year and a half, my skin has done a complete 360 turn on me and it’s been super frustrating, to say the least. I very rarely had to deal with acne besides the occasional little pimple, but ever since our move to Louisiana, my skin has just thrown a fit about pretty much everything. I’ve been dealing with a lot of painful, cystic acne, uneven skin tone, and texture. It’s definitely been a shot to my confidence at times and really frustrating because I haven’t been able to fix it overnight.
However, over the last 6 months, I have made some changes to the way I’ve treated my skin that has drastically reduced my adult acne. It’s still not back to where it was before, but I’m really happy with the improvements it’s made, and I contribute it largely to the following three factors:
1. Reduce the number of products in your routine
One of the biggest mistakes I first made when trying to combat my adult acne was to add more products to my skincare routine. I kept piling on serum after serum and mask after mask, sometimes using up to 10 products before bed.
I wish I could go back and say “WOAH GIRL, that’s a bit excessive! Calm the heck down!” The answer isn’t MORE skin care products. It’s actually less! I decided to cut out almost all of my products for a period of time to see if that would help my skin calm down and recover. I decided to limit my night-time skin care to a cleanser, moisturizer, spot treatment, and a gentle serum every 2-3 nights.
My day time routine was cut back even more to a more to just a pore cleanser and daytime moisturizer. That’s it.
Once a week, I would do one face mask that focused on either adding moisture or improving my skin tone.
I didn’t worry about eye cream or anti-wrinkle serums, or three different types of drying lotions for my blemishes. I just returned to the basics when it came to my skincare routine and man, did it really help. I went from having 6-10 painful cystic blemishes a week to 1-2. It was such a relief to only have to worry about treating a few painful blemishes instead of stressing out about my whole face.
2. Cut back on greasy/sugary foods
I feel like this tip is in every skin care article out there, but I NEVER took it seriously until recently. I was doing some research on foods that cause inflammation (to try to help with my joint pain) and ended up learning a lot about foods that can affect skin care. From my reading, I’ve learned that there are five main categories of food that can create an environment for acne to thrive in.
Sugar – Acne and sugar go together like Ben and J.Lo. Peanut Butter & Jelly. Harry Potter, Harmonie Granger, & Ron Weasley. Catch my drift? Acne feeds off of sugar and refined carbs because they can make your body up its oil production and clog your pores.
Dairy – Too much dairy is actually proven to be connected with causing cystic acne. Dairy is a pro-inflammatory food, which means it can worsen inflamed skin and blemishes.
Processed Foods – Processed foods like french fries, chips, and white bread, are made with a lot of oil, additives, and preservatives. This type of food can make your blood sugar levels rise, which can make your skin produce more oil and clog your pores.
Caffeine & Alcohol – I don’t drink alcohol, but I do love me a cold Barq’s root beer from time to time (actually, all the time if it wasn’t so bad for my skin.) Caffeine dehydrates you, which is bad for your skin no matter what and alcohol can be high in sugar (see food #1 on why sugar is bad for your skin.)
Deli Meats – Weird one, I know, but this popped up a lot in my research about foods that are bad for skin. Deli meats are made with a lot of salt and preservatives. Salt can cause water retention, which makes your skin look puffy and inflamed.
Now, let’s be real. It is COMPLETELY and TOTALLY unrealistic for me to think that I’m going to cut out all sugar and caffeine and dairy. I would be an absolute monster if I didn’t get my weekly serving of m&ms and ya’ll know how much I love trying fancy cheese (AKA, I buy a new fancy cheese to try at least once a week.) But, in order to see some results both in my skin and my general health, I knew I needed to cut back and be more conscious about how much I was putting into my body.
I only allow myself one soda a week (if you follow me on Instagram, you’ll know that Saturdays are for Swig n’ Sweets.) I snack on veggies and fruits 2-3 times a day and only eat one fast-food meal once a week at most. I very rarely have milk anymore. This may not seem super extreme, but compared to how much soda I used to drink and processed foods I used to eat, this is a huge improvement for me. I have seen some great results and also just feel generally better!
3. Treat blemishes with ZAPZYT
I can’t tell you how many spot treatments I’ve tried over the last year. While I’ve had decent success with some, ZAPZYT is at the top of my list in regards to results.
The ZAPTZYT Acne Treatment Gel is proven to reduce the appearance of acne within 5 hours. Yeah, you read that right. If you apply this spot treatment overnight, you will see results when you wake up in the morning. It’s that good.
On top of the amazing Acne Treatment Gel, ZAPZYT also has a great cleanser that balances out Salicylic acid (a powerful, but sometimes drying acne-fighting ingredient) with calming aloe and Brazilian botanicals. This makes this cleanser way more effective because it fights blemishes but doesn’t dry out my skin. This is super important to me because I already live in a super dry climate and need my skin to keep as much moisture as possible.
I mentioned earlier that I changed up my morning skin care routine with a pore clearing scrub, which is also by ZAPZYT. I really like the natural microbeads for exfoliation and feels like it does a great job of clearing out my pores without stripping my skin. However, I do only use this once a day AT THE MOST (sometimes every other day if I feel like my skin is losing moisture) because too much of a good thing can be bad.
I have seen huge improvements since switching over to ZAPZYT products (which are easy to get your hands on because they are carried at Walmart) and by being more mindful of what kinds of foods I’m putting in my body. But, you don’t have to just take my word for it. Check out my girl Jasmine’s (Jasmine Maria) experience with ZAPZYT products here or my friend Jenny’s (Breakfast at Lilly’s) experience here.
Do you struggle with adult acne? I’d love to hear what skin care tips and tricks you’ve found tried and true.
