Choose the right acne pimple treatment cream
You have likely had your share of hits and misses when it comes to acne and pimple creams. When a pimple cream doesn’t work out, it is not as easy as throwing it in the bin.
Every time you use a wrong product, your skin pays the price in the form of worsened acne, new scars and dark pimple marks.
Finding a good pimple cream involves looking not at the front label, but the back label – where the ingredient list is.
An effective pimple cream has 2 things:
absence of acne-causing ingredients + sufficient amount of acne-curing ingredients
Unfortunately, a lot of the pimple creams available in India fail on one or both these accounts. It often happens that these pimple creams contain the right acne-curing ingredients, but the makers either do not know or do not care enough to use a non-acnegenic (non-acne-causing) cream base. Result, more acne from using the cream.
There are gel options, but sometimes even their non-comedogenicity is ruined by artificial fragrance, additives, colours and acne-causing moisturizing agents. So if you have been wondering why your natural / herbal pimple cream isn’t working for you, now you know why.
Another major factor in the ineffectiveness of pimple creams is an inadequate amount of acne-curing ingredients. Sometimes traces of ingredients (tea tree oil, glycolic acid etc.) are added to pimple creams to make the ingredient list label look good to the consumer. This pixie dust amount is hardly sufficient to curb acne. It leaves you wondering why something that has all the right things isn’t working for you.
Tips on choosing the right pimple cream
- Don’t buy a pimple cream simply based on its price. Your skin might have to pay a bigger price by way of more acne, scars and marks if it is a wrong product for you.
- Don’t blindly trust organic / natural / herbal pimple creams. They often have undisclosed ingredients that are highly comedogenic.
- Don’t pick a product unless it specifies all the ingredients. This might sound too picky, but considering the ill-effects even a single bad ingredient can have on your skin, ingredient list fuss is nothing.
- Skin care products meant for sensitive skin do not always work for acne-prone skin. That is because sensitive skin does not always mean acne-prone skin. Products meant for sensitive skin often contain emollients that can aggravate acne.
- Don’t fall for a product claiming to be “for all skin types”. An acne-prone skin rarely plays well with something meant for all skin types.
image thecampbells@flickr
