Category Archives: Acne

How to Cover Acne Video Plus Best Full Coverage Foundations

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My friend Cassel sent me this video last week (below) about a girl with severe acne who bravely takes all of her makeup off (for almost 3 million people and counting) and starts from scratch showing every step she takes to make sure her red welts are well hidden. Though my skin is temperamental at times, I don’t apply nearly as much makeup as she does (I think she has 7-ish steps!), because one good full coverage foundation should do the trick in most cases. Here are a few of my favorite full coverage foundations for when your skin just isn’t cooperating.

I never really fell in love with Armani’s Luminous Silk, their signature foundation that was all the rage a while back – I found it to be too light in weight to do any serious covering. Their new Designer Lift Foundation however, is like a delightfully thin coat of paint (I mean this in a good way) that covers the worst of it while maintaining a natural finish. The bases for most foundations are white or even black, then pigment is added in to create a skin color – but this one begins with blue pearl giving it a beautiful base to create luminosity and cancel out dullness. It’s one of the best foundations I’ve tried in a long while – worth the $65 especially when you’re serious about coverage.

Make Up For Ever HD Invisible Cover $40 is what she uses in the video to get her liquid coverage, it’s a great foundation that I’ve used it in the past for a before and after post. Its medium to full coverage and luminous finish is best followed up by their HD powder so you can enjoy the glowy look it gives the skin. Blending is your friend, use tiny dots at a time and work it in as you go around each section of the face to build up the coverage you’d like until all of your redness is gone.

Cover FX gained fame when it was rumored to be the foundation used to cover Angelina Jolie’s tattoos on a movie set years ago. Good enough for me. Their Natural FX Water Based Foundation SPF 15 $37 is the one I carry in my kit for when I need to bust out some super serious coverage on the most challenging skin. It’s oil, fragrance, and paraben free and will outlast your desire to wear makeup for the day. I’d say it gives the most coverage of the bunch and it’s especially formulated to cover acne, eczema, rosacea without adding additional irritation or causing breakouts.

Check out the video below, click HERE to see the video if you’ve received this post in an email.

 

Hydrating Serums for All Skin Types

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For all skin types and those who favor natural brands:

Firming Flax Serum from New Zealand’s natural line Living Nature is wildly popular because it suits all skin types beautifully. It locks in the skin’s moisture helping dry skin to retain hydration, oily skin to keep balanced, and troubled skin to clear up with its mild astringent properties. It’s oil free, mostly organic, and so light in weight that it just melts into the skin.

For oily, slightly dry, or acne-prone skin:

Aloe-based Moisture Intensifier Serum from Lexli is a light, soothing serum that adds moisture to compromised skin. It’s especially good for those who use acne treatments and have some dryness as a result. You can also use it for your daily moisturizer if you’re afraid to use a heavier lotion or cream.

For dry or sensitive skin:

If this dry weather has your skin looking dull and lifeless, you’ll love Hyaluronic Concentrate from Sanitas. It pumps your skin full of moisture by providing a deep down boost of hydration giving your skin a more youthful appearance and your moisturizer a great head start.

Own Breakout Control

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Look out Proactiv, Own Natural Skincare is getting a lot of great buzz around their Breakout Control acne treatment that has the broken-out masses making a change a more natural side of skin healing. Own’s nature meets science approach uses stuff like Neem, Bitter Mellon, and Canadian Willow Bark and engineers them to be more available to the skin’s sensitive needs to banish breakouts while locking in hydration. It’s why you won’t experience that peeling and irritation that typically comes along with using skincare meant for troubled skin.

I’ve been really impressed by Own. It’s unlike any acne treatment I’ve tried – it gives that deep down cleansed feeling and clears up breakouts quickly but without any sort of harshness at all. It’s a winner for those who like to stay on the natural side of things, teens whose young skin can’t tolerate chemical-based skincare, and for pregnant women who are struggling with what to use for their broken out skin when traditional treatments are pretty much off limits.

Own Breakout Control

Skincare for the Hot Summer Months

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When it’s hot, sticky, and humid, slathering on heavy creams is the last thing you want to do. Here are a few things you can use to get skin that’s clear and cool when the temperature rises.

Gel Cleanser: IMAN Time Control Liquid Assets Oil-Free Gel Cleanser $14

Start with a queaky clean surface right outta the gates. Using a gel cleanser instead of a cream will leave your skin feeling fresh and fully cleansed,  Iman’s gel cleanser foams up big, smells great, and even washes away makeup.

Light Weight Acne Treatments: Intraceuticals Clarity Treatment Gel $89

Heavy acne treatment creams can clump under makeup, especially when layered with sunscreens. I love the lightweight Clarity Gel from Intraceuticals. It’s an advanced formulation that calms redness and inflammation while creating an environment on the skin that’s free of bacteria and irritation. It’s a unique way to fight acne without causing the usual peeling and redness that can make skin look even worse.

Facial Masks to Dig Out Oil: Erno Laszlo Beta Mask $50

Beta Mask is my go-to when my skin starts acting up. It’s so refreshing and cool on my skin, it’s like an instant facial with results that rival a true spa treatment. It isn’t the kind of mask that you need to scrub off either, it’s easily removed with warm water. Use it weekly to rid skin of dirt and oil from sweating and being outdoors.

Back Spray: Glytone Back Spray $28

Running, yoga, and hot summer activities that leave you sweaty can lead to a back breakout – the worst kind mostly because you can’t see what’s going on. Glytone’s Back Spray really works, just spray it post-shower or pre-activity to prevent ‘bacne.’

Body Mud: Borghese Fango Brightening Mud Mask $64

I had a gift certificate to a spa once so I did this body wrap thing which was basically a body mask with hot towels wrapped around me. It was cool, but not $200 cool. I can do the same thing at home using a body mud like Borghese, the experts in at-home spa treatments. Their Brightening Mud Mask is the one I like, it deep cleans skin so well that you can see an difference in the clarity and texture of your skin right away. Perfect to slough away dullness for the time of year when you’re showing a little more skin.

Professional Skin Care From the L.A. Experts

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What would 2 L.A. based plastic surgeons and a facialist know about skin? A lot actually. Keeping celebs camera-ready in the age of HD and paparazzi (where grocery shopping can turn into an impromptu photo shoot) is the cornerstone of their businesses, so formulating their own lines to get the exact results their clients need is a natural next step for their successful clinics. Here are 3 I’ve tried recently that give celebrity-worthy results to us little people.

Of the few things I sampled from the Kate Somerville line, I was most impressed by her Anti Aging and Acne collection, a totally underrepresented category of skin care. It’s for those who are still experiencing slight to moderate breakouts in their 30′s and beyond where drying the hell out of your face to banish acne isn’t the best option for a youthful skin texture. Her Oil Free Moisturizer balances skin hydration levels carefully so as not to exacerbate oiliness or breakouts and also uses Pepha-Tight, an exclusive skin toner and tightener for a firmer looking face.

Kate Somerville Oil Free Moisturizer

Also worth checking out is her Anti Bac Clearing Lotion, a 5% prescription strength, time-released Benzoyl Peroxide that’s strong enough to wipe out acne but gentle enough to  protect skin from the typically drying and peeling effects some acne fighters cause.

Kate Somerville Anti Bac Clearing Lotion

Dr. Solieman is a double board certified plastic surgeon who developed Jolie MD Metamorphosis to refine lined, blemish-prone, hyper-pigmented, and oily skin into a clearer, more vibrant version of itself. His two step system uses an arsenal of proven ingredients that helps overall skin clarity like Glycolic, Salicylic, Vitamin A, and Whitonyl to name a few. The two light lotions are layered together nightly for a deep down exfoliation revealing the clearer skin you’ve been hiding all this time.

Dr. Garth Fisher is known for his appearances on ‘Extreme Makeover’ as well as the guy who fixed Bruce Jenner’s earlier too-tight face work. Even Kim Kardashian raves about his line, CellCeuticals and says her whole family has been using it since they’ve met him. Extreme Defense is a best-seller because it’s a good-for-all skin protector that targets daily environmental pollutants known to advance skin aging. He uses Vitamins A, C, E, Green Tea, and Vitamin B5 along with Almond and Avocado oils to soften the skin without a heavy cream. His line is straightforward and so effective that he touts visible results in just 2 weeks.

Review: Personal MicroDerm

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I was sent a Personal Microderm kit just a few days before Christmas and was so excited that I used it seconds after I tore it open. I love the results Microdermabrasion can bring and since I’ve been breaking out more than usual lately, a little skin refinement was just what I needed. Instead of reading the instructions which would have encouraged me to use the least abrasive disk for my first use and only make one pass along the skin, I grabbed the coarsest disk (the red ones, luckily not included in the typical starter kit) and went back and forth over and over until my skin was rubbed away. This wasn’t one of my best ideas I’ve had (though probably not among my worst.) I’m surprised my family could eat Christmas dinner sitting across from my wounded, scratched up, ointment-coated face. Oddly, my first reaction was ‘I love this thing.’

So why do I love it? Because it works that well. Incredibly well. Professionally well.

Had I actually read the instructions (or watched the video) I would’ve learned that this thing delivers an unexpectedly professional result that’s to be taken seriously. It does include disks for your first few stages of use to help your skin tolerate the treatments without any irritation so you can build up to more aggressive treatments that break down and sweep away that sluggish top layer of dead skin. After just a few treatments your moisturizer and serums will start penetrate more deeply (so they’ll work better), and your fine lines, brown spots, and acne scaring will fade. You’ll also have a softness and glow to your skin that’s visible.

The kit runs $170 and will pay for itself in just a few uses, typical microderm sessions usually run about $100-$150 a pop. I’m sensing this isn’t one of those things that I’ll be into for a little while then let it collect dust, it’s a treatment I know I’ll use over and over – especially now that I actually understand how to use it while keeping the skin on my face in tact.

Personal MicroDerm