update on skin care

To follow up on the face cleansing routine I was doing: I gave it up.

I washed with sesame seed oil for about a week but my skin was becoming too dry so I switched over to only using honey (as a mask and as a cleanser) for the second week. As I expected, I experienced more breakouts during these first two weeks, which initially consisted pretty severe cyst-like acne and then eventually cleared up a bit with only occasional white-heads remaining. The great thing about the honey is that during the second and third week I used it, it cleared up my breakouts really quickly. The bad thing was that I was still breaking out more that I had when I was using soaps and medications, even during the third week of my new routine.

Toward the end of the third week of my all-natural cleansing trial, I started using the Retin-A gel again and a few days later I re-incorporated my benzoyl peroxide gel. About a week later, I gave up the honey entirely (the mask was a little too time consuming to do every day and simply using it as a cleanser didn't seem to be doing much) and switched back to my Neutrogena face wash. The three products I'm using now are actually working really well and my face is about as clear as it's been in years. This is exactly what I was doing before I tried the oil and honey routine so I'm not sure why it's working so much better now than it was then. Maybe my diet has improved or I'm wearing makeup more infrequently. Whatever it is, it's working.