Mario Badescu to the rescue!

If you’re one of those prosperous souls who doesn’t have to worry about breaking out on your back or shoulders, I envy you!  You’re very lucky and one of the fortunate few!  The rest of us mortals who experience frequent breakouts or the occasional episode of bacne are none too happy about it and struggle with getting rid of it.  Our backs are the perfect home for those buggers because of the amount of oil production that goes on and also due the lack of exfoliation it receives.  I don’t know about you, but I haven’t quite mastered the complete contortion technique it would take to properly scrub my back on my own!  It happens only when I can convince my husband to do it for me or during those blissful moments when I’m getting a professional spa scrub.

I don’t know what it is about this time of year, but it just figures that it’s time to wear tank tops and and bikini tops and my back and shoulders are a little rough and breaking out.  Go figure!  So I enlisted the help of good ol’ Mario Badescu to help out and here’s what I thought about the trio of products I used:

A.H.A. Botanical Body Soap — This stuff is fabulous!  The fruits in this body wash provide alpha hydroxy exfoliating benefits to my back and shoulders without being too harsh, resulting in less breakouts after just a few days.  It seemed to slough the rough stuff off to accelerate my skin’s new beginning.   This had less of a drying effect than a few of the salicylic acid cleansers I’ve tried in the past.  Also, it didn’t hurt that it smells like one of my favorite facial cleansers in the world– the Enzyme Cleansing Gel.

Special Cleansing Lotion “O” — This was great for those really troublesome larger pimples that were staking their claim on my back’s landscape, the ones that get really inflamed, angry, and become painful.  While this doesn’t smell like the best thing in the world (smells like alcohol), I did find it helpful in reducing redness and swelling.  This formulation is for back/chest only and should be applied with a cotton pad after cleansing.  I was amazed at how much funky stuff this removed when I looked at the cotton after!

Drying Mask — For the few that were just hanging on for dear life and would not die, I applied the Drying Mask as a spot treatment to the pimples on my shoulders that were being difficult.  This also doesn’t win the award for the best smelling product of the year, but then again that’s not really important here.  The kaolin and colloidal sulfur base were what I needed to show my bacne who’s boss!  I applied this with a cotton swab to the bumps and left it on for 20 minutes and gently removed the mask with a warm washcloth.  They dried up and went on their way within 2 days.

A few tips here from the peanut gallery that I find helpful for myself:

• Resist the urge to pick I know squeezing and popping is tempting but it’s not helpful at all.  It increases the chance of scarring and also will spread the acne bacteria.

• Try not to use grainy or rough physical exfoliators on a breakout Pimples don’t need extra help in the inflammation department so you won’t want to chance breaking them open.  It will also spread the bacteria and increase the chance of scarring and will likely increase the healing time.

• Shower after sweaty activities I know acne loves it when I’ve gone for a walk and come home a little sticky.  It’s the perfect opportunity for bacne to find a new place to live.  If you’ve worn sunscreen during an outdoor activity, you want to shower it off at the first opportunity you get as well!

• Be patient Even though it arrived overnight, it’s probably not going to go away just as quickly.  Don’t get discouraged!

• As always, consult with your physician if you have any concerns Products for acne that work for some, may not always work for others!