Surprise! Back on tret + Other Acne Treatments for Clear Skin. :)

I took a break from tret. You can read more about my break right here if you missed out. It took 4 days for my skin to heal. Meaning that my skin wasn’t dry, red, flaky, and irritated anymore. Within 4 days, all of that subsided. Now I’m back on tret. This time, I’m not going to use it every day. My acne has improved drastically since. I just have a few minor spots on my forehead. Most likely from moisturizing. My skin can’t handle too much moisture, but it needs it since it feels and looks dry (from acne treatments). My skin would look terrible if I didn’t moisturize my skin. There’s also a little bit of acne on my cheeks (2 pimples, lol). Some blackheads on my nose. Some on my chin. So it looks like the breakouts are in my oily-prone areas, which is nearly everywhere on my face. LOL. I have no jawline acne. Thank goodness! Acne along the jawline is so annoying. I had issues with that a few years ago, but they’re gone now. With tret, I decided to use it only 1-3 times a week depending on the condition of my skin. I don’t want to dry my skin out and make it look worse. After decreasing from using it every day to a few times a week, my skin looks better. It also allows my skin to heal in-between peeling. My skin peels when I use tret. That’s how I know it’s effective on my acne. If I don’t take a break from tret, my skin becomes over-exfoliated, red, raw, and looks awfully painful. Yeah, I know. It’s only been a week, but my skin just feels so much better not using it more often. My skin just doesn’t feel so much better, it looks a lot better. Much, much clearer and less dry. The results I’m seeing is no lie, lol.

Since I’m still having issues with acne, and it seems like tret isn’t going to do all of the job, I started using benzoyl peroxide again. On my days off of tret, I apply benzoyl peroxide all over the areas where there’s acne. The first night of using benzoyl peroxide, the results were spectacular! I woke up the next morning with clearer skin! The pimples on my forehead shrunk. Blackheads on my nose vanished (this was amazing!). Chin acne looked better. WOW! It worked! So it looks like using tret and benzoyl peroxide is the way to go to maintain an acne-free complexion for me. I really don’t think I’ll ever go without benzoyl peroxide ever again. This stuff just works on my skin. It’s much better than glycolic acid and salicylic acid. I’m really happy to see how clear and clean my skin is. Benzoyl peroxide cleared out my pores so quick. But after the second night of using it, the fumes from the benzoyl peroxide irritated my eyes (dried them out!). Am I going to stop using it? Probably not. I’ll just apply the acne medication right before I go to sleep, before I close my eyes, lol. It’s really effective on my acne. My skin is finally looking good. Pores look more refined and CLEAN. SO HAPPY!! I’m feeling tempted slathering BP all over my face. It actually helped unclog some pimples too. I noticed some purging. Ahhhh! 😲 But it’s so drying right now. I don’t want to make my skin even more dry, especially when I’m using tret. Tret is still drying even though I use it a few times a week. I’m going to tread slowly and see what happens in the upcoming weeks…

Some products I stopped using and re-added…

I’m not using Paula’s Choice 2% BHA Liquid anymore. It didn’t help with the blackheads on my nose. I think it made it worse. It was just drying my skin out without fully helping my acne. I was hoping it’ll help unclog some stubborn pores underneath the surface, but it didn’t. I had really high hopes, since this BHA Liquid used to be one of my favorite skin care products. I guess it doesn’t work anymore. Maybe salicylic acid just isn’t for me. Because benzoyl peroxide is a huge game changer right now. But I did re-add Cosrx AHA BHA Clarifying Treatment Toner. It’s not doing much for my acne, but it helps with oily skin. When I was taking a break from drying acne treatments, my skin became really oily. I needed something to help decrease the oil in my skin. This toner really helped with that. The AHA and BHA is too low to have any true effect on my acne. It’s not strong enough. I still like the product for what it is. I’m able to use it twice a day without irritation or over-exfoliating. It helps with oil control. That’s better than nothing. I’ll keep it around for that!

Coming up soon. My 2 month update on tret (and I guess now BP). 😊

⭐ If you missed out on my previous experience with tret…

My experience with tret the first week…

After 1 Month on Tret + Skin Care Routine. Here are My Results.

2 Months on Tret. My results. 🙂

Taking a break from tret…

Back to tret! 1 Week Results & My Skin Care Routine. Did it work? 🤔

1 Month on Tret. My Results!

A break from Tret & What I’m Doing Now