My Acne Journey: 5.5 Months Results!

My results for 5.5 Months is here! Wow, I’m moving on to 6 months soon. 😲

I tried my best to use tret every day this week. I skipped 2 days to rest because I ran out of my hydrating tinted mineral sunscreen. I didn’t realize this product was doing all of the heavy lifting when it comes to moisturizing my skin. I ran out of the product and noticed that my skin was more dull and more dry. Who knew. Gotta make sure I never run out of it! Especially when I don’t have a nighttime moisturizer. I still can’t find one. Lol, I’m not even trying to find one anymore. I don’t want to spend my money on something that I don’t need or won’t work out. It might ruin my skin again. So what else happened this week? I started using bha again. I noticed my blackheads coming back. Also, sebaceous filaments were getting worse. Once I added bha back into my routine, I noticed a purge. Geez, not this again. But, I’m going to keep using bha. Trying to stick to 1-2 times a week and see what happens. Hopefully my skin doesn’t dry out from it.

My current facial cleanser is Olay Regenerist Hyaluronic + Peptide 24 Revitalizing Facial Cleanser. It worked well when I was using a moisturizer. Since I don’t have a moisturizer anymore, it’s drying out my skin a little bit. It could be the change in weather plus this facial cleanser. All I know is that it’s not as moisturizing anymore. It is gentle on the skin, but it feels like it’s stripping my skin. Not as bad as many other cleansers I have tried. I think I need new facial cleanser after finishing this one. I think I need a new one anyways since I don’t want to pay for a face wash monthly, lol. So what cleanser should I try next?? This is a difficult decision…

When I ran out of my CeraVe Hydrating Mineral Face Sheer Tint, I found Skinfood Mushroom Multi Care BB Cream SPF 20 PA+ in my product bag. I needed a product to replace CeraVe for a short period of time (2 days) before getting my hands on a new bottle of CeraVe. Fortunately, this bb cream has not expired. It doesn’t expire until next year (later on the year next year). So I used it. My experience with this bb cream again was horrid. At first I sort of liked it. The bb cream felt soft and was super concentrated. I loved using it around my eyes for some reason because it’s so soothing and blends into the skin around the eyes nicely. I liked the way it felt on my skin. But, the bb cream was drying and made my skin look like plastic. It was wax-like. It felt heavy on the skin. I didn’t like the way it felt on my skin at all. It was kind of gross. Even though it has arbutin in it, it didn’t do anything to brighten my complexion. It made my skin appear duller. Haha, the sun protection is laughable too. It’s only SPF 20 PA+. I wonder why I even liked this bb cream in the past. It used to be good, I guess. This bb cream does have fragrance. It’s nauseating. I’m glad I didn’t have to use this product for more than 2 days. After I picked up another bottle of CeraVe, I stopped using it on my face. I’ll finish the rest up as a concealer to use it up. Every drop cannot go to waste!

That’s my 5.5 Months update! 🙂

Catch up on my acne journey right here:

My Acne Journey: 1 Week In…

My Acne Journey: 2 WEEKS!! 

My Acne Journey: 3 Weeks Results!

My Acne Journey: 4 Weeks Results!

My Acne Journey: 5 WEEKS IN!

My Acne Journey: 6 Weeks Results…

My Acne Journey: 7 Weeks Results

My Acne Journey: 2 MONTHS!! 

My Acne Journey: 2 Months + 1 Week Results!

My Acne Journey: 2 Months + 2 Weeks!

My Acne Journey: 2 Months + 3 Weeks Results!

My Acne Journey: 3 MONTHS!! 😃

My Acne Journey: 3 Months + 1 Week Results

My Acne Journey: 3 Months + 2 Weeks Results

My Acne Journey: 3 Months + 3 Week Results

My Acne Journey: 4 MONTHS!!

My Acne Journey: 4 Months + 1 Week Results.

My Acne Journey: 4.5 Months + Clear Skin!!

My Acne Journey: 4 Months + 3 Weeks! What I’m Doing to Maintain My Clear Skin. 🙂

My Acne Journey: 5 MONTHS!!

My Acne Journey: 5 Months + 1 Week Results

My Acne Journey: 4 Weeks Results!

It’s been quite a journey! I honestly can’t believe it’s the 4th week! Time just flew by! After 3 weeks, my skin is nearly clear! I’m only dealing with some odd pimples here there. Nothing major like cystic acne. Now I’m just battling tiny pimples, blackheads/sebaceous filaments, acne marks, and this darn oily skin! My skin looks pretty soft and smooth overall! Everything is going well so far! Just need to kick some of the other issues out of the way or at least keep them at bay! After 4 weeks, I’ve made more changes! Here are my thoughts and my experience!

My 4th Week Experience

The 4th week was a breeze since I’ve decreased my use of tret. I didn’t experience red, irritating, burning skin this week. All went pretty well. I said I was going to use tret 2-3 times a week, but it turns out that I could use it every other day. My moisture barrier is healthy. It’s not burning or red. It looks really good! So! Tret has helped my acne by a ton, but I decided to add a couple of exfoliants in my routine. They are The Ordinary Lactic Acid 10% + HA and a glycolic acid product. I haven’t talked much about this glycolic acid product, but I will soon.

I chose The Ordinary Lactic Acid 10% + HA because lactic acid is one of my favorite alpha hydroxy acids. It’s gentle and has worked for me before in the past. I once had a lactic acid serum that was super elegant in texture and delivered results. Too bad it’s been discontinued. 😔 Since I’m using other The Ordinary skin care products that are working on my skin, I thought I would try The Ordinary’s lactic acid product (again, lol) too. I planned on using it 2 times a week, but my skin is tolerating it much better than I thought! What I’m doing is using it every other day along with tret. Now more on this lactic acid product that I’m speaking of!

Here’s my experience using The Ordinary Lactic Acid 10% + HA!

I didn’t know I wasn’t going to start using a lactic acid product. It just popped up out of the blue that I wanted to add one in. It’s because I’m not using tret every single day anymore, and my skin felt, looked really oily on the days off. My skin started to get clogged during those days off due to the amount of moisturizers I use plus how oily my skin is. I had to do something about it. With the lactic acid serum, I don’t apply it directly to my skin. Just not yet. I apply it after I apply my heaviest moisturizer. I know that’s sort of weird, but the lactic acid serum does a great job at absorbing excess oil from my skin and tames the shininess from the moisturizer I’m using. This also helps to prevent any skin irritation and breakouts from the excess oil. Amazingly this worked! I woke up the next morning with skin peeling off of my face in my acne-prone areas. I also had some new blemishes due to the exfoliation, but it’s doing exactly what tret does! I didn’t get any breakouts from the product itself either! Awesome!

The other product I’m using is RoC Retinol Correxion Deep Wrinkle Night Cream.

This product contains retinol, zinc gluconate, copper gluconate, shea butter, glycolic acid, ascorbic acid, and a bunch of other anti-aging ingredients. I’m only using this product 1-2 times a week. I tried using it separately from the lactic acid, but it didn’t yield good results. The product feels a little heavy on the skin and makes my skin appear oily. It’s a bit too moisturizing when applied to the skin on my particular skin type. It’s a little too much on my skin that’s all. That’s when I decided to use it in combination with lactic acid. Lactic acid is already gentle. My skin didn’t dry out from layering these two products together. I’m getting the benefits from the RoC Retinol Correxion Deep Wrinkle Night Cream and getting the exfoliation from the lactic acid at the same time. RoC Retinol Correxion Deep Wrinkle Night Cream helps to soften the skin. It exfoliates (sort of, haha) and makes my skin appear softer and smoother the next day. Honestly, I feel that it’s more moisturizing than exfoliating.

How about tret?

I’m still using it. Just not every single day (as I mentioned earlier). I don’t need to use it every day. I feel like using it every day doesn’t give me the results I like. It dries my skin out, leaves my skin feeling like it’s burning, and my skin feels and looks like it thins out when used too often. I prefer it when my skin appears more fuller and healthy rather than thin and gaunt. It’s really difficult to explain but more of tret doesn’t mean better or faster results. I’m just going to take tret for what it is right now. Maybe that’ll change in the next couple of weeks! But I’m really happy that I started to incorporate other products into my routine, especially lactic acid. It has done wonders for my skin in combination with tret within a single week. I could even say it’s helping a lot more with my acne than tret at the moment. My skin looks clearer and smoother after a day of using it! I’m really happy with the results so far! I can’t wait to see how much my skin will transform after the 5th week! SO EXCITED!! 🥳

Coming up! Week 5! 😃

If you missed out on my new acne/tret experience…

My Acne Journey: 1 Week In…

My Acne Journey: 2 WEEKS!! 🙌🏻

My Acne Journey: 3 Weeks Results!

My Acne Journey: 3 Weeks Results!

It’s been 3 weeks on this acne journey! Remember to catch up on WEEK 1 and WEEK 2 if you haven’t yet! Now here’s my experience during the 3rd week!

What’s going on?? My results after 3 weeks!!

During the 3rd week, I had to change things up again. Using the sandwich method wasn’t yielding results like it did before. I started noticing some new breakouts (not from the medication unclogging my pores). They were new breakouts, since it seemed like tret stopped working due to having too much moisture in my skin or using too many moisturizers. My skin did appear more oily than usual too. *sigh* All of that moisture I needed to protect my skin from irritation, such as redness, dryness, stinging, and tons of peeling. Tret just wasn’t as strong compared to applying it directly to the skin anymore. I went on and started applying tret directly on my skin. This was my experience doing this…

It worked! The acne I developed disappeared. My skin peeled once again. My skin looked smoother and brighter. I loved the results, but it came along with other skin problems, such as dryness, irritation, redness, burning. I tried buffering the next day after a night of using tret directly on my skin. That went OK. I did that for two days but decided not to anymore. Using tret (buffered) wasn’t making any changes in my skin. I needed to use tret directly (unbuffered) on my skin to see results. SO! I went the rest of the week not using tret. I didn’t think I needed it. My skin was peeling, and I wanted my skin to heal. I also got really tired of having dead skin peeling/falling off of my face when talking to people. It was just embarrassing. The dryness made my skin look more aged too even when I’m moisturizing my skin a ton!

After giving my skin a break, my skin peeled and flakes disappeared. My skin actually looks healthy again. It’s so soft and smooth. I still have some problem areas, but my overall complexion looks pretty good. Much better than I expected (this time around of using tret). I also noticed that some of the clogged pores are unclogging while I just moisturize at night (skipping tret). Hmmm! Since this is working for me, I think I’m going to only use tret 2-3 times a week. Maybe just 2 times a week. I don’t think I need to peel my skin any more than that. My main goal isn’t anti-aging. It’ll be nice if it works for that too. But my goal is actually to maintain a clear complexion. I’m using tret mainly for my acne. So far, after 3 weeks, so good!

Since I’m applying tret directly to my skin 2-3 times a week now, this is what I’m doing.

👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻

Moisturize a ton! 💦

Remember the skin care products I discontinued? If not, here they are again…

Skin Care Products I Stopped Using

Continued: Skin Care Products I Stopped Using

My Review on Coxir Ultra Hyaluronic Acid Cleansing Oil + More Skin Care Products I Stopped Using!

I started applying them to my neck area and along my jawline, which are the areas that are prone to irritation from tret. Tret seems to migrate down to my neck area and cause major irritation, since that area of my skin tend to be more sensitive. Take note, I don’t even apply tret on those areas either. As I mentioned, tret just migrates down. To solve this issue, I heavily apply moisturizers to my neck and jawline first before I apply tret. I make sure I cover those areas evenly and thoroughly. Irritation from tret is so annoying. I can’t stand the itchiness. It’s possibly one of the worst feelings when it comes to using tret. I can deal with some sensitivity but when my skin gets super itchy and develops a rash…it’s annoying. I have to baby those areas a lot more to prevent myself from scratching them. I have to keep my nails short too to prevent scratching/itching my skin at night.

Other moisturizers that I picked up on using are…

Horse oil (it’s back! lol) and shea butter. Sometimes I use horse oil on my face, especially when my face is more sensitive than usual. I don’t use shea butter on my face but my neck area. It helps to seal in moisture and heal the skin. I don’t use horse oil that often. It’s oily (of course) and greasy. It’s a once a week type of thing. Any more than that, I’ll most likely breakout in acne. CeraVe Moisturizing Cream has helped too. I use the cream on my neck to prevent my skin from drying out and itchiness. Honestly, I just apply whatever moisturizers I have, lol. Anything and everything that moisturizes works. It’s a good thing that I know that I’m not wasting them but using them for something good!

There are other areas of my face I have to worry about too, such as my eye area and ears. Those are also sensitive areas of the face. I make sure I moisturize those sections of my face before applying tret as well.

That’s a wrap up for my 3 weeks experience and results! I hope this was helpful! Stay tuned for my 4 WEEKS experience! Coming up soon!

*If you missed out on the first two weeks, here they are once again!*

My Acne Journey: 1 Week In…

My Acne Journey: 2 WEEKS!! 🙌🏻

My Acne Journey: 2 WEEKS!! 🙌🏻

It’s been 2 weeks of using tret to treat my acne. My skin did very well the first week. More than I expected. Go here to read more about it: My Acne Journey: 1 Week In…

Here’s my experience for the second week!

The second week went pretty well. I had to switch up the way I used tret. I decided to push through the process as I mentioned in Week 1. That’s what I did this week. I just pushed through it. How I managed to do it was sandwiching tret when my skin feels more vulnerable and sensitive than usual. This means that I would apply my moisturizers first. After that, apply tret. Lastly, apply my moisturizers. This actually worked. I woke up the next morning with better looking skin. My skin also had a chance to heal without stopping my use of tret. It’s weird, but it worked out fine. I was able to continue to use tret without major issues. I was going to do this method a few times a week only, but it turns out that my skin gets dry and the flakes tend to get stuck on my skin (more difficult to remove too) when I apply tret directly to my skin. I couldn’t put up with that on a daily basis. It irritates my skin and makes my skin look more awful. So, after noticing positive results from sandwiching tret, I continued to move forward with the sandwich method. My skin doesn’t feel too dry. My skin isn’t hurting. I’m still flaking, but the dead skin comes off much easier. I like what I’m seeing. 🙂 I did get some new breakouts this week but nothing major. No cystic acne. Just little, small bumps that disappeared as the days went on. I left most of them alone besides a few. I treated the others that bothered me with benzoyl peroxide. They healed right up the next morning. But, I have to be careful with this because I noticed that using benzoyl peroxide leaves a mark behind on my skin. More on this later. So there’s that! There are other things I changed too. I stopped using some products, started using some products. Yeah, obviously. hah. I tend to switch up my skin care often to make my skin happy. I (my skin) can’t seem to make up its mind either! But, it is what it is!

What products am I using??

I started using products that I gave up on my skin for a few days, but I hated them so much. Here are the products I’m talking about!

Skin Care Products I Stopped Using

Continued: Skin Care Products I Stopped Using

My Review on Coxir Ultra Hyaluronic Acid Cleansing Oil + More Skin Care Products I Stopped Using!

It was just too much for my skin. It helped heal my skin, but it was just too heavy. I also tried using oils again (rosehip oil, squalane, horse oil). I ended up with a few pimples from using the oils. I applied some benzoyl peroxide on those spots. Amazingly those pimples disappeared the next morning! Since I developed breakouts from using oils, I stopped using them. My skin went back to normal. No new zits. So! I stopped using these products because I don’t care for them anymore. I feel like they’re too excessive. They didn’t do much for my skin. I’m really just trying to use them up. Ugh! There’s just so many of them. If I wasn’t too impulsive when it comes to buying skin care, this wouldn’t be happening, haha. Out of the bunch, the only product that I liked was the Purito Galacto Niacin 97 Power Essence. This essence feels very lightweight on the skin and helps to tame the oils on my facial skin. I’m starting to like this essence. Not sure if I’m going to purchase it again. Maybe use it while I have it. Who knows. But, love how it helps to improve my oily skin. I haven’t had any issues with it whatsoever, but I think it’s pretty redundant using this product, since it contains galactomyces and niacinamide. I have other products that contain these ingredients that I use on my face. I just like the texture of the essence. It sinks into my skin like no other. 🙂

I also tried slugging with CeraVe Healing Ointment. It does help to heal and retain moisture in the skin, but I couldn’t sleep with it on my face at night. The stickiness of the product just got everywhere even though I used a thin layer of the product. It would get in my hair. I woke up the next morning with it seeping into my eyes. Ouch! I’ll just use it to apply on spots if my skin gets burned or itchy or something. I’m done slugging. I’ve tried slugging before with the same experience. I just wanted to try it again. Once again, it’s a no. It’s not for me even though it did leave my skin feeling and looking nice the next morning. It’s too much of a hassle to put up with.

My results after 2 weeks!

After 2 weeks of using tret, my skin did improve. I had skin peeling from my face, especially my acne-prone areas, such as around my mouth and between my brows. I had acne that was underneath the surface of my skin coming out. Finally! There was a spot on my face that had a bump underneath. It’s finally gone! Tret helped to remove the dead skin cells and push it up the surface. It healed and I’m very happy that it’s gone, lol. It was so stubborn! My overall complexion looks very nice. It’s more even-toned and clearer. Acne marks are becoming lighter too due to the skin peeling every day this week. Even though my skin looks pretty good, I’m not sure if I’m going to stick to the sandwich method for next week. It seems like there’s too much moisturizing going on some days of the week. My skin is getting really oily. I think I might have to change things up again and apply tret directly to my skin. We’ll see what happens. I’ll just play it by ear, but I want to get to the point of being able to apply tret without having to buffer. Everything is going well so far. I’m excited to see what next week brings!

Coming up, my skin care routine! I haven’t made an update on what I’m using in a while. 🙂

If you missed out on my first week experience, here’s the link again.

My Skin is CLEAR! :) What I’m Doing Now.

My skin is officially free from acne! And all thanks to BP! Wow, it worked so fast! 😍 But I haven’t given up on BP after being clear. I’m still using it to treat my acne, but I don’t have to use it too often anymore. I’m aiming for once a week at night or twice a week if my skin gets really oily. I think once a week is more than enough. 🤔 BP really dries the living hell out of my skin. After a day of using BP, my skin looks more dull, uneven, and crusty. The next day, it looks AMAZING!! The dead skin just comes off and my skin looks so fresh, bright, and new! The dryness from BP can be a good thing for my skin sometimes, since my skin gets more oily during the more humid, hot, summer months. ☀️ The weather has been hotter than usual. Along with using BP, I’ve made a few changes to my skin care routine. I know, AGAIN! I just can’t stop making changes. LOL. Since I’m focusing more on skin texture and post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation. I mean, I’ve already gotten my acne under control. Now let’s keep the positive changes rolling! I still have some acne marks that needs to be treated, but I’m not going to purchase any new products to fade them. None of them have worked on my skin anyways. That’ll just be a waste of money. So I decided to re-add some products I removed not so long ago, haha. I know, odd! I didn’t expect this to happen, but I started to miss using these products on my facial skin. They are…

Guess first! lol. Never mind, let’s goooooooooooooo! 🙌🏻

Benton Aloe Propolis Soothing Gel:

All of a sudden I had the urge to use the Benton Aloe Propolis Soothing Gel again. I needed some more moisture in my skin. And I just out of nowhere started using this product again. I think I’m just hooked on it, lol. It feels cooling and soothing on my skin. Gives my skin lightweight, jelly moisture on my oily skin. It’s not the most moisturizing moisturizer, but it provides nice hydration to my skin right now. I’ll use it, but I’m still not sure if I’ll buy another tube of the product. I still have another unopened tube of this product by the way, lol. I’m so addicted to skin care products, hahaha! 😂 My skin is currently loving this aloe soothing gel.

Cos De BAHA MA Peptide Facial Toner:

I really like how this facial toner feels on my skin. It’s another gel-based product. Works perfectly on my oily skin. Just like the Benton Aloe Propolis Soothing Gel, it doesn’t provide much moisture, but I like it for what it is. I like the anti-aging ingredients in this product too. I’m almost out of the product, so I thought I would use it on my facial skin instead. I’m tempted to purchase another bottle since it’s so affordable for the amount of product. But we’ll see. I hope it does wonderous things to my skin for the time being. I’ll just have to wait and see what happens after finishing the bottle.

The Ordinary Resveratrol 3% Ferulic Acid 3%:

I kind of missed that glow that I get from using The Ordinary Ascorbic Acid 8% Alpha Arbutin 2% and The Ordinary Resveratrol 3% Ferulic Acid 3%. I decided to start using The Ordinary Resveratrol 3% Ferulic Acid 3% again. I decided NOT to use the Ascorbic Acid 8% Alpha Arbutin 2%. I wanted to see how my skin is going to react to just using the Resveratrol 3% Ferulic Acid 3% serum. I really like these ingredients and can’t seem to find another product with these ingredients that are affordable. So! Let’s see how it’ll go just using The Ordinary Resveratrol 3% Ferulic Acid 3% alone without the Ascorbic Acid serum! My face hasn’t turned orange yet. Maybe it’s the Ascorbic Acid that’s turning me into an oompa loompa. 🍊

Those are the 3 products I decided to reintroduce back into my skin care routine. I thought I would call it quits for good on these products, but it just felt like it was the right time to use them again. One night I just grabbed these products and used them on my face. The next morning, my skin was super glowy and pretty that I had to continue using them to see what happens. My skin has been looking good since. No problems so far. I haven’t experienced any breakouts from any of them (as of yet). I hope it stays this way. Besides skin care, I’m trying to eat healthy. Trying to get more vegetables into my diet. Drinking more water to keep my body hydrated. Everything has changed so much since the beginning of this year until now. Hope all goes well this summer and the rest of the year!

But there’s something else…

I started using tret again! Well, I still am once a week, but my dose has been increased! I’m using a higher concentration. I was bumped up to 0.1 for acne. 0.05 did absolutely nothing for my acne. I tried 0.1 before, and it was way too strong on my skin during that point in time. But, that was the past, this is now. Let’s give the 0.1 a try and see how my skin reacts. I’ve been using the 0.1 for about 2 days now. And you know what? My skin has been tolerating it pretty well. Much better than it did before. Here’s my 2 day experience using tret! What happened to my skin??

Day 1:

One night, I decided to use my tube of 0.1 tret. I had it. It was just sitting around unused because it was too strong for my skin at one point. Not anymore. I applied it to my skin. The product felt warm and smooth on my skin. It moved across my skin very nicely. I liked the way it felt on my skin. At the same time, I was petrified not knowing what would happen the next morning. When using tret, I used my moisturizing skin care products to prevent my skin from any dryness. There’s another product I started using again when I started using tret too. It’s the Eucerin Q10 Anti-Wrinkle Face Cream. I needed a richer, heavier product to prevent my skin from drying out when on tret. This seemed to be the perfect choice. I took some of the cream and applied it to my face after applying tret and my lightweight moisturizers. Eucerin Q10 Anti-Wrinkle Face Cream was the 4th product that I reintroduced to my skin care routine. 🙂

Day 2:

The next morning (after day 1), my skin felt warm. I can see red splotches on my face. They weren’t that bad. They were just a light pink/red color that eventually faded away. I decided to use tret again on the second night. My skin didn’t feel dry or irritated besides some redness that went away. I’m glad I went forth with the second night. Because the next day, I noticed a lot of peeling on my face. Also, I noticed some random breakouts that healed very fast! Am I purging? Hmmm! My skin looked really good besides my skin peeling off all over my face. I’m pretty excited to remove these dry, dead skin cells from my face! Wow, is tret really working for me this time? Because it seems like it! My skin is responding well. No major irritations besides some redness and skin peeling on the second day. Maybe I just needed to give my skin a break and move on to something stronger. Also, I’ve continued to use Eucerin Q10 Anti-Wrinkle Face Cream in the morning too and at night to prevent my skin from drying out or if there’s any itchiness. My skin hasn’t been itchy while on tret. Some dryness hasn’t been bad either. All is going well. 👍🏻

SO! It looks like I’m back on my tret journey. AGAINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!! hahaha. I’m really excited this time because my skin is actually peeling like when I was using BP. The more dead skin my face sloughs off, the clearer my skin gets. It helps to prevent breakouts from living underneath the surface of the skin. Plus, it’s a bonus that it also helps to improve the quality of my skin. My skin looks really good right now. I’m not sure how long it’s going to take to achieve a near flawless (nothing is perfect!) complexion, but I’m really happy how things are going. I’ll make another update on my tret journey soon! See everyone there! I hope this post was helpful! Have a nice day! 😊