Most acne routines fail for one of these six reasons. Find yours.
A spot cream goes on the pimple you can see. The pores beside it are already clogging and will surface next week. Acne is a zone problem.
The serum goes across the whole oily zone every night, not on individual spots.
Scrubs abrade the surface and spread inflammation, and never touch the plug inside the pore. Oily skin that is scrubbed daily gets angrier, not clearer.
Salicylic acid is oil-soluble: it dissolves into the pore and does the exfoliating for you.
The squeaky-clean feel means the barrier has been stripped. Skin reads that as damage and makes more oil to compensate — so you are shiny again by lunch.
A pH-balanced wash cleans thoroughly without the tight feel, twice a day.
The spot lasts a week. The mark it leaves can last six months, and UV decides how dark it gets. Without SPF you are trading breakouts for pigmentation.
An SPF 50 PA++++ aqua gel made for oily skin — light enough that you actually wear it.
A scrub, two acids, a clay mask and a retinoid in one week. The barrier gives up, skin gets oilier and more reactive, and every product gets blamed.
One active, 2% salicylic acid, in the wash and the serum. Nothing else while you start.
A pore takes weeks to clog and weeks to clear. Judging a routine at day ten tells you nothing; most people see fewer new spots at week four to six.
Give it six weeks. The routine is priced so the three products last that long together.
2% Salicylic Acid Face Wash (175 ml), 2% Salicylic Acid Serum (30 ml), Aqua Sunscreen SPF 50 PA++++ (50 ml). Priced below buying them apart.
