Skincare for 12 year old with acne

[MotherOfMonkeys0]

My gorgeous 12 yo DD has acne and what seems to be combination skin. Her acne is mostly around her eyebrows/mid forehead and below her nose. The skin there gets dry and itchy, but her forehead and cheeks appear greasy. I don't want to meddle too much or give her a complex, just looking for recommendations for easy and gentle skin care products. At the moment she uses Body Shop tea tree face wash or the Witch Hazel one morning and night, with either Body Shop aloe vera face cream or Clearasil moisturiser. TIA.

That's fantastic!

Can I just ask if you used this underneath normal daily moisturizer/makeup?

Also did you use the face wash or daily cleanser?

Agree acnecide, which we got in boots is excellent. DD12 forgot it on holiday and spots started back quite quickly. Back on the cream they had disappeared within 5 days.

Try Creightons Salicylic acid range. I got recommended it on here few months back. Has made huge difference to 18 DS skin. It’s on Amazon , all 3 products I bought came to £10, so not much lost if doesn’t help.

Dd uses La Roche Posay wash, toner and then moisturiser for oily skin. It's gentle and the only thing she's not reacted too. She did have clearasil, but it seemed to make her face more oily (I assume because it was too harsh).

Agree with others - a clean facecloth every day (I bought a bundle on Amazon for not very much).

Consistency is definitely key for my dd - when she doesn't bother for a few days, you can definitely see the difference, especially as the weather's got hotter and she's a bit more sweaty.

I agree with you though - it's hard to support with skin care while not giving them a complex about spots. I've told her washing face is basic personal hygiene just like washing her body, and it does seem to have stuck, plus having something she actually likes to use and has noticed an improvement in her skin.

I was also going to say this. When I was a teenager it had to be prescribed but it's available OTC in nearly all chemists these days. I still use it whenever I'm having a flare up.

I would definitely recommend trying this before spending money on more expensive stuff as this actually kills the bacteria (and is far more effective than tea tree oil, witch hazel etc). It can be quite drying so if she already has dry skin I'd recommend she starts by using it just before bed. What I used to do if my skin was particularly dry was put moisturiser (something simple and basic, unperfumed etc, like an aqueous cream for eg) on first, then the benzoyl cream on the affected areas after the moisturiser has sunk in a bit. And I always used SPF on my face in the day as benzoyl peroxide can make skin more sensitive to sun damage.

Acnecide is great, its not the gold standard though, Retinol/Vitamin A is, you won't get prescription strength without a gp and and personally it is very very tough on thr skin, alternating with Acnecide and a mid/lower level strength Retinol serum would be good to try. Vitamin C and Glycolic Acid are also ingredients to look out for. Duac is good but very drying.

Tea tree witch Hazel- don't bother.

Clean pillow at least once a week, clean face cloth everyday.

A lot of other advice and product suggestions on this thread is very outdated though and a lot of the products mentioned are just not very good. Whilst some affordable brands are good (Ordinary, Inkey, Pixie) most supermarket/own brands don't contain a high enough concentration of good quality active ingredients to work.

Have a read of the acne section in Caroline hirons skin boss book, brilliant advice based on the latest research.

Eucerin and ZitStika do great SpF fit acne skin.

The best combination ds found was

La roche possay micro peel face wash morning and night
La roche possay duo+ in morning (salicylic acid)
Acnecide at night (benzoyl peroxide)
Acnecide moisturer if needed

The salicylic acid and benzoyl peroxide work on the spots in different ways (google to see how) so worth trying a combination.

You should see her skin getting less greasy and more matt quite quickly, but use the moisturer if the acnecide makes it too dry, or use the acnecide only every other day. If doing that consistently (the hard part with teens!) for several weeks doesn't work then gp for duac.

another vote for Acneside here!

Just realised I had already commented on this thread - I’m a bit of a fan! (And wish I’d had it when I was a teen)

Agree with Cetaphil or Cerave face wash. They will cleanse without drying.

Also agree with Acnecide (benzoyl peroxide) if you want to start with something over the counter. However even better is Epiduo (prescription only) which is a mix of benzoyl peroxide and retinoid.

Benzoyl peroxide bleaches sheets/clothes just to warn you.

13 year old ds, tried Acnecide which made no difference unfortunately. Now on Epiduo prescription gel, he’s been using it about 3 months now but most of the time his skin is still pretty bad. It’s a long hard slog dealing with teenage skin issues.

By the way if anyone can recommend a face mask for acne prone skin that won’t trigger a breakout I would love to hear about it.