If your skin used to be bad but isn’t anymore, what worked?

[Spaggybollynese]

I don’t have acne or a serious enough issue for prescription medication, but ongoing breakouts, dry/oily, uneven skin tone, sometimes angry flare ups or blotchy patches, looking a bit meh

If you used to have low grade bad skin, what did you change that actually worked?

Antibacterial soap and getting rid of magnifying mirrors to stop myself picking at my skin.

Probiotics and travelers diarrhea antibiotics. I had really poor gut health due to SIBO, but with treatment it resolved the big issues like pain, fatigue, ibs, brain fog etc, but a nice little extra was my skin and dark circles improved. I had great skin in my teens and early twenties and all of a sudden I had dull, tired, spotty skin. This was due to my gut health (several courses of strong antibiotics).

there are so many causes to skin issues, the only thing you can do is work your way through different root causes and see what works for you.

Drink more water,
Salycilic acid wash/soap
Niacinamide
Retinol
Glycolic acid
Hyaluronic acid.

Super facilaist face wash with salic acid. Completely cleared my skin up. Had regular cystic acne around the chin area. Had no breakouts over the last 4 years just the odd spot during my cycle.

The pill

Environ

Pregnancy fixed my skin.

I'd suffered with rosacea for 15 years and nothing worked and then I became pregnant and it went away and never came back.

I drink lots and my diet is rubbish and I hardly ever exercise... still hasn't come back.

Accutane

That was the worst thing I ever did for my skin. It was horrendous. Waxy, spotty, dry, the works.

We’re all different, eh? ☺️

I got some kind of liquid roll-on antibiotic cream from my GP on prescription when I was 19. I used it every day for about a year by which time my skin was consistently clear and it never got bad again. Prior to that I had probably medium noticeable acne.

Dim supplements are totally amazing. I take 200 mg

Tret, daily SPF 50, gentle oil based cleanser (I have oily skin) and gentle moisturiser. That’s it! The tret and SPF remove the need for anything else. Almost 40 and got ID’d last month!

Skin and me
Dining 2-3 litres of water
Cutting it refined sugar
Way face every night

Never had acne but got awful cystic spots plus small break outs around my jaw. Skin is clear now but also brighter and more even

From memory you fill in a survey and send pictures of your skin with no make up in natural light. It gets reviewed by a pharmacist who then can prescribe the right treatment.

Then each month you get a tube sent to you which is a daily doser so you just twist it and the right amount of product comes out. I've just cancelled mine as I don't use it every day so had to many but I'm going to sign up again. It really is good

Pollution

When I lived in London my skin looked like I had rosescea. Moved to Hampshire and it's totally clear .

@Sofahugs can I ask what probiotics do you use?

OP for me it was Spectra 1550 Fractional Resurfacing Laser therapy in 2021. Skin has slowly improved a lot since then.

Now I’m 51 and I use Skinceuticals C E Ferulic Vitamin C Serum plus Bobbi Brown Vitamin Enriched Face with Thank You Farmer Sun Project Light Sun Essence as a daily sunscreen.

I used to wear makeup or at least a tinted moisturiser plus face powder to sort of help cover up acne scars and pigmentation before but now happy to go out and about with nothing on my face but the above.

Cutting right down on sugar but I was horrendous, think TONS of white bread and drinking fizzy drinks daily, and very little water. I now don’t have more that two or three slices of white bread a day and fizzy drinks once a week. I drink a lot more water. Started washing face with Cetaphil (there’s an oily skin one too) and using avene skin soothing cream and le Roche posay spf. This may not help you as I had roseacea and dehydrated skin but I have heard Roche posay effacler is amazing for spots.

Thankyou, yes I have seen a good few of their other products as Superdrug has a really good stock near me.
I did try the Hydrating one I think it was, this was recommended by a skin person on television, because she said actually many of us are dehydrated.
Which I can kind of believe.

But I think that particular cleanser was creamy and didn't suit.
I will take a look at the others.

I don't like foaming or gel washes they leave me irritated and/or dry.
And I like the idea of something that still suds up rather than some of these cream/lotion type cleansers.
So I will have a look when next shopping.

Niacinamide and then replaced that with tea tree oil. Both game changers .

@BeyondMyWits Oh I see yes.
I don't get on with Dove bars even though I have used the Sensitive one. Or their body washes, even though again Fragrance free, full of ingredients.

Always been spotty and oily and had a few acne / rosacea breakouts. Also am very blonde and fair and we lived abroad where my sun damage was off scale. Never had the worst skin but always needed some careful cover up and was quite wrinkled around eyes. Tret, factor 50 and some nice moisturisers and cleansers from the ordinary and for the first time in my life people compliment my skin. Pores are still big but that’s just me I think. It has become much more even, way less pigmented and wrinkles don’t seem to have got worse. Now people think I am the same age that people thought is was 15/20 years ago. Obviously I look older in some ways but the glow of my skin changes perceptions. Also makeup goes on well so a tiny bit of foundation and dewy blusher make a much bigger difference than they once did.

time!

I tried every kind of lotion and potion, treatment from GP, etc when I was younger and nothing worked. It all just sort of went away when I got to my early/mid thirties!

Avene cicalfate or la Roche pose cicaplast. I had a stressful period which caused small breakout, rough skin and it looked dull and meh. Using either twice a day calmed it right down. And I used tea tree oil on bigger spots.

I stopped ever washing it with hard water as it was so drying and really upset my combination skin. Now I cleanse morning and night with Green people organic cleanser and then one of their moisturisers.

@Redruby2020 initially I used dermatica. Now I pick it up on holidays to Spain and turkey and recently did a big order with alldaychemist that has just arrived. It's about a fiver a tube and takes around 3 weeks to come. I stocked up and got enough to last me about 18 months