Acne Face Cleanser – The Truth About Scrubbing Granules

While you can’t cure your acne by cleansing, you can cause acne by cleansing. There are plenty of cleansing creams, which are intended to stay on the skin or be lightly wiped away with a tissue. This means that the cleanser’s ingredients stay on the skin and can irritate your pores.

Some cleansing products contain comedogenic fatty acids and penetrating oils. Sodium lauryl sulphate and laureth-4, for instance, are highly comedogenic, and any cleansers, moisturizers or foundations containing these detergents should not be used on acne-prone skin, period. Use only a cleanser that is washed off with water. And always follow with plenty of rinsing.

Medicated acne soaps or soaps with scrubbing grains are big sellers to acne sufferers - all based on the myth that dirt causes acne. Since no amount of scrubbing can reach down into the impacted pore where the acne action occurs, such claims as "goes deep into your pores to float out even hidden dirt and oil" are simply false. Nor do antibacterial ingredients accomplish anything at all below the surface.

Special acne soaps are a waste of money. Worse, some may even be harmful. Too many acne sufferers scrub their faces raw with scrubbing grains or abrasive gadgets. Pernox Scrub Cleanser claims "thousands of tiny granules in Pernox help strip away oils and waxy buildup that can lead to pimples and blackheads". Consumer Reports magazine’s response to that claim: "Scrubbing to remove waxy buildup might be good for a kitchen floor but not for a face.

Under the proper circumstances, a few seconds of gentle scrubbing once a day with a buffing cleanser can be useful to remove the dry flakes that appear after you have begun your treatment regimen.

Cleansing is one of the most important things you can do for your skin. It is important to keep the bacteria at bay. However, most acne sufferers want their acne to disappear in the fastest way possible. Therefore, they will sometimes overuse scrubs and cleansers thinking they can scrub the acne away. This is doing more harm than good. The skin should be treated delicately.

With the wide range of products on the store shelves today and even more available on the internet, it can be difficult to know what the best treatment is for cleansing your face. Many products that you can purchase today contain scrubbing granules that help clear the dead skin from your face. However, the question is, are the scrubbing granules doing more harm than good? And, just what should you be looking for when choosing a facial cleanser?

Melanie Vasseur is a renowned chemist, esthetician and the founder of Vasseur Skin Care. For more skin care tips and information visit www.vsskin.com or call 619-236-9095.

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