Spontaneous Breakout

Spontaneous breakouts are when your skin has been looking good for a while, blemish free, scars have healed, no new pimples... then suddenly you're in the midst of a full blown breakout again!

When this happens think back over the last week or two before your breakout occurred.  What did you do differently then that maybe affecting your skin now?  Did you eat lots of fatty and sugary foods? Did you begin to drink alcohol when you hadn't been drinking for a while?  Did you increase your dairy intake?  Did you begin using a different product, perhaps one that uses petroleum / mineral oil as a base?

To give you an example, using myself as the casualty.  For the past three weeks I've been suffering through a breakout along my T-zone - forehead, nose and chin.  Starting off with one pimple here, one pimple there and becoming a T-zone riddled with red dots that even make up failed to hide. [insert major sad face] :-(

Before then my skin had been looking great for months and I was feeling really good about myself.

Anyone who suffers breakouts knows that wonderful feeling you get when your skin is looking awesome!!!!

What happened?  What changed?  Well it turns out that prior to my breakout we went on a 10 day family holiday.  While on holiday I was drinking wine with hubby almost nightly (I usually don't drink often), I was also having cheese platters and iced coffees (an increase in dairy), plus I was using a mineral oil based sunscreen which clogged my pores.  During this time I was NOT cleansing regularly or properly.  In fact I didn't bring my Facial Wash at all.

I was also reading more and I'm not very good at having idle hands.  When idle some people chew their nails, some people smoke, some people eat, some people pull at their hair.  I rub my face.  Touching your face with your fingers is probably one of the most detrimental things to do when it comes to pimples/acne.  Your fingers and hands have lots of bacteria and when you touch your face you're effectively infecting your blemishes. You also spread the bacteria from blemish to blemish which is why it's important to clean your face correctly and not touch your face.  Wearing gloves can help.

Within a week of returning the first blemish appeared on my forehead and by the end of the week I had numerous angry red blemishes.  The toxins and impurities I was putting into my body were now coming out on my skin while the sunscreen had blocked my pores.  A bad combination!  Still I did not start routinely cleansing and looking after my skin until the end of the second week because I was being lazy and not taking care of myself.

It was time to set myself a challenge.  To clean my skin routinely for 7 nights in a row and improve and heal my skin, getting it back to looking blemish free again.  This consisted of drinking plenty of water daily to flush out toxins and impurities.  Cleansing, exfoliating and toning followed by an application of Skin Serum every night.  The Skin Serum helps with skin regeneration and healing while the cleansing cleans away the bacteria.

Six days in and my skin is looking so much better.  No new pimples to report, the old pimples are dead or dying, the flaking skin around the edges of the dead pimples has lessened, there is still some slight scarring / skin pigmentation where the pimples were, however, I can now cover these successfully with mineral makeup.

** Take the 7 day challenge TODAY using JOLI's Blemish Skin Pack - I recommend you choose Serum instead of Light Moisturiser - and share your successes with us!!!! **