It’ll Basically Burn Your Face Off, But It’ll Damn Sure Cure Your Maskne
By: Shani Silver
Tags: Beauty, Advice, Humor, 2020, Skincare

This won’t tickle.

I had to stop it. Something insufferable was happening to my skin. The combination of mask usage, plus whatever the Jesus my hormones are into these days, and winter? It was too much, far too much for the one place on my face that has ever, I repeat ever, broken out: my chin. By late November, we’re talking new, deeply cystic face welts appearing daily. As soon as one would complete its demonic life cycle, two more appeared in its place. In addition to it kinda hurting, I couldn’t stand my own inability to take care of my skin. I had to sit back and watch my face erupt, while going to sleep with ten or more CosRx stickers stuck to my face like I was a middle school binder or something. I was angry, frustrated, and helpless. Or was I?

Here are the facts of my skin situation, because we’re all tired of 26 year olds telling us that a product gave their perfect skin even more perfection and therefore is AMAZING, BUY IT. Oh really, it worked?How nice for you and your naturally plump skin that hasn’t lost its will to live. Anyway. I am 38 years old, of half-Jewish decent (I don’t know what the other half is, but basically white I guess), I have brown hair, hazel eyes, and fair skin that never broke out my teen years—literally never, but before you envy that kid, know that by 38 she’ll be freaking out about how quickly her skin becomes dry and papery and also the weird sagging thing it’s doing that’s actually changing the shape of my head. My main skin concerns most of the time are moisture, so much so that I’m sincerely considering moving to a more humid climate, but in the last month or so I’ve had an insane surge of hormonal (I think) acne. I hope this background offers some insight into whether or not my advice will be helpful to you.

Having not been a child of acne, I’ll admit I didn’t really recognize that I had options until about three weeks into this bullshit. Then I started researching solutions for hormonal acne that often shows up at the chin and jawline in women. Oh shit, they make stuff for this. After reading reviews kind of and evaluating costs and legitimacy of brands (I wasn’t about to buy some millennial pink startup subscription for artisanal glitter, I wanted a solution to my problem, not a countertop ornament for Instagram photos, thank you), I settled on this set from La Roche-Posay.

It’s a $30 system that includes:

Effaclar Medicated Gel Face Wash

Effaclar Clarifying Solution Face Toner

Effaclar Duo Acne Treatment

I ripped open the packaging faster than when I got my Jagged Little Pill CD, and went to work. I washed my face with the face wash, swiped on some toner which is a product I still don’t understand, and then I applied the Duo Acne Treatment to the entirety of my chin. Let me be very clear: This shit burns. A lot. It causes redness. A lot. It causes skin flaking and peeling. A lot. In the span of about 24 hours, I’d used this treatment four times, and that was honestly all I could stand. The stinging, redness, and even a little bit of puffiness were so severe I was pretty sure it was rewriting my DNA. So then I stopped, I left it alone (apart from the face wash) and allowed it to work it’s magic. A few days later, my skin and I were reborn.

It got rid of it. The cysts cleared up, all of ‘em. There’s still some red dots but any time I break out it can take weeks for the color to dissipate, that’s just my skin, but it’s totally flat and concealer can cover it. Since I stopped using the entirety of the treatment, I just wash my face with the face wash twice a day (the face wash does NOT sting), and then use the Duo Acne Treatment as a spot treatment anywhere I think my skin might be getting ideas. It doesn’t burn in small amounts like it did when I was applying it to my entire chin, I’ll just say the little spots itch a bit. No big deal.

It was a weird week, in between dealing with the pain of my chin feeling like it was aflame and trying to reschedule all Zooms so no one could see that my skin was the color of a cranberry tart. As I mentioned, I’m 38 and it’s December, so I’m also trying to use heavily moisturizing products from my bottom lip upward, so my morning and evening skincare routines resembled some kind of sick paint by number. I’m back to a mostly normal routine now, I’m able to use my moisturizing products on my chin again, because it’s no longer on fire, and I just use the Duo Acne Treatment on top of my normal skincare anywhere I need to.

The truth is, it was painful, but I’m really glad I did it, because I was developing so many severe blemishes on my face that I was kind of losing my mind with confusion and frustration. Now I feel far more equipped to care for my skin during winter/pandemic, even while fighting a war on two fronts, on one face.

You can get the Effaclar set I used at Ulta, if I haven’t scared you away yet. The links used in this post are affiliate links.