Acne Treatment

Healthy skin is clear skin. Think about it- when it comes to your skin, just like taking care of your teeth, what you do every day & night has a HUGE impact on your health. Effective acne treatment depends on smart home care. There are many excellent acne products available today because there are different grades of acne, skin types & tones, plus different breakout triggers. Choosing products for YOUR acne can be overwhelming and totally confusing. A consultation with our clinical aestheticians can save you a lot of time and money. They’ll take out all the guess-work and get you on an easy, effective regimen all designed for YOUR skin- YOUR acne.

Products should include ingredients to:​

• Exfoliate (hydroxy acids, polishes & scrubs)
• Control Oil (salicylic acid)
• Treat bacteria as needed (benzoyl peroxide, resorcinol)
• Provide nutrition & hydration

Remember- you MUST keep your skin HEALTHY or it may never clear up. Simply scrubbing & drying it out can actually make the acne worse. Great antioxidants (green tea, licorice) provide wonderful nutrition plus treat irritation, red marks & inflammation. Light or oil-free hydration (hyaluronic acid) keeps the skin nourished and prevents excessive oil production. It’s all about BALANCE!

You MUST use broad-spectrum sun protection SPF30+ every day, 365 days a year! Problematic skin especially needs extra protection from the heat of UV rays. Many people think that tanning clears up their acne. Although this may seem true as it may help temporarily, tanning thickens the surface of the skin causing- you guessed it- clogged pores. The heat from UV rays also causes deep inflammation and damage, not to mention skin cancer. We have a great selection of oil-free, chemical-free sheer, and lightly tinted sun protection products to choose from.

Regular exfoliation with a combination of hydroxy acids (salicylic acid, lactic acid, and glycolic acid) and a gentle scrub gives problem skin a one-two punch by keeping pores unclogged plus controlling oil production. The dead skin cells will be polished away, allowing your pores to function properly. Be careful not to over-exfoliate though. Over-exfoliation causes pre-mature aging and over-stimulates oil production, leading to more breakouts. Your aesthetician will recommend the best exfoliation program for your skin.

For advanced grades of acne, Tretinoin is one of the most powerful exfoliating tools that we have. It increases skin cell turnover which results in increased shedding of dead skin and excellent exfoliation. This is the reason why medications such as Retin-A, Differin, and Tazorac are commonly prescribed to people with acne. The downside of tretinoin is that it often leaves the skin red and flaky for a period of time while you are adjusting to it. This period of adjustment can last from a couple of weeks to a couple of months. For those that want something less irritating, we have medical-strength retinol which is very effective as well.

From topical over-the-counter products to oral prescription medications, inflamed acne lesions need a little assistance to help clear them up and prevent the spread of infection. What to use will depend on the severity of acne. An occasional pimple may need just a little spot treatment stick while advanced acne grades most likely will need prescription medications to get it under control.

The key to using topical products with antibacterial medications (especially Benzoyl Peroxide) is to apply them to inflamed lesions only, and stop using when it’s cleared up. There are over-the-counter product lines loaded with Benzoyl Peroxide (BPO) in just about every product. If we had $1 for every time we’ve heard “it cleared up my skin at first, then my acne came back even worse…” we’d definitely be gazillionaires! Constantly applying BPO to skin that is not inflamed/no infection dries it out, causes irritation, and leads to more clogged pores and breakouts.

Once the acne redness, bumps, and infection have arisen, prevention is no longer enough. At this point, you may need to have professional treatment. For mild to moderate acne, we offer clinical acne facials to help resolve any acne breakouts.

Chemical peels exfoliate deeper and remove oil and debris attached to the skin’s surface. The peeling solutions can penetrate through and dissolve the sebum in follicles to clean out clogged pores. They also help treat the bacteria that cause acne.

The Medical Spa at New Horizons offers the FDA-approved Acleara Acne Treatment, which works on all skin types. Treatment takes as little as 10 minutes. Multiple sessions may be required depending on the severity of your acne. More importantly, this process is pain-free and requires no downtime afterward, though patients may experience a mild sunburn-like after effect that lasts no longer than 24 hours. Please see below for Acleara before and after pictures.*

Acleara is an acne treatment system that utilizes a combination of vacuum and light to clear up skin. Unlike many other acne treatment systems, Acleara is FDA-approved to treat acne of varying forms and severities on all skin types.