Do you have good skin?

mostly we have learned about how BCP helps you so that you DO NOT GET PREGNANT not how it makes yr skin clear up

but thanks, u know

is that baby picture supposed to be a defective baby?

I have a keloid scar on my SHOULDER from acne.

yeah it's broken

YES! Big headed baby.

i would wear a roaccutane tshirt if they sold them: totally saved my skin + confidence + eye contact etc. it was pretty amusing shifting from all the gentle warnings of antibiotics to aggressive ACCUTANE WILL FREEZE YOUR LIVER OILS (or whatever it says) etc. always a little nervous to represent for it to others because it really messes with some people, but it's one of the things i'm most grateful for ever now.

schlump's skin tip: avoid sugar

that baby looks super intelligent

Maybe baby has this: http://www.answers.com/topic/macrocephaly ??

^^^ this is sorta how i feel, too. like it worked like fucking magic, it was amazing. def salvaged my self-esteem at a critical juncture

xp

Oh I will tell you what I do for my skin - I wear sunscreen ever single day of the year and always use eye cream!

My brother's pills did not have the non-humorous macrocephalic babies on them back in...1999? And I think if yr a lady you have to be on 2x forms of birth control. Not that they can follow you home and make sure you make the guy slap on a condom, too, but still

ha xp to Erica
looking at macrocephalic baby photos = an effective form of birth control (ie 'oh fuck I think I'll never have kids')

i want to marry a pizza face

i think i used roaccutane cream at one point during adolescence - they said it may cause depression. i was already depressed because of the acne tho duh.

also a bad drug to take if you don't like needles---they draw yr blood like every week

Yeah and you have to get preg tested every month if you have ladyparts. I think.

yup

I do this anyway, despite the lack of ladyparts. Can't be too careful y'know?

Good skin too, although tis peeling to buggery after last weekend.

i did accutane in my late-20's; my skin didn't get bad until I was about 22. it does something radical to whatever it is in your body that produced oil; being on it was kind of hell, but it cleared up what was turning into cystic acne pretty quickly and I haven't had those problems again. my skin still isn't great, but I also don't drink enough water, drink too much coffee, etc.

thank you roaccutane. you made 6th form bearable. you made it easier for me to make friends and you even got me a hot girlfriend. thanks to you i discovered sex, drugs and rock n roll.

wonder drug!

it does something radical to whatever it is in your body that produced oil; being on it was kind of hell

yeah - i mean, your face like falls off during it, i remember my mouth looking kinda zombified for a couple of months, but even through that it was kind of worth it - the fact that otherwise, pretty quickly, my skin was staying constant, wasn't blighted every day was such a nice change. my skin isn't perfect now but i have this karmic relationship with foods and looking after it, that i'm constantly grateful that it's nice enough when it used to be bad.

also orange juice is like kryptonite for my skin.

I'm a smoker who wears makeup every day and even picks at the pimples she does get (once a month to welcome my period, awesome!) and I owe it all to genetics (Mom's got lovely skin) and a bit to BCP. I didn't get *many* pimples when I was younger but I get compliments nowadays on my skin all the time. I also make sure to moisturize my neck every night before bed because I don't like the look of the older ladies' necks.. time will tell if it actually helps, of course..

wait why is N1ck getting pregnancy tests

i hate my skin right now. tinea versicolor fuck my life.

my skin is actually pretty good, though i do get overly embarrassed by the zits i occasionally get -- mostly because when i was zitty and pubescent my dad would PICK MY FACE ugh ffs so gross

like he would bribe me with $20 bills if i let him squeeze the blackheads

so fucked up

LOL jesus I have to admit I was staring at a blackhead on a co-worker's face, wanting to pop it the other day.. but I've never actually asked anyone if I could. HAH.

i don't understand people who enjoy squeezing spots, if i even touch a spot i have to go wash my hands immediately. one doctor told me that if you squeeze spots then it just spreads all the stuff around under the skin and it'll erupt elsewhere.

an ex girlfriend and i had a similar arrangement to elmo and his dad, except it wasn't for money and probably belongs on tmi, or not on the internet at all.

whoa

i still maintain sunshine/outdoors/sweaty exercise/good food/lots of water is the best thing for your skin. which is why i always assumed it was the geeks in school who ended up with really bad acne.

i have a friend whose gf squeezes his spots. She does it in company as well. He doesn't get many spots. But still. Once is too much.

OK, I'be never traded money or sex for the privilege of being able to do it, but I LOVE popping zits. If I see someone who has visible blackheads it makes me anxious just looking at them and all I want to do is squeeze. Yes, I realize this is strange but I can't help it. I sometimes think that I should have just been an esthetician but I don't know if I'd actually want to do it on someone I didn't already know.

No acne issues, but I don't have great skin -- scars easily, hyperpigments easily, keloids, etc. (Would not mind a drug that more literally makes you molt and start over with a fresh new coat.)

acid

thread took a pleasant turn

Dr Crippin to thread...

me, i have very good skin on my face and head (which is a welcome change from my teenage years), slightly less good on arms, bum and back but nothing of great concern

am trying to work out just how much sun is optimal for skin quality, probably overdid it yesterday

Thank you Louis for the update on the complexion of your ass. That was probably what everyone here was waiting to hear. I know I've been awaiting this information for quite some time now.

maybe your butt just needs more sun

based on nothing but hunches and instinct (like all good skin conjecture) i think sunshine = good for complexion, bad for actual skin (like, aging etc).

the sun shone off of his behind
no it's not like any other post
this one is different because it's LJ

^ :-)

exfoliation is important

lolol well, a deep tan does help to obscure any residual spot-marks (which is what can be found on the aforementioned areas; it isn't a complexion issue, simply a smattering of inconsistency), hence the sun thing is overall a good plan.

history of malignant melanoma in the family = i may have to rethink this at some point

itt exfoliate a butt

Friend of the family's kid actually for real went blind when he was an early team from Accutane, and then later killed himself, although the suicide might be unrelated. It is a really sad story, though.

My skin is okay, not great, but not bad enough (or I don't care enough) to put a lot of effort into FIGHTING WRINKLES AND AGING AND ZITS AND GRAVITY AND AND AND AND OMG YOU'RE HIDEOUS. I wash my face twice a day with regular soap (OMG!) and put sunscreen on it in the morning. The only thing I'm really uptight about is washing off make up when I wear it, but that is more because makeup feels like clothes for my face and not washing it off would be like, I don't know, sleeping with my shoes on.

backne is the worst thing forever

when he was in his early teens.

WTF, I think I'm drunk.

back zits are the most physically painful zits

laurel, one of my best friends gets TERRIBLE breakouts on her chest - like, really big painful spots, and always has. she's tried everything to no avail, but she did notice a reduction in the spots when she started heavily using sunscreen (high zinc content).

She has all my sympathy, j!

This being the Northeast, I don't put sunscreen on my chest b/c it rarely ever sees the light. At most, it might get some indoor fluorescence on a VG day.

maybe try the zinc supplement suggested by suzy?

i just bought this body scrub from trader joe's - it's just a bunch of oils + sea salt, and it was ridic cheap, so i'll see how it goes.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. In my experience, and backed up by some of my medical reading, exposure to sun helps clear your skin up. But then you get "sun damage" or age prematurely...or you get yechh freckles and brown patches.

keratosis pilaris! i never knew what it was called! i have always called it 'the thing' (i have it on my upper arms and am constantly having people say 'you're sunburnt!').

got decent skin at the moment but it's relatively recent - the thing i used to get it under control was aleppo soap (ie just olive oil and lye), though i've switched to some ridiculous lush product made of clay and almonds now. Still got scars on my cheeks tho, fuck getting acne in your early twenties. :(

i have pretty decent skin, except for the fact that i am a white person WITH FUCKING VITILIGO UGH .

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/hs185.ash2/44846_547753864744_4302681_32003337_3188943_n.jpg

and i don't have health right now. i need to see a dermatologist, it's been getting so much worse in the past year or so.

What is the treatment for vitiligo? I suppose it's better being white and having it than dark-skinned and having it, right?

yeah. treatments include medicine and weird UV-light treatments.

i will probably not have health insurance for another few months. eh.

Interesting news. I went to the dermatologist* today and thought about this thread and my request for skin cleaning advice. I asked him what he recommended. I told him I use plain old soap, and waited for him to gasp and apply facial defibrillator paddles to my cheeks, but he said facial cleansers are 99% marketing and that all you really need is cheap-o mild soap. He also said the very best thing for your face is to use shampoo. If your shampoo is treating your scalp well, use it on your face.

Now this is a the guy who has his own retail skin care store in his building, so I thought he would have some killer products to sell and exotic secrets and rules for maximum facial awesomeness (I mean, look at his website http://www.ad sci.com/ (I broke the link b/c I don't want ILX on the referral log).

Ooops, the asterisk:

* I had big bug bites and I was really afraid they were from bed bugs, but after a biopsy and more questions, he determined they indeed bug bites, but not bed bugs.

Shampoo sounds crazy—I can't imagine using that on my face. I use low sulfate shampoo because the normal stuff is to drying for my hair, and my face is much more sensitive.

I use handmade goat's milk soap on my face. It's dry skin formula that I get from Etsy, and when I tried to switch to a different mild soap, my skin got flakier. I used to use cetaphil on my face, but it was too drying.

I don't get blemishes much, but I have a lot of problems with dryness and flaky skin. Manual exfoliants don't really help, and they seem to irritate my skin–I have a lot more broken capillaries now.

I was very surprised at his suggestion, especially after seeing that he sells pricey house brand cleansers! I think one reason he was so nonchalant was because I haven't been having any negative reactions to ordinary soap. Like I said, my skin is super not-sensitive.

my skin is awful.

can anyone recommend a good facial soap that will hopefully stop whiteheads, i seem to get at least one a day either at the side of my nose or just above my chin

(that they sell in UK)

use an astringent after washing your face, did wonders for me

nice one. i'll give it a whirl. thanks

i have great fucking skin

keratosis pilaris! i never knew what it was called! i have always called it 'the thing' (i have it on my upper arms and am constantly having people say 'you're sunburnt!').

http://www.xojane.com/beauty/how-i-fixed-my-keratosis-pilaris-aka-chicken-skin-and-got-awesome-hair-boot

This article says coconut oil for keratosis. I couldn't find any straight coconut oil at the grocery store, but I found a lotion with it as an ingredient. My arms have cleared up a ton. Worth a shot, imo.

I'm afraid of upsetting the balance - what if it migrates to my FACE??!

thanks for putting the fear back in me.

thanks, flatbread! will look out for coconut oil when next i go shopping.