"All of a sudden I had hormonal acne all over my face"
Marissa, the esthetician who runs Acne Boot Camp at Toribella, knows adult acne firsthand.
"I never really dealt with acne too much when I was a teenager, a pimple here and a pimple there," she says. "I was 24 years old, and all of a sudden I had inflamed hormonal acne from my jaw line to my cheeks."
Like a lot of adults, she went looking for help and came away frustrated. "I didn't connect with the practitioners that I was seeing," she says. "The antibiotics along with drug store skincare products they recommended ended up making my breakouts worse and destroyed my skin barrier. When I started with face reality I was just a client.”
That experience shaped Marissa’s personal interest in helping others dealing with acne using the Acne Boot Camp program. Acne Boot Camp looks for the root cause, not just quieting the breakout.
"Acne is deeper than just the pimple"
"Acne is not one size fits all," Marissa says. You cannot say what is triggering acne for every person, because everybody is different.
Acne can vary from outside and environmental triggers to deeper triggers connect with your gut and hormones.
The everyday triggers we look for
When you start Acne Boot Camp, you fill out a questionnaire, that is about three pages. Yes, that can seem like a lot. But this is what really helps us understand what is going on. We look at things like:
Whether you smoke
What fabric softener you use
How often you wash your pillowcases
Your workouts
Your medications, and whether you recently went on or came off birth control
Your stress
What you eat. Maybe you are sensitive to something and do not know it, and it is causing inflammation in your gut, which is causing inflammation in your skin.
Then we test possible triggers in your lifestyle together, Identify the cause while we work on the repair.
Our Face Reality program provides the option to include natural prebiotics and probiotics, to help with any gut issues that could be feeding the breakouts.
To be clear about the role Acne Boot Camp plays. Acne Boot Camp is not a diagnosis, replacement for medical care or a replacement for the advice of your doctor. If you have a diagnosis, Acne Boot Camp works on your skin alongside the care your doctor provides.
When your products are the problem causing acne
A lot of the people we see are dealing with redness, tightness, and tingling in their cheeks. Very often their skin barrier is compromised from using too many actives that can make your skin sensitive and even make you break out. Comedogenic products are one of the biggest factors we see causing breakouts.
Medical grade skincare is recommended by professionals because it is backed by ingredient formulation, clinical research, product testing, skin penetration, and individualized treatment plans where as over the counter products don’t always have this backing to support them.
Face Reality is known for acne, but the line is also made for supporting compromised barriers. Sometimes the first step is taking products away, not adding more.
Is professional acne care worth the cost?
People are often surprised by this. Professional products sound expensive, but a cleanser from the drugstore can run you around $25, and a Face Reality cleanser is about $30. It is not a crazy difference, and you are getting ingredients targeted specifically to help acne and not make it worse.
Face Reality is the most affordable professional grade products on the market.
Staying clear once your skin is clear
Once we get your skin clear, a lot of people stay on a simple Face Reality routine: cleanser, toner, moisturizer and SPF that we know are non-comedogenic, meaning they will not clog your pores and start the breakouts again.
You do not have to. But as Marissa puts it, "If it isn't broke, don't fix it." If your skin loves it, we like to keep you there.
And if your acne left marks behind, that is the next step. We treat dark marks and pigment with PCA chemical peels, and Sharon treats indented acne scars.
How Acne Boot Camp works
Everything above is the thinking behind our Acne Boot Camp program with Face Reality: a consultation, a customized home care routine, and regular in-office treatments, with us checking in on you the whole way.
For a step-by-step look at the program, from the first consult through the three-month mark, read what to expect from Acne Boot Camp.
Common questions
What causes acne in your 20s, 30s and 40s? It is different for everybody: hormones, stress, medications, your gut, your products, That is why the consultation matters so much.
Why did my acne come back after antibiotics? It is common. Antibiotics can in some cases act as a band-aid, and long-term use can affect your gut health, which can itself be a trigger.
Can I do my consultation online? Yes. Acne Boot Camp consultations can be virtual or in person.
Toribella Skin Clinic is in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
Book an Acne Boot Camp consultation online or call or text 856-474-3636
