Acne Treatments That Work Fast? Faster Isn’t Always Better!

When you’re evaluating acne treatment products to treat and get rid of your acne breakouts, chances are you want acne products that work fast. After all, don’t we all want to get clear, acne-free skin as quickly as possible? However, the best way to treat acne is to think long term. You don’t just want an acne treatment that clears up your existing breakouts; you want an acne treatment that helps clear up your acne for the long term and, more importantly, gives you healthy skin. What are the pros and cons of fast-acting acne treatments versus those that take longer to deliver visible results?

There’s Nothing Wrong with an Acne Treatment That Works Fast for Temporary Results or to Get Rid of a Surprise Blemish
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with using something that gets rid of acne fast to heal a temporary breakout or an individual blemish. In fact, the most effective way to heal acne breakouts quickly is to minimize bacteria and reduce inflammation and irritation. For that reason, the most effective acne treatment for individual blemishes or surprise breakouts is often one that works to dry out the acne blemish and the surrounding area. Murad Acne Spot Treatment uses sulfur to both treat and heal blemishes on contact. In fact, you can actually heal your blemishes as you feel them forming, before they become visible to the world. On the other hand, an acne treatment that works fast but dries out your skin may only deliver temporary results, and may actually damage your skin in both the short and long term.

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Winter Acne Treatment Tips for Clear Skin

If you have acne-prone skin, winter can present some unique challenges for you no matter how effective your acne treatment products are: the drier air that can irritate skin and cause redness and increase breakouts, the reduced exposure to Vitamin D from the sun as we all spend more time indoors, a diet made up of fewer fresh fruits and vegetables, and even the stress of the holiday season can worsen breakouts and blemishes. How do you keep your skin healthy and acne-free during the winter months? Here are some tips from the acne experts at Murad.

Winter Acne Treatment Tip: Consider a More Gentle Acne Product
One winter challenge for acne-prone skin is that the drier air in most climates can cause your skin to become more sensitive. That means if you are using a particularly harsh acne treatment that over-dries your skin (such as products that contain Benzyol Peroxide as the primary active ingredient), you may actually end up irritating your skin and causing even more acne breakouts. Make sure your skin cleanser and acne products are effective but also gentle enough to support the drier, harsher elements of winter. You may want to consider Murad’s Clarifying Cleanser, which delivers ingredients to fight off acne-causing bacteria and remove pore-clogging dead skin cells from the skin’s surface while also not over-drying or irritating sensitive skin.

Winter Acne Treatment Tip: Moisturize and Hydrate
Believe it or not, as noted above, the dryness of winter can actually result in more breakouts. When your skin thinks it’s too dry, it will produce even more oil to compensate, which can mean more clogged pores and more acne-causing bacteria. Use an oil-free moisturizer topically and be sure to both eat and drink ample amounts of water throughout the day to hydrate from the inside as well. If you’re unfamiliar with the benefits of “eating your water,” you may want to read Dr. Murad’s best-selling book, The Water Secret.

Winter Acne Treatment Tip: Winter Means Back Acne Treatments
Cold weather means sweaters and layers of clothing. Sweaters and layers of clothing mean that, if you have acne-prone skin, you are likely to experience more back acne breakouts as dirt and oil is trapped against your skin each day. Combat back acne all winter long by using a great exfoliating body wash that also contains acne medications. Murad Acne Body Wash combined with Murad Clarifying Body Spray can keep your back and body acne-free until it’s tank top and swimsuit season again. Remember, the acne products you use on your face may not be as effective on your back and body because the skin is rougher and the oil glands are larger in those areas. Choose products specifically designed to combat back and body acne.

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Holiday Stress: The Enemy of Your Acne Treatment Plan

The holidays are a merry time full of family and friends and, for many of us, a break from work or school. However, the holiday season can also come loaded with a significant amount of stress. Cramming for school finals or to complete work projects in time for vacation, planning for holiday travel, holiday shopping on a budget and, in many cases, preparing to host friends and family at your home are just a few of the stress-inducing activities that can layer on in the final months of the year. All these activities and more can mean an increase in stress in the lives of many people. As you know, stress is the enemy of healthy, clear skin no matter what acne treatment products you’re using! Here are some tips for making sure that holiday stress doesn’t result in holiday breakouts.

Get Organized and Make a Holiday Plan
One of the greatest causes of stress that can have a negative impact on an effective skin care regimen is the feeling that the holidays are out of control or that you can’t possibly complete everything on time. You can counteract this feeling by making an “action plan” or a to-do list with deadlines and big tasks broken down into smaller ones before the holidays start. Instead of looking at your holiday workload as one big, out-of-control situation, look at it as smaller tasks that are manageable in smaller chunks of time. As you complete them, you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment and keep your stress level from spiraling as the holidays near.

Designate “You Time” Every Day
No matter how busy you get with the holidays, be sure to designate ten to fifteen minutes of “you time” every day. This is time when you don’t think about schedules, to-do lists, holiday stress or even the general stresses of life. It’s important to do this throughout the year, but as stress mounts around the holidays, it becomes even more important to take a daily time-out. What you do during your “you time” is up to you, as long as it is relaxing and helps you unwind! Enjoy a cup of healthy, antioxidant-filled green tea. Give yourself a face mask or home facial. Listen to your favorite music. Even just lie in bed in the dark and enjoy the silence. As long as it’s time dedicated to relaxing your mind and spirit to reduce your stress level, it’s time well spent.

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Five Tips to Get Rid of Acne

On the Murad Skin Deep blog, we often focus on ways to get rid of acne that include acne treatment products and lifestyle choices around diet, stress, hydration and exposure to toxins. However, there are some basic, everyday skin care best practices that can actually work wonders in reducing blemishes and acne breakouts. Sometimes, getting clear skin can be as simple as breaking a bad habit. Here are five daily habits you may need to change to get healthy, clear skin.

Get Rid of Acne by Not Touching Your Face
It seems so simple, but acne is ultimately caused when your pores become clogged. Then blocked and trapped sebum (oil) creates a breeding ground for acne-causing bacteria. Every time you touch your face, you transfer dirt and oil to your skin that can contribute to the clogging of your pores. If you chronically touch your face, work on breaking the habit to reduce your acne breakouts.

Get Rid of Acne by Not Over-Washing Your Face
We commonly encounter acne sufferers who attempt to treat their acne by washing their face many times per day in order to remove excess oil. In fact, if you want to remove excess oil throughout the day, the best solution is to use a dry blotting cloth. When you wash your face too many times during the day, you can strip essential oils from your skin. Then, your skin simply produces more oil to compensate and you break out more. It’s recommended that you only wash your face twice per day—once in the morning and once at night.

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Acne Treatment Tips for Combination Skin

Combination skin is the most common skin type. In fact, it’s often referred to as “normal skin.” However, this skin type often includes acne breakouts, particularly in the T-zone area. In most cases, combination skin means you have oily skin in the T-zone (the T-shaped area of your forehead, nose, upper lip and chin), but drier skin on your cheeks. How do you select the best skin care products to help get rid of acne in your T-zone without over-drying the rest of your face? Here are three tips from the skin care experts at Murad on how to effectively fight acne for people with combination skin.

Combination Skin Acne Treatment Tip Number One: Use a Gentle Skin Cleanser
One of the greatest challenges with combination skin is that while you want a skin cleanser with ingredients to fight acne-causing bacteria and remove dead and dry skin cells from the skin’s surface, you also don’t want to dry out, irritate or cause redness and flaking on the less oily areas of your face. Avoid acne skin cleansers that are harsh or overly aggressive, particularly those with a significant amount of Benzoyl Peroxide. Consider Energizing Pomegranate Cleanser from Murad’s Vitalic® line, which not only cleanses the skin without stripping, but also contains Witch Hazel to help control oil. It’s like a cleanser and toner in one!

Combination Skin Acne Treatment Tip Number Two: Moisturize Your Entire Face
Many people with combination skin that tends to break out in the T-zone will skip one of the most important skin care steps, applying moisturizer, because they are concerned that a moisturizer will increase breakouts in their oily zone. In fact, the opposite is true. Moisturizing is one of the most important steps for balancing out your entire skin tone and texture. Not only will a good oil-free moisturizer, such as Murad Skin Perfecting Lotion, keep your drier skin areas from over-drying, it will also ensure that your oily patches stay healthy. When skin feels under-hydrated, it produces extra oil to compensate. Ultimately, without a proper moisturizer in your skin care regimen, you could experience even more breakouts in your T-zone.

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The Murad Acne Resource Center: A New Tool for Healthy, Clear Skin

At Murad, the goal is always to help you to achieve healthy, glowing skin. For those with acne-prone skin, this can be a challenge. A great number of myths and facts about acne and acne treatments are available from a simple internet search. In order to help you understand what’s truth and what’s fiction about acne breakouts and acne products, the Murad skin care and acne experts have created the comprehensive Murad Acne Resource and Treatment Center. This new website section can help you find all the information you need and answers to questions you may have about how acne truly forms, how to treat acne, and which Murad products are right for you.

Begin by Learning About Acne…
The Murad Acne Resource and Treatment Center is divided into two parts. The first part educates you about the science and facts behind acne breakouts. When you visit the Learn About Acne portion of the resource and treatment center, you’ll find information on the causes of acne, how acne forms, what your skin type has to do with your acne breakouts, and the facts about getting rid of acne. In order to make educated and informed decisions about skin care regimens, acne products, and lifestyle choices you should make to get clear skin, you’ll need to be armed with information. The Murad acne experts have provided you with easy-to-understand explanations and references for everything you’ll need to know to begin your journey to clear skin.

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Men’s Skin Care Advice for Acne Prone Skin

Choosing the right men’s skin care products can be complicated—and that’s especially true for men with acne prone skin. In addition to concerns like skin irritation from shaving, men’s skin is frequently exposed to harsh elements throughout the day. So how do you maintain healthy, acne-free skin as part of your men’s skin care routine? For clear, healthy skin, try the following tips.

Men’s Acne Skin Care Tip:
If You Shave, Be Sure to Moisturize and Exfoliate
Shaving is harsh on your skin and can irritate it and cause bumps, redness, acne breakouts and ingrown hairs. In addition to using effective skin care products that can minimize acne breakouts related to shaving, try these skin care best practices to help keep your skin acne-free. First, use an exfoliating skin treatment or skin cleanser. This will remove the dry, dead skin cells often left behind after shaving, which tend to clog pores and cause acne breakouts or ingrown hairs. And second, make sure that you moisturize your skin, preferably with an oil-free moisturizer designed to soothe your skin after you shave. That will help reduce irritation that can cause breakouts.

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Halloween Acne Treatment Tips

If you have acne-prone skin, doing your Halloween makeup can be tricky. On the one hand, putting on a thick layer of pancake makeup will cover up any acne breakouts or blemishes. However, using that kind of makeup can interfere with even the most effective acne treatment program. How can you join in the Halloween fun and still stay acne-free? Here are three tips to help you do both.

Acne Treatment Tip #1:
Test Your Halloween Makeup Before You Use It
Whether you’re painting your entire face for Halloween or just adding a few extra touches to your normal makeup routine, chances are you’ll be using products you haven’t tried before. A few days in advance, do a patch test of your Halloween makeup to make sure it doesn’t aggravate your skin. If a product triggers an allergic skin reaction or acne cosmetica (acne breakouts caused by makeup), don’t use it. A night of clown makeup isn’t worth a major acne breakout and the acne treatment products you’ll need to get rid of it!

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Acne and Your Daily Water: Hydration as Part of Acne Treatment

If you have acne-prone skin and are trying to find the best acne treatment plan, chances are you’ve been relying on acne treatment products that will dry up the excess oil on your skin and dry out any existing blemishes. But ultimately, acne-free skin is healthy skin, and healthy skin is well-hydrated skin. What does that mean? It means that your acne regimen—whether it includes products for acne breakouts on your face or a back acne and body acne treatment solution—should contain hydrating ingredients as well as blemish reducing ingredients. Here are three acne treatment tips on keeping your skin hydrated, healthy and completely clear.

Acne Treatment Tip #1:
Drink Your Water
While experts recommend eight glasses of water per day, as long as you are staying hydrated and healthy, you’re fine. However, keep in mind that not all beverages are created equally. Drinking a 12-ounce can of soda isn’t the same as drinking an eight-ounce glass of water. In fact, the sugar and preservatives in soda can actually cause more acne breakouts. While it’s important to hydrate all day long, you also need to choose your beverages wisely. Opt for water (with a nice twist of lemon or a dash of mint if you prefer some flavor) or natural juices. Soda, sports drinks, sugary punches and other artificially flavored beverages may do more harm than good.

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Exfoliation and Acne Treatment Regimens: An Exfoliation and Acne Primer

Whether you’re looking for the best acne treatment products for breakouts on your face or a body acne and back acne treatment solution, be sure to get a product that exfoliates your skin. Exfoliation is good for all skin types, but it’s particularly important for an acne skin care regimen or treatment program. Learn why exfoliation is so important when you’re trying to get rid of acne and find out the most effective ways to exfoliate your acne prone skin with this primer on skin exfoliation and acne treatment from the experts at Murad.

Why Is Skin Exfoliation Important to Acne Treatment Programs?
There are many reasons to exfoliate your skin if you’re trying to get rid of acne. For one, it removes the dead, dry skin cells on the surface that can clog your pores and cause acne breakouts. And with this old layer of skin out of the way, your acne treatment product can penetrate better and work more effectively. Finally, exfoliating away these dead skin cells reveals the newer, healthier skin underneath.

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