#38 Spot the Difference

Your best friend will say things like, 'It's just a spot. I can't even see it. I promise you, if you hadn't pointed it out, I would never have noticed it.' So, how can it be the only thing that you are thinking about? You're supposed to be working and you're really torturing yourself with dark thoughts, such as, oh my god, I think it's growing. I can feel it. It's probably pulsating like a police siren. Why, why, why did I have to get a spot now - of all times - when I'm supposed to be photographed/go on a date/get married?!

I hear you. I've read your emails and sat, nodding, through most of them - those of you who have acne, those who simply suffer from the single beacon that pops up before the period and others who manage clear complexions for months at a time, only to be thwarted at the single most inopportune moment and retreat to their bedrooms for the rest of the week.

It's getting us down. It's enough to wreck our week. Serious enough to turn us from head-held-high-flyers into pavement-scanning lost souls. But, if there's one thing I've learnt about spots, it's that the less you worry about them, the better the situation gets. I get the odd rager on my forehead - almost always before my period - and have been reduced to tears in the past. The thing is, worrying, tapping, prodding, testing and attempting to squeeze these rude awakenings into oblivion is always the worst possible course of action. I've turned a tiny pinprick into a colossus in the past - simply because I could not bloody leave it alone.

I've learnt from my mistakes. I also decided, several months ago, to roadtest a few new skincare regimes in order to find one that nourished and calmed my changeable complexion. I was using spot-specific lines, having incorrectly surmised that, well, I get spots, so that's the main concern. An excellent Guinot facialist set me straight. My skin was not excessively oily - to the contrary - I had in fact been using products all over my face that my dry (and occassionally combination) skin was reacting badly to. I had tried Dr. Sebagh Breakout Foaming Cleanser - way too strong for me. Within three days, my skin was puckering from dryness as I just wasn't 'oily' enough to warrant the switch. I also used Bliss Steep Clean Cleansing Milk and Fabulous Foaming Face Wash. I liked them both - up to a point. After a couple of weeks, during which time I continued to get the odd spot - my skin became increasingly sensitive, as both formulas contain exfoliants (the former chemical, the latter mechanical) and I think a twice-a-day slough was, once again, too harsh a regime for my skin to take. The other odd thing was that, despite using an exfoliating cleanser twice a day, my skin didn't feel particularly smooth. In fact, I still felt that urge to exfoliate - with another product - at least twice a week in order to get a clear, smooth surface. I knew then, that nothing was working. I was dry, sometimes oily, occassionally spotty and my skin hadn't looked 'luminous' in weeks. So I went cold turkey. I cleared out the cabinet and started from scratch.

I felt, instinctively, as though my skin needed a break. As though it needed consistency. I knew it was time to stop chopping and changing the various components in my routine. So, I made the move to Liz Earle. I started using her famous Cleanse + Polish Hot Cloth Cleanser, followed with a dose of her Skin Repair Moisturiser for normal skin. Nothing else. I didn't even use the Instant Boost Skin Tonic at first, so determined was I to get back to basics. That first week my forehead and chin broke out with a vengeance. Angry, red, raised spots. I almost chucked the stuff into the bin. But I persevered - namely because the nourishing ingredients and essential oil-rich formulas began to make my skin feel far more comfortable. I'd been dodging oil for so long - convinced that it was the source of all my pimple problems - using oil-free moisturiser, cleanser and foundation, that nothing prepared me for my skin's eventual reaction. The first couple of days, yes, I looked a bit shiny. But then, things started to settle down. My dry hide drank up the cream and settled to calmness beneath the nourishing veil of cleanser I applied each morning and night. It felt good. I could cleanse and leave my skin for minutes before applying moisturiser - it wouldn't feel dry or irritated. As I'd assumed, the switch back to oil-containing, skin-hydrating formulas has made my skin settle. At present, I have one tiny spot - a pre-period one - on my forehead that didn't give me any bother at all. I have an action plan in place, of course, to deal with future twinges - here it is:

1. If I feel a painful throb beneath the skin's surface I roll on Liz Earle Spot On

2. If, by the next day, the throb has turned into a 'bump', I squeeze a thin layer of Dermalogica Medicated Clearing Gel onto it and leave overnight. This vacuums out any pore-clogs and reduces the life of the spot by a couple of days. It's also exfoliating - so if you're a resolute squeezer - it will help you pop the pimple with minimal effort.

3. I also keep Remede's Double Oxygenating Booster on standby. I've had some good results. Sometimes a dab of this has managed to stop a bump developing into a spot - but sometimes it hasn't. It's not the miracle cure it is marketed as, but as far as reducing the life of a spot goes, it's one of the best.

So there it is. Simple. Basic skincare routine. A spot-zapping strategy... oh, and lest I forget, a new gym regime that has taken my stress levels from sky-high to pelvic-floor low. Yes, my name is Miss Malcontent and I'm a gymgoer. I know, yaawwwwn. But, it's helping. Eyes brighter, skin clearer - all that feel-good malarkey. Simple, yes, but in this case, spot on.

#32 Stress Test

STRESS. That overused, overheard, overexcused phenomenon. Well, I've got it. I've been keeping a skin diary. Yes, self-indulgent I know, but on the advice of a leading dermatologist I have been recording the multitudinous fluctuations in my skin and it's been, well, illuminating. There's me thinking it's the product formulas, the clashing experimentation, the air-conditioning, the pollution. Well, it's probably a bit of all of those, but more than anything, it's my own, uncontrollable blood-bubbling. Yesterday I had several melt-downs. I had four hefty deadlines in one week and as I'm going away for the weekend, I was working 15 hour days in order to get everything done. I was as tightly coiled as an 80s bubble perm and despite the fact that I have not had a single blemish for over a month, I woke up this morning to a landmine of a forehead and dotty, angry cheeks. This is no coincidence. My skin diary last showed similar activity after a series of hair-pulling, heart-aching arguments with the hubby. My skin has become a map of my emotional misdemeanours - spots flagging up the pain or panic I've gone through the day before. I've long known that my hormones are at the bottom of this pimply pile and that their misbehaviour is provoked by my inability to control my reaction to the 'stress' in my everyday life. The thing is, I hardly ever get stressed, but when I do, it's an insane, heart-pounding, dry-throat, hair-pulling sort of feeling. It might only last a couple of hours, but it's something that I really can't control. Something that I've had to accept as a part of my modern, manic, deadline-driven life. Something that gets cortisol - that maligned 'stress' hormone - flying around the bloodstream. The same hormone that is often found in heightened levels within the bloodstreams of acne sufferers... and so the vicious circle goes round and round and round, because if you have acne, you're likely to be pretty damn stressed about it.

So, what's the answer? Ignore it? Hope for the best? Seek more medical advice? For me, I'm trying all of the above. I'm popping pills to calm, eating things to strengthen and have also been 'stuck' a couple of times in the hope that something interesting will show up in a bloodtest and explain why I've been having my mood and skin yo-yos for the last six months. I'm lucky though. I have a lovely, young, smiling GP who listens sympathetically and agrees with my stress/cortisol/hormone/spots theory. She doesn't think 'stress' is a dirty word. In fact, she's even prone to it herself. A simple admission, but one that took the weight out of the word and left me feeling a lot better about everything. Which, as us stress-sufferers know, is a strong start indeed.

#27 Witchcraft and the Wardrobe

I used to watch MTV’s Cribs for one specific reason – to get a look at just how large some of those walk-in closets were. Most of them were bigger than my bedroom. Some outsized my garden. A handful even surpassed the entire top floor of my house. My sister would get shoe envy; my brother, trainer rage… me? I’d be bedazzled, but never jealous, and after sitting goggle-eyed through the fiftieth or so show, I actually began to feel relief… relieved that my pedestrian, self-assembled cupboard (it really isn’t even glam enough to be classified as a wardrobe) was a normal ‘mortal’ size and therefore the perfect form of contraception – against ill-advised credit-card blowouts. I’ve never been able to go too loopy with the card in Zara – I mean, I’ve got nowhere to put any new purchases, so why buy them? The fact is, seeing all those rows, pegs, drawers, shelves and rails of shimmering, glittering, blinding pieces of leather and fabric, I’d be struck with one thought and one thought only – how on earth do these people choose what to wear in the morning?

That was several years ago and now, ironically, I face a similar dilemma on a daily basis. Not what to wear – I’m a simple dress & trench kinda girl – but what to put on my face and body. It’s ever-changing – it has to be, or I’d have nothing valid to write. At the moment I’m doing an oil-free thing. So I’m using Avene’s new Soothing Hydrating Serum, which I adore, followed by Clinique Moisture Surge. I am using Bliss Steep Clean Cleanser (not oil-free) – which I really like because it provides me with a thorough cleanse (to the point where my nose looked like a polished coin), but then I got a spot on my forehead and a couple of little bumps on my cheeks and had a beauty-ed-style panic, so decided to try Vaishaly Facial Wash in the morning (as it has an anti-bacterial action, but isn’t drying) and stick with Bliss at night (because it makes light work of daily grime and make-up). I had been using The Sanctuary Perfectly Polished Hot Cloth Cleanser. It made my skin feel lovely and soft, but unfortunately, as someone who’s prone to the odd spot and some serious oiliness, it wasn’t doing the trick. Too many oils and emollients in there for my liking – but working wonders on my mum’s dry, mature complexion.

Base-wise, I’m now rotating Clinique Moisture Sheer Tint with Murad Sunblock Sheer Tint during the day – both give a very subtle, but healthy, pinch of colour and are oil-free + SPF. Good news for me and my ever-shiny skin. At night, when I know I should be packing more anti-oxidants onto my skin, well, I’m not. I’m simply sticking with the same Avene + Clinique combo. I’m tempted to start using DCL’s C-Scape Serum. Or go back to Estee Lauder’s Night Repair. Or try Chantecaille Vital Essence. There’s something that lands on the desk everyday, that in truth, I’m tempted to pat onto my long-suffering, testing ground of a visage. Ooh, this will alleviate dark circles. This will give me even, ivory, yes I could be Mischa Barton’s sister type skin. That will hoover out the contents of any unsightly pores and leave me glowing like a scrubbed peach. Except, I’m not me of yesteryear – or of ten years ago. Now I know that there is no point in ‘the claim’. The proof is in the product. Yes, the item behind door number one might make my nose less shiny, but it won’t make me any less hardnosed. Skin saviours are not unearthed overnight. It takes weeks to work out what’s working and what isn’t. The cosmetic closet might be bursting at the seams – those Cribs hoochies ain’t got nothing on me – but I’m taking my time. And taking my regime one step at a time. Just as the dermatologist intended.

#8 The Zit Zapper...

I’ve been getting spots. Very odd and very British spots. They queue, waiting quietly and patiently beneath the surface, for the preceding pimple to die away, before stepping up and taking the prime spot for themselves – the centre of the forehead. They do not crowd the space, they do not jostle for attention – no, they wait their turn, and one by one, they appear, back to back, in single file, like some sort of nightmarish cloning experiment. They are not angry, weeping, pustular spots – thank god – they are small, raised, rather red spots. I am not a dermatologist, so I have absolutely no idea whether or not they have a specific name, whether they’re a mild form of acne, or just common garden variety growths that will die down within their own time. For the most part, I leave my face alone. I completely ignore it during the day – make-up goes on in the morning and it is cleansed off at night. There is no eye-rubbing, chin scratching or mouth-wiping. Things stay put, skin stays calm and all is good with the world. But then, about a month ago, these little turrets of torment popped up on the bloody forehead and because I don’t have a fringe, I have nowhere to hide them. They are there and my mind is on them.

So when I received the gadget du jour, Zeno Acne Clearing Device, which costs a scientific-research-justifying £129, I thought, ‘Haha you bastards. Die! Die!’ Except, it’s not that simple. First you have to identify the spot that you have.

You have to press your nose into the mirror and pick the label that fits:
Are you?
No Acne – in which case, why the bloody hell have you bought Zeno in the first place?
Subclinical Acne – visible only on close examination. So nope, not me.
Comedonal Acne – Blackheads and Whiteheads with inflammation. Nope, no heads to speak of. Again, not me.
Mild Acne – Several inflamed red pimples. Well, I only have one. Is this me? Anyone?
Moderate Acne – Many inflamed pimples and pustules. Oh god, definitely not me.
Severe Nodular Acne – Inflamed pimples and pustules and deep nodular lesions (solid mass like a knot, felt under the skin). Blimey, I might have a very small, very lonely deep nodular lesion.

You’re only able to use Zeno on the Mild and Moderate Acne, so if you’re worse off, you’ve spent £129 that you probably can’t refund for hygiene reasons, and if like me, you need ‘An Idiot’s Guide to Spots’ rather more urgently than you need an expensive electrical device, you’ll be too scared to zap away in fear that a single impulse will send them all multiplying – like all good modern Sci-Fi movies, where ‘nuking them’, only ever results in increased strength, speedier growth and greater breeding capacity.

But, to hell with it, I DID try the device. I’ve used it six times and counting, on two different spots. I used it ‘at the first signs of a new pimple’ as instructed, did everything I was supposed to do and I really can’t say whether or not it made a blind bit of difference. Said spots still appeared. They still took several days to clear, and despite being clear-headed at present, I fear I haven’t seen the last of the dastardly dots. I'm sure Zeno is amazing if you know what you're doing and I'm sure it's working for millions of people the world over. I'm sure it's all my fault, because I must have incorrectly identified said species of spot. AND therein lies the problem.

#2 Forget the faff, just give me a facial...

There are those who subscribe to the gentle, faffy, smelly breed of facial – myriad oils, soft tapping fingers, Enya-esque music – and then there are those who consider such gentle and cosseting carefulness to be deeply annoying. I’m firmly rooted in the second camp. A facial for me, should signify a great extraction, fantastic exfoliation, a premium mask and a thorough cleanse. Anything else is pointless. I’ve had hot stones placed on my temples, electric rollers all over my face, five different face masks in 45 minutes, aromatherapy steam inhalation – all of it perfectly acceptable, but none of it was doing what I wanted – improving my skin. The best facial I’d ever had – prior to all of these jingly jangly ones – was the Face Mapping Treatment at Leonard Drake. But last year, Leonard Drake closed down and never reopened and I was left bereft and questing after a new alternative. Thankfully, late last year, the new Dermalogica Skin Centre opened in it’s place. I visited last week and had the customised Face Mapping Facial, where every individual receives a thorough, expert skin analysis and is then treated to a tailormade treatment. My skin was unbalanced, simultaneously oily and dry, a bit spotty and rather lacklustre – in my defence, I’d had a hard week with only 20 hours sleep in five days. Within an hour – and I am never prone to exaggeration – it was satin-soft, clear, glowing and as moist as a saturated sponge. The next day I didn’t even need to bother with base – mission accomplished. Dermalogica, 8 Lancer Sq, 0800 345 7546

CHEAP THRILLS
Up until the end of April, Dermalogica are running FREE skincare classes. Taught by professionals, with skin analysis and expert guidance, they’re holding everything from Spot Fighting Solutions to Ageing Skin seminars. Best of all, every attendee receives a free skincare kit… such generosity!
(0800 345 7546)

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