LENA BLOG

Granted, most people will not be wearing this type of restrictive head gear. I put this photo here to make the point that pressure from gear + sweat can = breakouts. Football helmets , chin straps , and sweatbands are a few possible causes of pressure-induced skin problems. This type of sports gear can inhibit elimination, causing sweat to pile up in certain areas, which can cause irritation and potential breakout. Even continually sleeping on one side of your face can cause a kind of pressure breakout. Keeping any sweat from drying on the skin will help keep irritation and breakout away. Splash rinsing with water is your best bet to get all the sticky, sweaty goo off your face. No matter where you are, you’ll usually have access to water. Know that the longer the sweat stays (and dries) on your skin, the more potential for problems down the road. This is especially true if the drying sweat is an ongoing occurrence, like with sports that you’re involved with on a daily o...

I have this red, rashy breakout around my mouth, but it’s only on one side. What is causing this? Believe it or not, I see this quite often. Whenever there is breakout on one side of the face, it’s time to ask yourself a few questions. First, do you talk on the phone a lot? If so, on which side of your face do you hold the phone? And further, do you let the phone rest on your face? Telephones get dirty quickly. Even if you are the only person using a particular phone (a land line, for instance), oil and debris collect on the receiver, and especially if you rest the phone on your face, this will easily get transferred to your skin. Sometimes the oil will cause breakouts, and sometimes constant handling of the phone can cause contact dermatitis , a skin inflammation that is caused by contact with offending materials. If your “rash” is indeed dermatitis and not a true breakout (congested oil that has become infected), I will be posting an article specifically for h...

Hopefully you’ve read What is causing your breakouts? (link below), which asks important questions to help you understand why you may be breaking out. Here I’ll discuss products that you don’t want to use on your skin and other things that may be contributing to your skin problems.   Products with alcohol. Not all alcohol is bad; it is primarily SD , ethyl , and isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol that are not good to use on your skin. Alcohol merely puts out the fire, so to speak, but does nothing to douse the origination of the flame. It causes dry skin to form in and around the affected pore or pores where it was applied, which can cause problems of its own. Although drying something up seems to be effective, it is simply a temporary fix and is not part of a real solution for ending your breakouts. Witch hazel found in most stores contains roughly 15% ethyl alcohol. So although it is not pure alcohol, it still contains some bad alcohol nonetheless. This ty...

Donna has blackheads on her nose and rarely gets whiteheads. She experiences most of her breakouts in the hollows of her cheeks. She complains of oily eyelids. Other than her normal daily routine, she uses a peel-off mask now and then. For breakfast, she has oatmeal or cereal, and sometimes a bagel and eggs. On a normal work day, she has fast food for lunch. The sugar she knows she eats comes in the form of muffins, which is just like cake in terms of sugar content—no matter how healthy they may appear to be. Donna says she is “very constipated.” Donna used Proactiv for three months; then she said it stopped working. This is something a lot of people have told me. But I will say this: No matter what regime you are using product-wise, if you don’t change your eating habits, there is no guarantee your skin troubles will exit your life. Donna’s case is actually easy to help. She wasn’t really aware of how much sugar she was getting just by eating cereal and muffins, which ...

Below are two stories of clients who have been on antibiotics for their skin problems (long-term) and the issues this course of treatment can bring. Hopefully this will be helpful information to keep in mind if you are on antibiotics for your skin—especially if you’ve been taking them for a long time. Sara’s story. My client Sara has been on tetracycline for at least two years for problem skin. However, after talking with her, I found that her skin problems are very intermittent and occasional. Once her dermatologist suggested Accutane, but Sara’s problems weren’t severe, and from what she knew about that medication she thought Accutane sounded like overkill. She went on to tell me she had a hysterectomy at 27 years of age due to complications with her ovaries, and since then she has had over eight surgeries for endometriosis. This information shows something is inherently out of whack with Sara’s body. Most likely she has a hormone imbalance, which can adversely affect the...