I think purging refers to pimples and zits. Blackheads are congested pores, maybe from dead skin cells.
Letting whatever oil you use soak in and giving your face a gentle face massage as a regular thing might help get some of the grits out. You could also use something with bha.
I’m both lazy and aging (40s) so there’s a constant push-pull on skincare stuff (plus I want to be a tightwad).
I’ve been slowly switching to marketed-as-cleaner products. I’d like the things I buy to be inexpensive but if it takes more money to buy products I feel better about, is that worth it? I buy them infrequently and they are being applied directly to my skin (a major organ) for absorption.
There’s so much to know so I’m aiming for better, not perfect. I think the obvious big things to avoid are parabens, phthalates, and fragrance/parfum. For body and hands I’m using St Ives lotion, which isn’t perfect but avoids the first two and is inexpensive.
Face wash and heavier-duty hand moisturizer I’m using First Aid Beauty products (from Sephora). Getting in on sales and Black Friday deals, plus stocking up, helped a bit on cost.
For face I just ran through sample sizes of Lancome Rénergie Lift creams. Using First Aid Beauty coconut water cream for light hydrating and Bee23 Hotty Balm for heavier-duty moisturizing, I need a new night cream and should probably start using retinoids again. A small sample of Neal’s Wild Rose Beauty Balm has been amazing for skin moisturizing and healing in occasional, tiny doses.
(So these are the choices I’m currently making, for better or worse. I’m offering them up as much for questioning as for sharing.)
I should probably drink more water, sleep more, and stop sleeping with my face smushed into a pillow to have better facial skin. 
Umm… working on it.
I love these new products sooo much. Left to right, oil cleaner, foam cleanser, face cream - the extra dry neutrogena hydro boost (thanks @inertia!)
Do you use this face wash? I ordered a trial size earlier in the week since I needed more curl cream anyway.
I also got the extra sensitive hydro boost! Only used it once so far but damnnnnmn my skin feels silky. Even if it doesn’t work on my face, I’m going to use it as a hand cream. It’s LOVELY.
In the last week or two since starting Curology, my skin has shown remarkable improvement in the middle of a traditionally bad hormonal acne outbreak. I’m pleased.
I won’t be continuing with their cleanser and moisturizer - they’re too expensive, very basic, and the moisturizer isn’t heavy enough. But the prescription skin treatment is fantastic.
Yes! I use that one. I hope the sample gives you a sense of if it works well for your skin.
I wonder how much of an effect the vitamin C can have if you’re cleansing with it. I don’t know if you’re looking for more brightening or even advice but it seems to me that you woulnd’t be getting much from it if you’re washing it off. I don’t think having it in your cleanser hurts, but if you’re wanting the benefits of it I think it would be more helpful to get a serum and put in on your skin and leave it there. I use both vitamin c and lactic acid each morning (unless I’m being totally lazy which happens more than I’d like to admit) under my moisturizer and sunscreen. I’m working hard to get that stuff to sink deep into my skin to do its work; I’m a little scandalized by the idea of washing them right off! 
I’ve used the vitamin c serum from Timeless as well as one by Dr. Brenner, and the lactic acid I have is by The Ordinary.
I bought and used face wipe things next to my bed. I feel less dirty
I’m going to get typecast for giving out the same advice 
but I’m wondering about your scrub use and you having redness lately. @Meowmalade was having a similar problem and I told her that I thought using a scrub on her face is pretty harsh, and I think she noticed some improvement when she stopped? Correct me if I’m wrong, Meow!
I looked at the ingredients in that scrub and they seem pretty harsh to me. The salicylic acid in it is good if you’re prone to breakouts but it’s a little much if you’re not. You mentioned your skin can be oily so I can see why you’d chose something that will be more on the drying side than the moisturizing but I think a more gentle cleanser would be better since you’re having redness. I don’t think you need the silica, the scrub factor, in addition to the salicylic acid and then there are a lot of alcohols in there (not all of them bad but I’m not sure they are all helpful) and fragrance that can be irritating, as well as the colors added. The colors are probably fine but who needs it? If you’re having redness then I suggest cutting out anything that could be bothering your skin and go for gentle.
Some gentle ones that don’t have bunch of problematic ingredients but are designed for oily skin are CeraVe Foaming Facial Cleanser, Neutrogena Ultra Gentle Foaming Facial Cleanser, Vanicream Gentle Facial Cleanser, Hada Lobo Moisture Bubble Cleanser. If you still wanted a product with green tea in it, you might add a toner?
In addition to asking you to be nicer to the skin on your face, I’d also encourage you to be better about the sunscreen. It doesn’t need to be sunny to still damage your skin. UVB rays cause burns but UVA rays cause the lines and wrinkles, and both can cause cancer. If you’re outside a lot, you’d really be doing yourself a favor to just make daily sunscreen a habit. I don’t really have recommendations for sunscreens that specifically won’t cause breakouts because I haven’t had that problem. I know that after I started using tretinoin, my skin became more sensitive and I had to switch to all-mineral sunscreens instead of chemical ones because the chemical ones sting now. My son has always been sensitive to sunscreens and the chemical ones give him a rash so he prepared me for that a little. On him, I use Alba sunscreens because they don’t bother him. For me, my favorite is this one by Australian Gold I like it because it doesn’t sting(!), it’s cheap, it’s tinted so I just skip foundation now, it doesn’t have a fragrance, it has a high SPF, and it’s not shiny. You might like the matte-ness too, if your skin tends to oily. Someone with dry skin might find it a little drying-feeling but it’s great for normal to oily. They have a couple of shades, too, even though it’s pretty translucent. It’s not like full-coverage foundation but it gives a little something extra, enough for me.
OK, that was a lot. I hope it helps! I can tell you more that I’ve learned if you’re interested, but I’d want to know what your skin goals are. I’m 48, so I’m mostly on the anti-aging side of things, but I know younger people aren’t necessarily thinking about that! I certainly wasn’t until I suddenly found myself wrinkled and said, “Oh, shit!”
I would worry with how dry and sensitive my skin is, that leaving an acid on (Vit C being ascorbic acid) would anger it in the extreme.
I just got an “anti-aging regime” from The Ordinary, that was recommended in one of their videos. Squalane cleanser, “Buffet” serum (peptides), rose hip oil. Also a caffeine undereye serum that I will hope with how swollen and puffy my undereyes are all the time now. I had the same fears as Bracken_Joy about anything acid. I don’t know, this all seemed like a good basic place to start?
I’m 2 days in, though I haven’t tried the rosehip oil yet. I felt like trying 4 products at once might be a bit much and then I wouldn’t know what was destroying my skin? I don’t know. I have no idea what I am doing. I feel like I should just give up on fighting zits and focus on anti-aging because literally everything I have ever put on my face to fight zits has turned me bright red and not helped the zits. So maybe I should give up and try fighting the wrinkles and sagging instead.
I did think about Curology but the subscription model worries me - had a terrible experience with accidentally signing up for Proactiv many years ago and they refused to cancel. I ended up with SO much of that crap, which I couldn’t use because it was so irritating.
FWIW the compromise I’ve come to that seems to be working so far is using the “brightening” overnight treatment once to twice per week, BUT it was indeed pretty drying, so it plus the gel vs milk cleanser purchase mistake was too much- had to buy the correct milk one to bump the hydration back up.
I’ve always heard with sensitive skin to try to keep some of the more “active” ingredients out of your main products, and instead do them as add ons, so you can adjust frequency as needed or take breaks.
I think you were right! Also my skin got better and I foolishly used the scrub again… and now it’s patchy again. Maybe I’ll keep that scrub for the rest of my body since my face seems to hate it.
I think I’m going to buy more of this cleanser. I had received some samples and it is indeed “seriously soothing”. I think the scrub might have been okay counteracted by this cleanser before, but was way too harsh when I ran out.
https://www.ulta.com/seriously-soothing-cleansing-cream?productId=pimprod2006230
Since @anomalily got me on a Hyram kick, I recently learned he’s fairly anti- scrub. Thinks they’re really harsh for peoples skin and rarely the best option for what you’re trying to achieve. Definitely my skin has never tolerated scrubs well.
Agree on physical exfoliants. I am a chemical exfoliant person all the way. I really want to get COSRX’s AHA and BHA products but I am buying too much already.
I did get these to help my skin stay moisturized during these dry months - gonna use one a week:
That makes sense. I didn’t realize your skin was dry. I love this helping each other thing with the overwhelming world of skincare, but the hard part about it is that everyone’s skin is different and what might be lovely and wonderful for me could be horrible for you. There is a lot of stuff to wade through about skincare and about a million unfounded claims. I mostly try now to learn about the ingredients so I can make decisions based on what is actually in the products rather than marketing. But it’s a lot, especially when you don’t already have a science background (me!)
I was a little scared of putting things on my face that had the word acid in them. The vitamin c hasn’t been harsh for me, but the lactic acid can be a little bit sting-y. And as I understand it, lactic acid is not as strong as other acids, like glycolic acid. But it feels strong to me, so I haven’t tried to push it with something stronger. And the vitamin c serums have all different formulations. I found it pretty tricky to figure out, honestly. From what I’ve read, the l-ascorbic acid version is better for skincare than the other kinds, but you also have to concern yourself with the ph, so you need ferulic acid and vitamin e helps? I can’t remember all of it from when I was looking into it but I know that’s how I came up with the brands I chose, plus, price. Some of them are ridiculously expensive and then there are others, like the ones I buy, that have the same formulations but for a fraction of the price. And I keep it in a dark bottle in the refrigerator, so picky this vitamin c stuff! And then I’ve seen that there are powders you can buy and I guess mix them on your own? Or add them to other skincare ingredients and I just think, ummm no. I wouldn’t know how much to put and I’d worry about trying to be a little home chemist in my bathroom and put whatever I concocted on my face! Maybe I’m overreacting but that just seems nuts to me. I’m in the “number one rule: be nice to your skin” camp pretty solidly, I guess. I think there’s a part of me that still feels a lot of guilt over those many, many sunburns I got as a redhead kid growing up in the desert. I’ll forever be trying to make it up to my skin for the early atrocities (please don’t develop cancer, skin, I’ll be nice to you, I promise.)
I haven’t tried Curology so I can’t recommend it or not, but it does seem an actual dermatologist looks at your skin (through pictures?) and comes up with your specific prescriptions/dosages. I guess that doesn’t really address your subscription model concerns (I hate subscriptions, too) but it seems like it should work better than the Proactiv thing you dealt with. At least it should be customized and if you had problems you’d tell them and they’d adjust?
Your anti-aging regime from The Ordinary is interesting to me. I haven’t tried a lot of those things even though anti-aging is my main focus with skincare. God, there’s so much to learn! I feel like I’ve been working on learning about it for a while now, and there’s still a lot to learn. Ugh.
Did your skin feel hydrated after using that cleanser? I looked at the ingredients and I don’t see the usual things I see for hydration purposes so I was wondering about that. I know it’s a cleanser, not a moisturizer, but still I wonder. I guess the coconut oil in it would feel hydrating.
Yes, it does feel hydrated!
