Living the 'Proactiv' life

I'll admit it...I am a 24 year old "woman" still suffering from the socially painful woes of acne. Alright, it's not that bad, and never really has been. I've just inherited my paternal grandmother's extremely large pores, which result in permanent black heads and the occasional inflammatory break-out. They somehow miraculously disappear in photographs though...very thankful indeed.

As an early-bird in the puberty (I still hate that word) portion of my life, I began suffering from this affliction at the ripe age of 9. In high school, my mother decided to do something about it (rather to shut me up) and take me to the dermatologist. I tried the benozoyl peroxide washes...they only resulted in a red neck (haha) and the rude morning wake up call of not being able to open my eyes (puffiness). I also tried other topical medicines, which were terrible when I started doing color guard, as they resulted in sun poisoning at band camps.

So I gave up throughout college...I made sure that I took care of my face. It would all go away during drum corps summers...although if you spend more than 3 weeks of 11 hours per day in the sun, your nose begins peeling off in chunky pieces. I would get home though, and the zits would be back for more (the disease that keeps on giving? oh wait, that's something else).

So here I am, in what is technically my mid-twenties (yikes!) and I'm still suffering. One day on a whim I decided to try Proactiv (because if it works for Jessica Simpson...haha). I get the package and realize that a lot of their products contain the lovely benzoyl peroxide, which isn't so lovely to me. I realized that if I use it once every three days (way under the recommendation) , I'm not affected by the benzoyl peroxide, and it helps clear things up.

Last week though I had a terrible break-out. It was quite possibly because I was finished with school and all of the stress within me combined with a job interview, had finally surfaced in the familiar red mound-like form.

I will continue to live the 'Proactiv' life because I do think it works, especially if your skin isn't sensitive like mine. But I do realize that stress can have far more influence on my looks than a miracle medicine can.