Fridays with Felicia: Volume 26

Fridays with Felicia: An intimate look behind the curtain as I share my favorite style/ beauty discoveries and ThisThatBeauty shenanigans from previous week.

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During a recent breakout that was on the mend, I pondered the necessary balance of “treatment” and “healing”. Many times with pimples we aggressively work to “treat” and eradicate the pimple…this usually involves drying the sucker out by zapping it with concentrated amounts of drying ingredients like salicylic acid, sulfur, benzoyl peroxide, etc. However, once the pimple begins to subside, it is very important to transition from “treating” the skin to “healing” the skin…or you will be left with a dried out, hyper-pigmented area of skin.

While I like to think I know it all when it comes to skincare, I do recognize when it’s time to turn to the real pro’s for advice. For today’s “Fridays with Felicia” post, I interview Nicole Darmanin, Head of Public Relations and Communications for Mario Badescu. The focus of our interview is the proper balance of treating AND healing pimples.

FELICIA:

Nicole, thank you for agreeing to this interview. As my ThisThatBeuty readers know, I am a huge fan of Mario Badescu. I have written countless glowing reviews…in short, I’ve never met a Mario Badescu product I didn’t like!

Let’s chat about breakouts and skin discoloration. Why do breakouts cause discoloration and how can blemish treatments help us to avoid this?

NICOLE:

Post pimple discoloration, also known as Post Inflammatory Hyper-pigmentation, is the skin’s natural response to inflammation.   When inflamed, the skin will sometimes over produce melanin.   The color of the mark is determined by your skin tone (it can range from pink to red to brown) and the severity of the inflammation.   The absolute best thing you can do is to find a skin care regimen that is appropriate for your skin type. This will help prevent breakouts in the first place.   If you are dealing with a current breakout treat pimples right at the onset.   This will help to disinfect and heal the blemish so that you have less inflammation than if you did not treat it at all.

FELICIA:

When should you transition from a “drying” pimple product to a “healing” pimple product? Which Mario Badescu products do you recommend for both stages of pimple recovery, and why?

NICOLE:

I generally tell people to switch from a drying product to a healing product when you feel like the pimple has turned a corner and is on its way out.   You will know that the pimple is ready for healing products when you start to visibly see it shrink in size and it ceases to hurt when you touch it. If there was a pustule (whitehead) that should be gone before switching to healing products. Try Mario Badescu’s Healing Cream.

FELICIA:

Once you’ve dried and healed the pimple, what routine steps do you recommend to keep pimples at bay and continue to maintain skin’s smooth complexion?

NICOLE:
The easiest thing you can do for breakout prevention is to use a daily treatment like Mario Badescu’s Anti Acne Serum which contains the pore clearing ingredient salicylic acid.

For the best results, you really want to make sure you are using skin care that is appropriate for your skin.   A common mistake I see, especially for those fighting acne along with the signs of aging, is that they will want to use anti aging products that are too rich for their skin type and will eventually clog their pores and cause breakouts.   There are so many options and formulations to choose from that with just a little research you can find the products that are right for you.

Mario Badescu has great skin care specialists on staff that can recommend a regimen and even send samples to try.   You can call 800 BADESCU or do an online skin consultation at www.mariobadescu.com.

FELICIA:

Nicole, thank you for sharing your skin care expertise with ThisThatBeauty. I also highly recommend that readers check out mariobadescu.com‘s online Acne Resource Center to learn about causes and different types of acne, product recommendations and more!    http://www.mariobadescu.com/acne

Have a good weekend everyone!

xoFelicia