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Until recently I had always figured that buying a cleanser with strong added ingredients, such as salicylic acid or glycolic acid, was a waste of money. Didn’t all those ingredients just get washed down the drain? Weren’t you wasting your money? It seemed better to buy a lotion, moisturizer, or serum with those potent ingredients than a cleanser.
It turns out I was wrong with all of my assumptions. I did a little research and discovered some interesting facts about cleansers with added ingredients. First I’ll discuss what some of most popular added ingredients do for your skin. Salicylic acid, a beta hydroxyl acid, is a mild exfoliant and helps to loosen and expel comedones, or blackheads, from the skin. It also has anti-inflammatory properties which can help with the redness of inflamed lesions. Additionally, the combination of exfoliation and anti-inflammatory properties helps the skin heal, prevents scarring, and helps to decrease the chance of future breakouts. Salicylic acid, which is oil soluble, is able to penetrate deeply into the pore helping to keep sebaceous follicles clear of cellular buildup and can help minimize the formation of new comedones. On the other hand, benzoyl peroxide destroys the acne causing bacteria in the follicles. Benzoyl peroxide can penetrate into the hair follicle to reach the acne causing bacteria while not causing too much irritation to your skin at the same time. Glycolic acid is a alpha hydroxy acid with very small particles that penetrate deeply into the skin. As such glycolic acid is a great exfoliator; it can also reduce fine lines over time and even help the skin stay hydrated.
According to Dr. Marmur in her book Simple Skin Beauty the acids in a cleanser, such as glycolic or salicylic, will begin to work the minute it touches your skin. And if you use a cleanser with benzoyl peroxide in it that ingredient will actually remain on your skin after you have washed off your cleanser and thus will have the desired effect on your skin. One thing to remember – cleanser that contain these added ingredients use a strong surfactant, or oil and debris emulsifying ingredient, to work so they can dry your skin out.
Read the rest of this post on my blog: http://askanesthetician.wordpress.com
