The Acne Battle – Witch Gentle Exfoliating Face Wash

So my skin situation is getting desperate, and although it may not be obvious because I don’t post face pictures very often, but my acne is getting worse and worse. It’s reached the point now where my face is just painful to touch and I’m actually getting used to seeing lumps and bumps all over it, when my skin was previously perfectly clear. I know that nothing topical is going to solve it, because it’s hormonal due to coming off the pill and my body going ‘ARGH WHAT IS THIS’, so I am dosing myself up on things that are supposed to help regulate me from within. However that doesn’t stop me from buying everything that claims to help from the outside too.

I picked up this Witch Gentle Exfoliating Face Wash in Boots a month or two ago, because Witch are a brand known to be helpful in combating bad skin situations. It was cheap and cheerful, and I basically had nothing to lose. The idea is that until whatever is causing this acne in the first place gets sorted out, I can at least try to keep the symptoms at bay or under control.

On the whole I do like this cleanser. I like the smell, I do think it leaves my skin clean, and it does seem to be helping my skin a little. The only problem is, I feel like it’s helping my skin because it’s drying it out so much. Which some might say is a small price to pay for fewer new skin eruptions, but my skin still ends up looking flakey and bad, which is pretty difficult to cover with foundation because that only highlights the problem. I did think that due  to it being an exfoliating wash, it might combat that by sloughing away the dry skin, but I actually found it’s exfoliating properties kinda useless. It does say ‘gentle’ exfoliating, which I guess is true, but for me there just aren’t enough exfoliating beads in it, they aren’t dense enough to actually exfoliate effectively, so I find myself using a different exfoliator as well.

With this said, when I do use an extra exfoliator, and make sure I moisturise really well before applying foundation, this has been working quite well for me in terms of keeping breakouts to what so far is my minimum. For the price, I’m happy to overlook the fact that I need to use an extra exfoliator, and I do think that when it comes to acne prone skin, anything you use that helps the situation tends to dry out your skin – it comes with the territory, it seems.

As of writing this post, my skin has a few little bumps (almost flat) in my main problem areas, but no big, painful cystic eruptions, which at the moment is kinda amazing for me. So I would say definitely give this a go if you want to try something new, without shelling out lots of money. I think I will be trying more products from the Witch line soon! And please let me know what your acne solutions are, I’d really really love to hear them.