Love my Proactiv *not sponsored, just love it.

So I put this photo up on my facebook page a week or so ago with the caption:

Come to Mumma
#notsponsored
#justloveit
#fuckoffpimples

Within an hour I had three messages on my page wanting to know if it actually worked and if I had any advice.

So I thought instead of copying and pasting the same answer, I would do a post on it as well for any others who maybe wanted to know but were too chicken to ask.

(Please bear in mind that this is only my experience with proactiv)

I started proactiv at the age of 33. I didn’t have acne as such, my skin was mostly clear, but I was tired of getting oily gross pimples not only at “that” time of the month but invariably all year round, mostly on my chin. I was newly single after splitting from my first husband and I just wanted to look and feel attractive; get my confidence back. I really didn’t want Gertrude, Agatha and Geraldine making appearances on dinner dates!

I ordered it through their website and saw that it came with a money back guarantee if you trialled it for three weeks. I’m not sure if that is still the case but I can tell you that if they hadn’t had waved that carrot in front of me I would have given up after two weeks, sat down and cried and become a hermit. The reason why is that my face had begun to resemble this chap down here.

After 10-14 days I was about to die of embarrassment; my skin was terribly flaky and dry, so much so that I told everyone that I fell asleep in the sun and got uber burnt which was the reason why my face was falling off. I felt like a leper. It was hideous. My make-up wouldn’t cover it – made it look worse even*.

BUT…

Miraculously a few days after this, after the dry skin had flaked off, underneath was beautiful new baby skin and I have never looked back; it was totally bizarre. It was like the proactiv had just removed the layer of oil and guck and was showing the person I was underneath – just amazing. After that initial getting used to it I never experienced that dryness again – just lovely, soft, baby bumworthy skin evermore.

It has been 9 years now and after trialling two other quality products in this time, I will never stray again due to immediate visitations of Agatha and Geraldine. I don’t know whether my skin is just so used to it and it reacts when I stop using it or whether it doesn’t like the new products, but whatever the reason, within days of going back I am once again Gertrude free and confident.   Nothing else compares to proactiv for keeping my skin so calm and stable.

I really don’t like myself in photos, even now, but that’s cos whilst proactiv can make my skin look great it wont get rid of my third chin and roman nose.

I will also offer two pieces of sage advice;

1) Proactiv contains benzoyl peroxide which is the reason the pimples are too scared to show their face on your skin BUT it will bleach the shit out of your towels, even when your face is rinsed. So invest in a set of nice WHITE towels for drying your face with and take them with you when visiting relatives so you don’t ruin their towels (sorry Nanna).

2) Also, don’t buy it through their website and sign up for the bi monthly delivery. I only use it once a day in my morning shower routine and I would never go through even half of what they recommend you buying and send to you automatically (and charge you). Ebay sell complete sealed packages (from poor suckers who signed up to the monthly thing and never got through it I suspect) at a much better rate and you can also buy the product individually if you used your toner less that your cleanser for instance. It probably costs me about $150 per year for the three products for the amount I use.

Feel free to shoot me through any other questions – as I said, I did approach proactiv to sponsor this but they declined so I wrote it anyway as I really do love their product and can vouch for them as a very happy pimple-free customer. You just gotta get through the first two weeks or so as Mr Scaly McScalyson 🙂

*Note – whilst researching “bleached towel proactiv” photos I stumbled across this review which mentions the new proactiv (post 2011) doesn’t dry your skin out anymore. I assume I used the old one back in 2006 so perhaps my scaly lizard analogy is outdated?