I recently posted a thread asking for help w/my acne, which is unable to be treated with prescriptions right now b/c I'm nursing. I've tried tons and tons of treatments, all to no avail, and am looking for some help on it, b/c I feel like I've exhausted almost all options. Someone on my other thread suggested some drying lotion, and when I looked it up, found that the main ingredients were calamine and salicylic acid. Well, realizing that calamine is a drying agent (it's what you put on poison ivy), I got a 99 cent bottle from Hy-Vee and decided to try something.
I have been putting regular calamine lotion on my face like a mask once a day for about 20 - 30 minutes. Just dabbing it on like you would with poison ivy. I rinse it off after a little while, and wash my face really well so that I don't have any reside left to clog my pores. I have been doing this for about a week, and am happy to report that I haven't had any breakouts!!
I'm really knocking on wood here, b/c of my awful luck with skin care, but so far it seems to have really done a lot to help out with the big sores and even the smaller pimples on my cheeks and chin. Also, when I began using it, I had three places on my chin where 2-3 big pimples had clustered together, and they had been really big sores. I had squeezed all the stuff out, but they were big irritated scabs. After two days of applying the calamine lotion, they were completely gone, scabs and all, and even faded quite a bit.
I cannot believe how well this seems to have worked! It dries up any oozing when you pop the pimple, and apparently does a number on them before they get big. And my skin's really soft, too! I'm simply stunned.
If anybody wants to try this and get back to me about the results, I'd be really interested to hear if it works for more people.