I think I’ve mentioned my horrible adult acne drama here on the blog before. It’s not a pretty sight my friends –  a girl in her mid-twenties still dealing with teenage facial blemishes. In short, it’s been about 7 years of struggle with acne for me. It was like an internal alarm went off on my 18th birthday that said, “Now that she thinks she’s an adult, we’ll just keep her teenage insecurities going for another decade or so…” Thus began my journey with Adult Onset Acne, and that brings me to today.

I just might be growing out of it.

GASP! I really don’t know if I should say it out loud yet. I mean, it’s too soon to tell. It’s been less than a year of clear skin for me. I’ve had relapses recently. I’m still using my same acne skin care that has done me right for seven years. Seven years, people! That’s a long relationship with a skin care regimen that has done a fantastic job on my difficult skin. I’m not sure I’m ready to give that up yet. But I can’t ignore the evidence. I’m a little older now – my skin may be changing. While I was in the heat and humidity of Asia for two months, the only thing I used to clean my face was a simple cream cleanser and a sunscreen moisturizer, and my skin stayed clear and beautiful. When I returned to the dry air of San Diego, though, my acne kind of came back, so I frantically returned to my intense acne skin care.

Fast forward a few months to our trip to Italy. I was tired of traveling with all of my face care products that are too big for airport security screening, so I took a gamble and pulled out a very old friend of mine. Something that I haven’t used since childhood. Something that my mother still swears by to this day.

Noxema.

My childhood beauty memories are filled with my mom’s big blue jars of Noxema. People always asked what her beauty was – how she managed to get such beautiful skin. She always replied simply, “I only use Noxema. Nothing else.”

So for our entire week in Italy, where the climate and air are very similar to San Diego, I took my mother’s advice and used nothing but Noxema and moisturizer, and my skin feels FANTASTIC. I can’t believe it! In fact, I’ve been using Noxema twice a day with a Neutrogena moisturizer ever since and my skin has never felt better. Instead of fighting with intense acne cleansers that dry out my skin, I’ve begun to treat my fading acne with intense moisture, and it’s working. Yay!!!!

So to my mother, thank you. Not only for your wonderful skin genes, but for the advice.