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Blackheads. Most people with even remotely oily skin have 'em, and everybody hates the little buggers. These spots ain't cute like freckles; they're dark, glaring pools of pure, undistilled evil.
First off, just what are these nasty specks? Now, I'm no chemist (I skipped Chemistry in school… Physics-boy, here), but from what I understand, blackheads are whiteheads without a layer of skin over them. Both are a collection of sebum and dead skin cells within the duct of a sebaceous gland, and, to put it mildly, they're really gross…
Both start out whitish in color, but whiteheads stay white because they have a layer of skin over them, which is also why they swell. Blackheads do not. The layer of skin over whiteheads allows the duct to act as a breeding ground for bacteria. Blackheads, on the other hand, open to the air, quickly oxidize and appear black. Incidentally, oxidation is also the reason why metals rust.
Lovely, no?
Whiteheads are the reason why I've been on varying acne medications for the past three years. Duac, Tetracycline, Doxycline, Differin, Monocycline, Retin-A… You name it, and I've probably been on some form of it at one point or another. The problem is that none of them seemed to have much effect. They just either dried out my skin or made it extremely red, without much reduction in the amount of acne I actually had. My dermatologist finally put me on a combination of Epiduo and Soladyn, which is my current regiment, and these two, along with my wondrous Clarisonic, have cleared up my skin something fierce.
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Read the rest of Does Mario Badescu Silver Powder Bid Bon Voyage to Blackheads? (1,271 words)
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