:Clear Skin Blog

If you have sensitive skin like me, shaving can be a rather unpleasant experience. However, using the right razor and forming some smart shaving habits can help diminish the chances of unsightly razor burn, bumps, nicks, and ingrown hairs. For men’s shaving, I’ve outlined many of the important factors in my shaving guide (you can find it on our “clear skin guides” page, linked at the top right), but for either gender, your choice of razor can sometimes make just as big of a difference as your technique.

So what are the best razors to prevent razor burn and other blemishes (which can in turn lead to acne)? Despite some newer razors that are more prominently marketed, Gillette’s SensorExcel series continues to be widely regarded as the best choice for sensitive skin. Both the men’s and women’s SensorExcel razors are simple and smart in their design, with twin blades than subtly adjust to the surface of your skin. They continue to have a following even despite newer brands such as the Mach 3, Venus, and now the Fusion.

Having more blades (the Fusion has five…) may provide a slightly closer shave, but the balance and adjustable nature of the SensorExcel is still less likely to knick your skin. Also, razors with more blades are more likely to cause ingrown hairs, as your skin is pressed down by the first blade and rebounds into the succeeding blades. This “pinching” effect can cause hairs to be cut slightly beneath the skin level, and these can get trapped under your skin as they try to grow back, causing ingrown hairs. I should note that this happens more often for people with very sensitive skin, and since the skin on your face is always more sensitive than on your body, small differences like this are more likely to effect men. Keep in mind the essentials of sensitive shaving, such as shaving with the grain and applying only light pressure, and you should be able to more easily avoid shaving blemishes.

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Let’s take a look a look at some other foods that are great for maintaining healthy and clear skin. On the menu for today: berries! Specifically, I’m talking about blackberries, blueberries, strawberries and plums (ok, so plums aren’t berries…I don’t care).

These four fruits are extremely helpful for their high concentration of antioxidants. A recent study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry listed them as being the most potent source of antioxidants among any food. It doesn’t hurt that they taste great as well. Eating a helping of any of these fruits each day will help rid your body of toxins that can build up in the skin. They also protect against free radical damage, which is one of the major sources of fine lines and wrinkles. Thus, besides keeping your skin clear, berries and plums can also aid in preserving youthful looking skin. The antioxidants present in these foods are easily absorbed by your body, making any amount that you can take helpful.

While berries and plums provide the highest antioxidant content, other high-antioxidant food sources include artichokes, beans (black, red, and pinto) and pecans.

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While I’m not too fond of the latest acne tech gadgets, here’s a product I think makes a lot of sense. Nature’s Cure recently introduced an acne body spray based on 2.5% salicylic acid, and the concept is actually a good one. As I’ve mentioned before, exfoliation is essential achieving clear skin in those difficult areas such as your back. Using an internal treatment such as vitamin B5 is necessarily in order to prevent new body acne from forming, but due to the thicker layer of skin on your back, regular exfoliation helps tremendously in getting rid of current blemishes.

I’ve seen other body acne treatments that focused simply on cleansing or detoxifying your skin, but these solutions are really not going to do much at all against stubborn body acne. Acne pustules on your back are usually trapped underneath a build-up of dead cells, and you need to first exfoliate those cells to heal your skin. The reason that a body acne spray with salicylic acid may work is thanks to the exfoliating properties of salicylic acid (SA). SA essentially works by burning away the very top layer of your skin. For many people, SA can be rather harsh when used on your face, but on the tougher skin of your back, it’s less likely to cause irritation and may be just what you need to burn away those dead cells that are keeping acne trapped under your skin.

Obviously, there are other ways to exfoliate besides SA. In my body acne guide I’ve talked about the importance of simply using a bath sponge or scrubber (something with some texture) and scrubbing your back with a gentle body wash every morning in the shower. This will have the same effect in exfoliating that top layer of your skin. Neutrogena also recently introduced a body acne scrub (like St. Ives’ Apricot Scrub), that can again have the same effect, although I can’t imagine that a scrub would be very easy to apply to your back.

A body acne spray is basically a good idea for easier exfoliation in those hard-to-reach areas, so I recommend it for those with difficult body acne, especially people who prefer not to take pills such as Clear5. However, for best results I would combine this with an internal treatment, that way you have both exfoliation and prevention working for you (plus faster elimination of redness thanks to B5). Of course, the other exfoliation methods such a proper back-scrubbing should work just as well if you don’t mind the extra work or don’t like the somewhat sticky feeling of the body spray.

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