:Clear Skin Blog

Besides vitamin B5, vitamin B6 has also been touted as a helpful vitamin for clear skin. However, less research exists detailing how B6 helps in the fight against acne, and widely conflicting reports regarding its effectiveness have kept vitamin B6 from becoming a highly recommendable acne treatment. If you’re already using B5 to keep your skin oil under control, you may want to avoid high levels of vitamin B6.

Similar to B5, vitamin B6 plays an important role in metabolism. Various studies have shown correlation between acne symptoms and decreased levels of B6 in the body. Some of these studies have also shown that acne remission followed supplementation with B6. However, there are conflicting reports on the subject, with other research showing increased breakouts resulting from vitamin B6 supplementation. These breakouts occurred even in patients who were not prone to acne (and outside the most common acne age groups), and later ceased when supplementation with B6 ended (the same correlation has been found with B12). Vitamin B6 can also compete with vitamin B5 for absorption in the body, potentially making B5 acne treatment less effective. As such, it’s usually a bad idea to combine B5 acne treatment with high levels of B6.

The conflicting reports make B6 a supplement you should take with caution if you’re looking for clear skin. To be sure, maintaining a healthy, natural level of vitamin B6 is always a good idea. However, using high doses of B6 to manage acne is unlikely to be as consistently effective as vitamin B5, and in some cases may actually work against you.

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Minocycline is an oral antibiotic; a derivative of tetracycline that is commonly prescribed for moderate to severe cases of acne. It has both antibacterial and anti-inflammatory effects. Dermatologists often recommend minocycline when topical treatments fail to give results. Also, being an internal treatment, minocycline is often more practical than topical skin care products for the treatment of back and body acne.

While it has long been one of the most common prescription acne treatments, minocycline has come under fire recently due to the fact the two patients have died following its use. Studies indicate the drug may have been responsible for resipitory failure and pulmonary complications. More common side effects include indigestion, stomach irritation and dizziness, but these usually wear off after a short time. Skin pigmentation (such as purple blotches) may occur with chronic use, as well as discoloration of the teeth and gums. This is more common in younger age groups. Rashes are rare but can be very severe if they occur, and intracranial hypertension (symptoms include headaches and blurry vision) and hypersensitivity lupus (symptoms: joint pain) are also rare but likewise can be serious.

In terms of effectiveness, minocycline has been shown to reduce most serious cases of acne by about 60%, although it may take a few months for users to see significant results. Minocycline reduces the swelling of acne spots and kills the underlying bacteria, but does not target oil production or hormonal factors. For many users, the alternative drug doxycycline may be a preferable choice, since it has shown to be about equal in effectiveness, but is not linked to some of the more serious side effects of minocycline.

For best results, minocycline should be taken on an empty stomach. Food can reduce its absorption by 10%, with milk reducing it as much as 33%. Proper vitamin supplementation, such as taking 500mg daily of vitamin C, can also help prevent some of the skin-related side effects.

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When it comes to cleansing and exfoliating your back and body, it usually happens in the shower. But what are the best shower products to use for gentle, yet effective skin care?

You’re going to need body wash and a sponge. Standard soap can overdry your skin and leave a filmy residue, and sponges are simply a lot more effective than your hands when it comes to retaining soap and actually exfoliating your skin. Most moisturizing body washes will work about the same (I personally like Dove), but sponges come in some very different forms.

There are basically three varieties of shower sponges: loofah sponges, net sponges and standard sponges.

Loofah sponges (also spelled “luffa” or “loofa”) are grown naturally, coming from the fruit of the luffa vine. If you live in a tropical or subtropical climate, you could probably grow them yourself. Loofah sponges have become popular for skin care due to their coarse texture. For those with tough skin who need a high degree of exfoliation, loofahs are a good choice. However, they niether retain body wash nor absorb dirt from your skin as well as some other sponges, and the coarse texture may be too irritating for those with more sensitive skin.

Net sponges are the most common shower sponges, composed of a net-like nylon weave. These are obviously not natural sponges and, frankly, somewhat bend the definition of the word “sponge”. But regardless, they are a popular shower solution and about middle-of-the-road in exfoliation strength. Like loofah sponges, you will have to hope most of the dirt and dead cells are rinsed away, since the sponge itself is unlikely to absorb much.

Standard sponges are somewhat less popular today, but for many sufferers of back and body acne they remain the best choice. These sponges may be natural or manufactured. They have a finer texture, with some being denser than others. Most importantly, traditional sponges are especially good when it comes to absorbance. They “sponge up” dirt and dead cells along with water, making them very effective for gentle cleansing. The downside to this is that they can become rather nasty, and typically need to be replaced more frequently than other sponges. They retain soap well, and are probably the best choice for those who do not require the more harsh texture of loofah sponges.

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Colloidal Silver is silver that has been broken down using a manufacturing process into extremely fine particles, small enough to stay suspended in water and even pass through a cell membrane. Silver is naturally a strong antibiotic, killing bacteria on contact. However, like most metals, it normally poses the danger of building up and becoming toxic to the body. Colloidal silver eliminates this danger since the particles are so small that the body can easily flush them out of your system if needed, which is exactly what happens to any excess amount. Thus, colloidal silver never builds up to toxic levels.

Besides being an extremely efficient killer of bacteria, colloidal silver also benefits from the fact that it doesn’t need to be digested as typical supplements do. The extremely fine particles are directly absorbed into the cells, such that it can actually be taken both orally and topically to treat infection. With these great benefits, it’s no surprise that colloidal silver has recently been marketed as an acne treatment. But can it really bring clear skin?

While there is no doubt that colloidal silver is effective at killing acne bacteria, the fact remains that most acne is caused by hormone-related excess oil production. Unless your acne is totally the result of over-active bacteria (which is actually rare), colloidal silver alone will not solve your acne problem.

As with any pure antioxidant treatment, its benefits are also limited when it comes to acne prevention. The P. Acnes bacteria feeds and multiplies off your skin oil, and without combating the problem of excess oil production, that bacteria will keep coming back. There is also the fact that acne pustules may form through the rapid build-up of oil which hardens and bursts your sebum glands - regardless of bacterial infection (which may intensify, but doesn’t cause the problem).

There are some individuals for whom colloidal silver may be all that is needed to help them get over acne, but most seeking clear skin will need an additional treatment to maintain it. The good news is that colloidal silver is a very safe and powerful treatment, moreso than the typical antibacterial drugs found in other treatments. It also kills most viruses and fungi as well, helping to prevent illness without ever harming your cellular tissue. And the fact that it doesn’t require digestion makes it more potent than most vitamin or mineral-based supplements. As such, colloidal silver can be an effective treatment to use in combination with an oil-targeting supplement like vitamin B5.

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Might as well start the year off with some new testimony from Clear5 users. We’ve had a bunch of clear skin stories piling up in our email over the last few months, and you can now find some of them at our acne testimony page. One of my favorite pieces of new testimony was from a customer who had already been using multiple prescription treatments for months, and yet didn’t get the results he was looking for until after adding Clear5 to the mix. We’re not kidding when we say that vitamin B5 treatment is more effective than many prescriptions. Just because something doesn’t contain strong drugs doesn’t mean it can’t have a strong effect on your body. In most cases, acne is something that your body should be able to get rid of itself, it just sometimes lacks the tools (such as a strong supply of vitamins necessary for key metabolic reactions). If you supply those tools, your body will often fix the problem for you.

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Happy New Year! I hope you all had a great holiday break! As luck would have it, the US Postal Service still happens to be on break today, so expect weekend orders to ship on the 3rd instead.

There’s still time to make a New Year’s resolution, so why not commit yourself to achieving clear skin and a great complexion in the coming year? I’ll be here to help at the Clear Skin Blog, and there’s a lot of useful information piled up, so check those archives or use the search box (bottom right) if you could use some advice. Even with an effective product like Acne-Vitamins’ Clear5, clear skin still starts with you. So commit yourself to keeping up with a consistent skin care regimen this year.

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