Acne Audio Therapy?
If you’ve never heard of acne audio therapy, or wave therapy, you’re not alone. I just discovered this apparent new wave of acne treatment (bad pun, I know ^_^) on a recent visit to the dmoz directory, where I came across Pureinside.com.
The Pureinside treatment system consists of a green tea cream and two audio CDs (hence the wave therapy). Descriptions on the site did not provide any specific technical details of how the system works, but the basic gist of the treatment is that you apply the cream and then play the CDs for about 20 minutes - and the sound waves “activate” the cream. The treatment system is allegedly popular among celebrities (it has been included in gift baskets at red carpet events in Hollywood), if that matters to you.
Anyone who has visited the Clear Skin Blog for a while knows that I’m certainly a fan of green tea. It’s one of the most potent natural antioxidants out there, and when applied as a cream, green tea extract has been shown to combat acne just about as well as everyone’s favorite drug, benzoyl peroxide. As such, the green tea part of the treatment system makes sense. Actually, it should be effective regardless of whether it’s “activated” by sound waves or not.
Does the audio therapy side of the treatment actually work? Well, that’s a bit of a mystery. I know of no scientific reason why audio waves would make green tea cream more effective, and so I’m a bit skeptical. It would certainly help if some scientific reasoning was actually provided. Regardless of whether the waves have any effect on the skin cream, audio therapy has been shown to be a successful way for many people to cope with stress, and since the link between acne and stress is fairly well established, if the CDs help in this respect they may indirectly aid in promoting clear skin. It’s certainly a unique twist on acne treatment. I wonder if we’ll be seeing more “acne CDs” in the future.
