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All opinions are honest + my own. All products are put through a 2 week test period conducted on myself.
Why It’s Useful
Alright, bacne/chestne time! Fungal acne edition.
Switching to a non-SLS/SLES/ALS shampoo + body soap did wonders for bacne. Saw the volume reduce by a lot. As did a conditioner without coconut oil, shea, and silicones.
But I still had a lingering flare that started almost 2 years ago that just would not respond to any treatment. It just persisted. Until I found the blog Simple Skincare Science where he broke down fungal acne + how to treat it. (Go check out his blog! It’s fab.) Turns out, a key sign of fungal acne is non-response to acne treatments.
Ew. Fungal. I know! But it’s just an imbalance of what’s naturally present on our skin.
They look like tiny, uniformly sized breakouts + might be itchy.
(Update: just found this great resource, too!)
Quick Take
Enter this guy: Noble Formula 2% Pyrithione Zinc Argan Bar Soap ($13). This guy WORKS. It calms my skin, moisturizes it, and visibly keeps fungal acne at bay. (Side note: it’s also formulated to help with psoriasis + eczema, but I’m not able to test for that.)
I tried a whole bunch of fungal acne products, some of which were too strong for my skin. And this is the only one that visibly helped while not causing irritation + more breakouts. It took me over a year to find something that worked!
Sensitive Skin Acne Review
Pyrithione Zinc is antifungal + tries to help by getting your skin biome back to a more balanced state. Most times, it’s paired with SLS, which doesn’t help sensitive skin + kept aggravating it into more breakouts.
My sensitive skin overreacts when I use strong acne products, so a gentle + moisturizing treatment like this is key.
It also has oats to give it a gentle, physical exfoliation. My general rule is to really limit physical exfoliation, especially for your delicate facial skin. Body skin is tougher than facial skin (yes, that’s a thing) and can handle it better. Though I wouldn’t go overboard.
Tips
- (You should see signs it’s helping in the first 2 weeks. If it doesn’t, you might need a different approach or it might not be fungal.)
- While showering, be sure to apply + allow it to sit on your skin for 2-5mins. Let it marinate. The Pyrithione Zinc needs that to do its job.
- Store it away from direct shower water as would likely melt.
- Though it’s $13 for a bar, it lasts about 1.5mos, if you only use it for affected areas. You can also buy a set of 3 bars for $33 (which brings the bar price down to about $10 each).