Help! I’m confused about my products.
I think many, MANY women are confused about products. So let’s work through this logically. Let’s think am and pm. I’m assuming you have some acne because you were prescribed Ziana, an acne topical med that is a combination of clindamycin and tretinoin.
Your am regimen makes sense to me but I would add an antioxidant to it- maybe a good Vitamin C serum. So it would be wash, serum, moisturizer (noncomedogenic) if needed, sunscreen that won’t clog pores.
Your pm regimen makes less sense to me. For starters, generally no toner is needed if you are using gentle cleansers that don’t cause pH problems for your skin. If you rinse thoroughly there’s no need to get cleanser residues off which is sometimes the reason given for using toners. I generally view them as a waste of time and money. You don’t need to exfoliate daily and that often just irritates your skin. 1-2 a week is plenty with a gentle exfoliant. Also, if you are using a retinoid (remember the tretinoin in your Ziana is just generic Retin A), that speeds the exfoliation process so exfoliating once a week may be plenty.
So for pm, I would recommend wash, your acne med Ziana (which is as good or better than retinol because it has tretinoin and the topical antibiotic clindamycin), and then moisturzizer. You get that anti aging effect from the tretinoin as long as you sunscreen each am. If you get irritated from the Ziana, please go back to your doctor for an acne med that is less irritating. If you have a lot of plugged pores, consider having your aesthetician do a monthly microdermabrasion or light peel. Hope this helps. Dr. I