Glamdelion Beauty and Wellness

Prioritize skin barrier health. Think of a healthy barrier like a security system: it helps keep water in while keeping irritants and other unwanted outsiders out.

Vet EVERYTHING coming in contact with breakout-prone areas. We eliminate pore-clogging ingredients. Regardless of whether a formula might work for you in the future, we aren’t taking chances until you’re clear.

Slowly introduce regular exfoliation. The type depends on the type of acne, but exfoliation is essential to the clearing process. Acne-prone skin has a tendency to shed and accumulate excess dead skin cells, creating little traffic jams inside the pore that kick off the acne cycle. We have to interrupt it.

Keep the skin well hydrated. Avoiding moisturizer is not an effective strategy for controlling oil, in fact it will make your skin produce even more oil > leading to more breakouts.

Decide where/if benzoyl peroxide fits. Not everyone needs BPO right away. I base it on how inflamed the acne is, how sensitive the skin is, and how it responds to exfoliation. I may start with a BPO cleanser for milder cases, but when inflammatory acne needs more help, BPO is my go-to.

Stick to the routine while constantly monitoring the barrier. If irritation shows up, we pull back on actives. If the skin is tolerating everything but the acne isn’t budging, we gradually get more aggressive.

Notice how nowhere in there did I tell you to give up every fun food forever?
While I fully support improving internal health and reducing inflammation, major elimination diets are not part of my standard acne-clearing strategy. There are soooo many things we can try before we start breaking up with dairy, gluten, sugar and everything else that brings us joy.

The dietary hill I will die on? Building meals around balanced blood sugar. Think fat + fiber + protein + greens on repeat.

If you’re tired of playing acne routine roulette, book an acne consultation with me virtually or in person in downtown Grand Rapids and let’s figure out what your skin actually needs. Booking link in bio.

She actually did a pretty damn good job getting her skin this far on her own. 👏

I had never met this client before, but she had already found a routine that took her skin from cystic + inflamed to significantly calmer. She just hasn’t been able to get it across the finish line.

Her routine relies heavily on tea tree oil for its antibacterial benefits. Tea tree can absolutely help with acne, but I find it’s often not strong enough for persistent acne-causing bacteria. Benzoyl peroxide has much stronger evidence behind it and works faster to reduce C. acnes.

She’s also missing something to encourage cellular turnover and keep dead skin from piling up into clogged pores.

We’re not undoing what’s clearly working. We’re just giving her routine a little more vavaVOOM! 💥

With “peel season” right around the corner, I decided it was time to get my nerd on and brush up on my chemistry.

I have taken a LOT of continuing education over the years, and this one deserves its flowers. 👏

I just finished nearly two hours of advanced chemical peel education with Emily Hilburn of Pinnacle Modern Skincare, covering everything from peel properties and skin physiology to advanced techniques and mixology.

This wasn’t a two-hour commercial disguised as education. It was education I can take back to my treatment room and apply to the products and formulations I already work with. In an industry where education always feels like a sales pitch, estheticians are starving for product neutral training like this!

You can tell when someone has put in the time to understand the why behind what they’re teaching, and Emily KNOWS skin. That’s the level of knowledge I think every esthetician should be chasing.

Anyway, I guess it’s time to invite my guinea pig (I mean boyfriend) in for a little peel-season experimentation.

Booking link is in my bio.