Products We Love: Proactiv 365

I had a birthday in August!  I love birthdays.  Presents, cake, treats, and an excuse to ignore my diet for a week for the day.  This past August I celebrated my first year of turning 29 for the rest of my life.  (I’ll give you a moment to think about that one.  Digest it yet?  Ok, good.  Moving on…)

So, at 29 years old you would think that would mean that I’m well past my acne days.  The key words here are YOU WOULD THINK.

It seems that, while I never had issue with acne as a teen or young adult, as a woman in my late twenties (ouch, it hurts to say that) I’m suddenly looking in the mirror going “Where did THAT thing come from?” Or, worse “where did all of THOSE awful things come from?”

I’m incredibly vain.  I am fanatical about my skin.  Looking in the mirror and discovering that my face has been overtaken is not exactly fun – so I end up throwing myself on the bed and pouting, all while trying to hide my face from everyone I know and refusing to leave the house.

And yes, I really am that dramatic.  Please, pray for my poor fiance’.

To make a long story short, Mom Central recently reached out with a campaign for Proactiv 365.  It’s like they knew.  Maybe my fiance’ contacted them on the sly.  Who knows?  All I know is that when they did, I wrote them back and basically said “OMG YES I WILL DO IT!”  Just like that, I swear.

I’m sorry, but I don’t have any photos to share with you from my “before”.  I know all too well how google works and those awful photos of me would be on the internet for so long that my grandchildren’s grandchildren will be pretending like I wasn’t related to them.  But trust me when I say it was not good, my friends.

I started using Proactive at the end of September on a daily basis.  I used the Renewing Cleanser, the Revitalizing Toner, and then the Repairing Lotion.  In a week I saw a dramatic improvement.  In 3 weeks I had totally clear skin.  Every now and then a small blemish pops up, but if I’m being honest, that’s probably because I get overly excited sometimes and skip a day of use.  And then I pay for it.

Here is a photo of my daughter and I from yesterday at the Pumpkin Patch.  You can see – my skin looks great (you know, if I do say so myself).

I logged into Proactive 365 to talk to a personal skin care expert who recommended that I use the refining mask on stubborn trouble spots while I slept.  Going to bed with white dots on my face was not so pretty, but totally worked.  They also recommended the daily oil control, because I do have trouble staying “matte” throughout the day.  Something about my clean skin increases oil production it seems – but who cares – I can go makeup free if I so desire again!

I’m sure you’ve been hearing about Proactiv for years, but tell me, have you ever used it?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Disclosure:  I wrote this review while participating in a campaign by Mom Central Consulting on behalf of Proactiv and received product samples to facilitate my review and a promotional item to thank me for taking the time to participate.

 

Your Best Face Forward! {Giveaway CLOSED}

When I was 16 years old, everyone thought I was so much older than I actually was.  People made comments about it all the time (“Oh my GOODNESS you’re ONLY 16?!  Wow, are your parents in trouble!”), and occasionally men in their late 20′s would ask me on dates or worse, make inappropriate comments to me or in my direction.  My mom, being the good mom that she is, would shoot them dirty looks, quickly usher me away, and tell them in a growling voice, “she’s only 16!”.  Naturally, I didn’t mind looking older than I was at 16, because it worked to my advantage! (And, since my mom is BOUND to read this, we’ll leave that at that. Ahem.)

Somewhere around hitting 21 years old, everything changed, and suddenly people started thinking I was much younger than I actually was.  I remember being asked for ID while buying a lottery ticket (WHAT?  Somebody’s gotta win, right?!), which simultaneously surprised and irritated me since I had been able to buy lottery tickets for 3 years at that point.  It got progressively worse, at 22 years old people would ask me if I had considered where I was going for college yet – though in actuality I was a college senior and newly married.   At 24 years old and 8 months pregnant, I had several different instances where people looked at my belly in shock and horror and flat out asked “How OLD are you?!”  (My response?  “You first!!  How old are YOU?” with a sweet smile that told them to BUTT OUT.)

So, it seems the gods of aging or anti-aging have smiled upon me for most of my young adult life.  I’m not silly enough to think this will go on forever though, nuh uh.  I’m doing my part to take care of my skin and body so that I can prepare for the years ahead of me with a fanatical beauty routine that focuses heavily on skincare.  There is a new product on the market called Tripeptinon – a small capsule of liquid that combines 17 amino acids to address your skin’s surface issues as well as underlying issues such as supporting and connective tissue in your face.  Applied as the very last facial skincare step at night during a 6 week regimen, Tripeptinon is being celebrated as THE best way to have youthful skin – kinda like a face lift in a capsule. Here’s the thing though, you don’t have to be *ahem* OLDER to use this stuff.  No matter your age, your skin is constantly exposed to elements that are working against it, sun, wind, toxins in your environment, etc.  That means that no matter your age, you’re at the perfect age to take care of your skin.

Win it! I have a 6 week supply of Tripeptinon to give away to one lucky CSC reader!  To enter leave a comment for me on this post, and I’d luff you forever if you could say something with a bit more effort than “I wanna win.” or “enter me”.  Oh, and I have final say over what comments qualify as effort.  After your initial comment, every other (pertinent) comment left on this site on other posts from now through March 15th will count as an extra entry each.  You don’t need to come back to this post and tell me you commented on another post, I can stalk track you via your email/IP address.   As usual, extra entries are also available for stumbling Chic Shopper Chick (leave your stumble name), subscribing to my site, following me on Twitter, and blogging about this giveaway with a link back here.  That’s it, so good luck!

US entries only, winner will be chosen via random.org at the end of the contest. Winners are posted here, please leave a valid email address or blog address if you’d like to be contacted should you win. Winner has 72 hours to claim their prize. This contest ends at 11:59 pm CST on March 16th, 2009.