What’s your Acne Medication’s Active Ingredient?
There are lots of products out there claiming to have the solution for your skin care problems. Aside from the prices and the infomercials, what makes these products work?
Below we’ve listed three of the most popular Active Ingredients found in both over-the-counter and prescription acne medications today. The details we provide are here to help you decide which acne-fighting solutions are best for you and your skin. Asking yourself which of the Active Ingredients below you feel has the capabilities you need to fight acne as well as which ones you feel most comfortable with and you’ll be able to consult with your dermatologist with confidence, which is the first step in any acne treatment.
Benzoyl Peroxide
What is it? Benzoyl Peroxide is an organic compound that’s been used for nearly a century to treat acne. While innovation and new technology is great, the success of this active ingredient constantly reminds users that the latest isn’t necessarily the greatest. Benzoyl Peroxide is all over modern American life. It’s used in the flour that makes our bread, to treat the cloth that makes up our clothes and can even be found in toothpaste. While large concentrations of Benzoyl Peroxide can be harmful to the skin (drying it out and bleaching it), most over-the-counter and mail-order applications of Benzoyl Peroxide use the product in concentrations of just 2-5% and hard-core, doctor prescribed products never go above 10% concentration of the compound. When it comes in contact with human tissue, such as flesh, the peroxide breaks down into harmless benzoic acid (found in many packaged foods) and simple oxygen so it’s totally safe for humans—even pregnant women!
How does it help? As the product is applied to the acne area, it stimulates the body to increase skin turnover which clears pores of the keratin and other grime that causes zits. It also has the added advantage of being antibacterial but because it’s an oxidizer and not an antibiotic, Benzoyl Peroxide’s antibacterial effects do not promote the growth of resistant bacteria.
What's the downside? A small percentage of people have negative reactions to Benzoyl Peroxide. Tolerance can be built up by exposing these people to small concentrations of the product and then by increasing that percentage over time. While the skin becomes resistant, the bacteria that causes acne never does.
Because it can dry out skin, many of the treatments using Benzoyl Peroxide provide a pH-balanced moisturizer in order to keep the new skin from cracking.
Glycolic Acid
What is it? Glycolic Acid is a crystalline acid that easily dissolves in water. While it can be found in some sugar crops, it’s used to remove wrinkles, perform chemical peels, bleach dark spots on the skin and smooth down hard, rough spots on the skin known as hyperkeratosis or cancer causing actinic keratosis. It was introduced with other alpha-hydroxies in the 1970s as a means for dermatologists to get satisfactory chemical peel effects from less toxic chemicals instead of the then-industry standards trichloroacetic acid (a main ingredient in weed-killer) and phenol. Glycolic Acid’s primary role in medicine is to chemically burn bad flesh off with less harmful side effects than its predecessors.
How does it help? Glycolic Acid removes dead skin from the areas its applied to, leaving renewed, young skin in its place. Like Benzoyl Peroxide and Salicylic Acid, the end result is the removal of keratin and other grime from the pores, which in turn prevents zits. Since it dissolves so easily in water, this compound is found in higher concentrations than Benzoyl Peroxide and Salicylic Acid in its over-the-counter form, typically forming 2.5 to 20% of the solution. Dermatologists use solutions of the product up to 70% in professional applications.
What's the downside? Glycolic Acid is a powerful agent. It’s not the sort of chemical to be kept in reach of small children. If ingested it quickly turns into a harmful compound within the body called oxalic acid. In this form the substance leeches nutrients like calcium and then uses those nutrients to deposit crystals within the body that can irritate the bowels and kidneys. In the kidneys it can eventually form kidney stones.
Salicylic Acid
What is it? Salicylic Acid is another crystalline acid that, among other things, functions as a plant hormone and is closely related to the active ingredient in Aspirin, acetylsalicylic acid. In fact, since ancient times, Salicylic Acid’s been used as a pain reliever, fever reducing agent, and anti-inflammatory drug. Today it can be found as major ingredient in joint and muscle-ache medication and canker sores.
How does it help? Like Benzoyl Peroxide, Salicylic Acid causes the skin of the affected area to self-exfoliate or shed more quickly, keeping the pores clear of keratin and other zit-causing grime. It does not have the powerful antibacterial effects that Benzoyl Peroxide uses to fight acne.
What's the downside? Like all active ingredients, Salicylic Acid is a powerful chemical that is effective in small doses, usually limited to 2% in over-the-counter products. Increased exposure to the material has been shown to cause deafness in zinc-deficient people. While there are no studies showing any dramatic risk in topical applications of Salicylic Acid, as in the case of acne treatments, orally taken Salicylic Acid has been associated with intracranial bleeding.
The use of concentrated Salicylic Acid solutions can cause skin discoloration in the form of dark spots on dark-skinned people. Like all beta-hydroxy acids, the FDA recommends that people who are regularly applying Salicylic Acid use UVA and UVB sun screen when on sun-exposed skin areas while using the product.
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Acne Active Ingredients
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