We love beauty products here at BeautyDesk, whether we’re buying them or making them. But when we can make our own at-home blemish fix with the help of a skincare pro, even better. We spoke with Graydon Moffat, founder of Graydon Clinical Luxury, to get the right mix for those days when that blemish just won’t banish.
There’s nothing worse when you have a pimple and start to pick. Unless you’re in the extremely capable hands of a skilled facialist or dermatologist, it just makes things worse. But we’ve all done it and the feeling of frustration, self-loathing and remorse are just terrible. It’s the “never, ever” rule which every mother and aesthetician has warned you not to do under any circumstances, but the reality is that it happens to the best of us.
So when the inevitable occurs, what the heck do you do? Drinking a bottle of wine, eating that bag of chips and moaning to your girlfriends are not going to help. Neither will rubbing your skin with harsh oils like tea tree, camphor and heavy duty benzyl peroxide. They will just add insult to injury.
You need to keep that red, bulging, swollen, incredibly sore, possibly bloody mountain on your face clean and non-irritated so that it heals quickly and above all does not get infected. The good news is that the answer may be hiding in your vitamin cupboard (or at your local neighbourhood health food store) and will not cost you a month’s rent like some of the fancy pants remedies on the market at your local department store beauty counter.
Two incredibly simple but potent ingredients may just become your new best friend, and they are colloidal (or ionic) silver and activated charcoal.
But first, let’s set your scab up for success.
A scab needs all the TLC it can get. After all, it’s there to protect the remnants of your pimple and prevent scarring and further infections. So first, hands off! Do anything to keep your fingers busy and away from your face. Remember that if your scab comes off too early, it will leave the skin underneath raw or ooze-y. You need to focus on fighting off the microbes surrounding your scab and fighting off the microbes surrounding it.
Start the scab-healing process by blending together the following natural ingredients:
- 1/8 tsp of bentonite living clay powder
- The contents of 1 capsule of activated charcoal
- 1 1/2 tsp of colloidal silver
- When this mixture has formed a paste, pour and stir in 1/2 tsp of warm raw coconut oil
Pat this mixture gently on your scab using a very clean finger and cover it with a damp cotton pad soaked in colloidal silver. (Remember that the longer you can keep it on the better so you may want to apply a bandage over the cotton square to keep it in place, or use tape.) Obviously, this is not an attractive look so do this when you have quiet time and don’t need to answer the door. Before bed is best so you can keep it on for at least a few hours, but a word of warning: place a towel over your pillow just in case you toss and turn as you don’t want charcoal mistakenly staining your linens!
Upon rising in the morning, wash your face with warm water ideally with a gentle but effective cleansing sponge that won’t aggravate your blemish.
Follow with your normal routine of toner, moisturizer, serum and cream, but please (if you can) try to skip the makeup for the day. Spoon any remaining paste into a small, sterilized container with a lid and pop in the fridge for the next time you need it.
Illustrations by Ana Paula Dias
