Blackheads are like the undesired fruit your skin produces when its pores get clogged trapping sebum in. Dead skin cells block the pore, sebum builds up getting oxidised at the same time and developing the characteristic hard black top and yellow /grey body or comedone.
Let’s have a look at natural solutions for blackheads:
Salicylic acid from willow bark tree (salix alba)
This is a keratolitic natural ingredient that acts on the accumulated dead skin cells that obstructs the pore by removing them leaving the sebum free to be released. The concentration of this ingredient is a key element for its success: too much and it causes a skin reaction or too little and no unclogging is done. When I developed the natural cosmetic formulation for iClear Total Cleanser I took great care in finding the “sweet spot” for the willow bark extracts I used and also the best willow bark extract that can penetrate into the deeper skin layers.
Argan oil (Argania spinosa)
This incredible oil, derived from a tree that only grows in Morocco, has sebum regulating properties, helping the skin to balance the amount of sebum produced. This is a nice way of working with your skin as it does not dry it and it making it less oily naturally. This is one of the reasons I used argan oil in iRejuvenate Plus Elixir, it is antiageing as well as sebum regulating.
Ingredients to avoid
Not all natural ingredients are good for the skin of the face because they can promote blackheads formation by blocking the skin pores. If you have a skin prone to blackheads watch out for ingredients with high comedogenic scores such as:
coconut oil (cocos nucifera)
cocoa butter (theobroma cacao)
isopropyl myristate
Other tips
Using products that claim to help removing blackheads by stripping the skin sebum have a short term benefit. Long term they backfire because they trigger the skin to produce even more sebum than usual….
Wishing you unclogged and free skin pores 🙂
