Blackhead Astringent - should I worry about this drying out my skin?

Answer 1

It depends how sensitive your skin is. I have to be very careful about any sort of astringent or toner - most of them have a lot of alcohol in them and it's extremely drying. Check the ingredient list and if alcohol is there, especially in the first 2-3 listed, I wouldn't use it.

Some will tell you that if you have oily skin you want to dry it out but that's not really true. If your skin is oily it means that when your oil glands kick into gear they work overtime so if you keep drying out your skin, it triggers your oil glands to go to work and they produce to much oil, again and again. It's best to keep your skin clean but well hydrated to keep your oil glands quiet.

In my experience astrigents don't work well on blackheads. I use Neutrogenas toner every evening after I wash my face to remove any makeup residue. It works great for that. The best thing, really the only thing that I've ever used that has helped my blackhead problem is Tea Tree Oil. It is smelly and has some powerful fumes. I use the pure oil but you can buy it in a mixture with other natural ingredients.

I rub it on my skin at night after I've washed my face. I started using it just to kill bacteria and keep acne from spreading and then one day I noticed that I had hardly any blackheads left. I was amazed. Look for it at health product stores.