Fading Acne Scars on African American Skin - 5 Simple Steps to Clear Skin

African Americans and other women of colour are more prone to acne scars because of the extra melanin in the skin. Sometimes these bumps that come up under the skin but do not erupt fully can be just as annoying as pimples. When the under the skin bumps are pus filled they are cysts, otherwise they are known as nodules. By following these simple steps, you can fade acne scars and minimize the damage left behind when you get these kinds of bumps on your face.
1. Thoroughly wash/cleanse your face
Acne is caused when dirt/grease blocks your pores. Washing your face twice a day, preferably with an antibacterial face wash, will help to clean your pores. I wouldn't recommend soap as this can dry out your skin and cause excess oil to be produced. A face wash or cleanser containing 2% salicylic acid is ideal as it helps to prevent acne and remove build up of dead skin cells.
2. Exfoliate
Pores can also be clogged up with dead skin cells. Using a gentle facial scrub will help to remove dead skin cells to make your face appear brighter and clear your pores. The Clarisonic Skin Care Brush is ideal for cleansing and exfoliating. Many acne sufferers have seen dramatic results in just 4 weeks by using the Clarisonic twice a day.
3. Don't touch your face
This one is extremely difficult but it is a must. Touching your face spreads bacteria from your hands to your face, which will clog your pores and cause more spots. Unless you have just washed your hands, keep them away from your face!
4. Don't squeeze your spots
This should really have been number 1. You should never attempt to squeeze either because you'll end up 1) spreading the bacteria to cause more spots and 2) causing the ones that are there to last even longer. It's really annoying to have the spot there but picking at it won't make it go any faster. Try dabbing a benzoyl peroxide gel directly on the spot and that will dry that sucker up in no time.
5. Watch what you eat
Cut down on sugar up your intake of fruit and vegetables. Replace soda with water and try to drink 2 litres of it a day.
Old Acne Scars
Now, those tips are great for preventing new spots and acne scars but to fade acne scars that you already have, a gentle skin lightening product will help to even out your skin tone and eliminate acne scars. When choosing a skin lightening product, especially for African American skin, be sure to select a product with no hydroquinone as this can cause more harm than good in the long run.

By Anita Greenwood

Not sure which skin lightening product is right for you?

Every Now & Then Someone Will Remind You of the Color of Your Skin

I experienced it, people I know have told me stories about it, and others are still angry about it. The it, being the wrong color skin in certain circles.

From being followed in a store because someone who happens to have the same color of skin as you violated the store owner's trust, so now the entire race pays for what someone else has done because you look different from the rest.

What is it about being an African American in America or any color for that matter? Why is it that some will still remind you that you are different? Just when you think that you are being respected because you are a man or woman first, along comes someone to ask you a question that involves "you people..." or makes some comment about the color of your skin.

What's worse is even some of our own people are guilty of this.

Maybe I don't want to live today being reminded about someone treating me different because of my skin; instead could it be that I just have an attitude problem or they just don't like me just because? Why must we be reminded that something didn't happen for us because we are black, that someone asked us a question just because we are black, he or she followed us around the store because we are black, we got pulled over on the side of the road because we are black, the store clerk treated us different because we are black, we didn't get a certain opportunity because we are black...and the list goes on and on...

Just once could someone embrace us or reject us not because of the color of our skin?

Black Folks Been Goin' Green

You may have heard the hype about "going green" basically what it means is buying, creating, and doing things that are environmentally friendly such as recycling plastic bottles. So I thought about this campaign to "go green" and I thought, "Hey black folks have been going green kinda for years now!"

Take for instance, when Christmas time rolls around some one in your family says, "Don't throw that wrapping paper out, I could use it next year!" They may even grab up those Christmas bags and boxes before you get a chance to see whether that was Santa or an elf on the outside before they are stored for the next gift giving season.

Let us not forget about freezer bags that have been used, washed out, and then dried for the next use. Throwing away aluminum foil that covered the top of a pot was a "big no no" at my grandma's home.

I also thought about plastic bottles, containers and glass that was used to store food, make homemade preserves or jelly and other similar uses that grandma still does to this very day.

Old spray bottles were also refilled with some special concotion for a variety of things including cleaning various parts of a car.

The way I remember it in the past and present, the black folks at least the ones I grew up with, were always going green. Glass bottles and any other item that could be exchanged for cash put a smile on anyone's face in the neighborhood.

There were also those old toilet paper and paper towel inner tubes, old tires, shoeboxes, milk crates, old underwear, tin cans and other reuseable garbage that made great toys, cleaning tools, kept things from leaking, used as organizers and much more!

Going green for black folks isn't anything new under the sun!

Written by Nicholl McGuire

There is a Mental Illness Among Certain Blacks: Hating The Skin Their In

Okay, at first I didn't want to admit it, I just wanted to sweep it under the rug, but my brothas and sistas, some people in our circle are sick. They suffer from what I would like to call, "I hate my black self." Now they won't come out and say it, because they know they will have to face much ridicule from family and friends, but the evidence is clear. From the way they act around other races of people from the things they buy, someone in their family must have hurt them so bad that they just don't do black any longer.

My first experience observing a black with this mental illness I speak of was back in high school. I met a black girl who had mannerisms that said, "I hate my black self and I am running away from it too." People called her all sorts of names because of her dark skin. I wasn't one of them because I had my own issues of being black, I never saw myself as a lightskin black, but other people did and needless to say I experienced racism within my own race. I didn't know the history behind my skin tone, nor did I think I had some special incentives because of it. But I digress and will have to explore that topic on a later date, but back to her and my point for writing this blog, anyway, she would talk in a way that seemed rehearsed. She used, "like really..Oh my God...and what the f*ck man..." you know statements that we would consider "acting white." Now I liked her, thought she was cool, but I knew my sista had some serious issues. She watched mainly movies with white people in them, exclusively dated white men, went places that were primarily shopped by whites, eventually got pregnant by one and he left her. And she would tell me alot about white people. She definitely had her hands in the cookie jar and I was curious. But what she didn't tell me was how much she hated being black. Instead, it showed up in her actions. I knew there was something wrong and when I met her mother it reinforced the weird feeling I felt the more I hung around her. Her mother wasn't too happy with her black self either. So there it was the root of her issues passed on by her mother. So I say all of that to say this, why do blacks think that by hanging around exclusively white people that some how they will still be able "to keep it real?" It just doesn't happen that way over a long period of time, being around any race other than your own on a regular basis will change you in some ways. I live in a predominately Chinese community and trust me, if I had a choice in the matter, it would have never happened, but the man I am with picked it because it is minutes away from his job. Further, I don't think I'm Chinese, but I will tell you that now that I live here, I have an appreciation for Chinese art that I never had before. I will spend some time looking at the detail in the furniture that the Chinese create and will study their portraits, abstract art, and statues. I think if you are around anything long enough you will be influenced in some way.

So I think some of these blacks who choose to spend the majority of their time with other races; instead of their own are doing it because they don't like what they see within nor do they like what they see around them. If you grew up around a bunch of busybody, loud mouth, impoverished blacks whose idea of a good time was talking about you and your momma, then I guess I wouldn't want to be around those certain type of black folks, but I wouldn't close myself off to an entire race either.

Another issue I have with this mental illness of hating onself in the black community, is with brothas who claim they want to be with a sista then when they get her, they want to talk about her "attitude," like they don't have one, and to make it worse they will treat every other race of women so polite and nice then come home with no smile, barely speaking, and then taking out their "attitude" on her. It's always her fault for why he can't be happy, get ahead, find something, go somewhere, etc. Instead of holding himself accountable. Then when he can't seem to make things right with her, because "she got an attitude," he starts looking out in the street, at work, and on the Internet for his next victim. I say victim, because every sista starts off smiling, boasting, buying, and loving a brotha and then when it's all said and done, she is frowning, lying, witholding, and hating a brotha. I can speak to this issue, because I have experience. You see, a few of the men I dated had this mental illness I speak of. They got with my lightskin self, because as one brotha put it, "I got the best of both worlds." He went on to tell me that he "had a black woman with some white girl ways," now you know I had to leave that sick brotha alone. What college-educated black woman doesn't have some white ways since she has "to perform" in order to get ahead. There will be no shucking and jiving when talking to the man!

This issue of hating one's self because momma left a bad taste in some brotha's mouth so he will only do women who are totally the opposite of momma or hating black men, because she allowed too many to break her heart, or some other crazy reason for losing one's self in a sea of brown, white, red, yellow, or some other color is sick! You know it and I know it. I can respect someone who is open-minded to date all sorts of races just because they are in search of love, that has always been me and anyone who knows me, knows that. But this twisted thinking that if you can get a lightskin or white skin person to fall in love with you so you can have pretty babies is absurb and I can't help but think that some people I know have been guilty of this! This crazy thinking that somehow I can feel better about myself if I talk and walk like other races and spend most of my time hanging around nothing but white people is damn near suicidal! And last but not least, to teach one's child to never trust a brotha, live in a black neighborhood, give a fellow man your business, or sit down and eat at his house is ridiculous! But there are blacks teaching their children these things like the Bible, I can hear them now after Obama was elected and picking members of his cabinet, "See Matthew and Theresa you too can be just like Obama one day just so long as you surround yourself with white people. White people got Oprah far...White people got Clarence Thomas far...White people got your mommy and daddy far, leave those no n*ggas alone, okay?" The children respond, "Yes mommy and daddy we will." Another generation shall grow up fleeing black!

"So what is the bottom line and what does this idea of certain blacks hating themselves have to do with me?" I'm glad you asked, but if you had to then you either aren't black or missed my entire point. It has everything to do with you if not now, some time in the future. Because if you have children and these self-hating blacks are teaching your children in schools and in other programs, something is going to be said at some point that will change the way your children think about themselves. If your misguided cousin, aunt, uncle, sista, or brotha, starts bad mouthing blacks, or dare they say it, "N*ggas," or whatever other name they come up with, their attitude will affect how you choose to deal or not deal with them as well as anyone who is in a relationship with you. "Don't worry about my crazy relative..." will not smooth over hurt feelings, check them before they end up checking whoever you decide to have a serious relationship with. Their attitude may influence those around you to not want to deal with you, because you may be "too black, ghetto, poor..." or what ever other thought they may have about you. So you see, it is a mental illness amongst a few that can infect the whole family and/or whole nation. And as you may know, anyone who hates themselves, can be a problem on the job, in a social group, or somewhere else where harmony is a must. It makes you wonder if self-hating blacks are really the ones behind the negative images or lack of representation we see on television? Just think a powerful black in the boardroom saying, "No, I rather see Lily do that scene, because well you know how Keisha can be..." or what about a potential job offer or an opportunity to join a group this self-hating black, "No, I think Tyrone wouldn't be good for the organization, well you know his dreadlocks are a problem. Let's pass on Katina too, because you know she has all those kids to care for." Sometimes these self-hating blacks only want to be the only black on a job or organization, so they will stop at nothing to keep you from meeting any quotas, we will have to touch on that issue another time!

Written by: Nicholl McGuire

African American Skin Care Products That Really Work

If you want African American skin care products that really work, you need to choose ones that contain the right ingredients. You also need to know about some ingredients to avoid. Some compounds cause "hyper-pigmentation". Others cause "de-pigmentation". Of course, the best ones even out the skin-tone and protect the skin's overall health. Here's what to look for and what to avoid.

Compounds to Avoid

Sodium methyl paraben has been banned from skincare products in the EU, but it is still found in products manufactured in other countries. It has been shown to have a de-pigmenting effect that may be permanent. Check your products carefully for this ingredient.

Petroleum-based products, wood based alcohols and propylene glycol can cause "hyper-pigmentation" or the appearance of darker spots that do not match your overall complexion. These ingredients are commonly found in African American skin care products that claim to relieve oiliness. Excessive oiliness is often caused by the products that you are currently using. If you have some oily spots, check your personal care products for petrolatum, mineral oil and other petrochemicals. Those cause excessive greasiness, without actually moisturizing.

Don't choose products that contain chemical bleaching agents. They are quite harsh and may do more harm than good

Compounds to Seek Out

. If you want to even out your skin-tone, look for an ingredient called extra-pone nut grass. You may only need a little to see a dramatic difference.

In addition, you should look for natural vitamin E, an antioxidant that will repair any hyper-pigmented areas caused by using the personal care items containing the ingredients mentioned above. If uneven tone is a problem, African American skin care products containing nut grass and vitamin E will help.

Effective Moisturizers that Balance Sebum Production

If you are like most of us, you have areas that range from mildly to excessively oily and others that are mildly to excessively dry. Sometimes, this is caused by using the wrong lotions or creams, but it can also be a natural difference in the number of follicles present in the skin.

Sebum, the skin's natural moisturizer, comes from the sebaceous glands, which are located at the root of the hair follicles. So, in areas that are basically "hair-less", the skin is drier. The best African American skin care products contain jojoba and/or passion fruit extract. These have been shown to moisturize dry areas, without causing greasiness or leading to break-outs.

Anti-Aging Ingredients

It seems that everyone these days is looking for anti-aging creams and lotions. And, it looks like every cosmetic company in the world has something to offer.

According to clinical trials, the most effective anti-aging ingredients include Functional Keratin and wakame kelp extract, as well as the antioxidants coenzyme Q10 and natural vitamin E. Functional Keratin increases the production of new cells and fibers. Wakame kelp protects levels of hyaluronic acid, preventing sagging and increasing firmness.

Antioxidants counter free radical damage, which dermatologists believe is responsible for all of the signs of aging. So, when you find African American skin care products that contain all of these, you will know that they "really work".

I recommend checking out this website http://www.AHealthyRadiantSkin.com or for complete details that apply to all skin types.

Margaret Bell is a dedicated advocate of living a healthy lifestyle and diligent researcher of skin care systems. Visit her site aHealthyRadiantSkin to discover which is the Best African American Skin Care Products Margaret recommends for all skin types.

Be sure to sign up for her free Health newsletter for new updated skin care information.

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