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If reading isn't your thing, here's the quick lowdown on fungal acne in video form. The written blog starts below this. Does your acne look like the acne shown in the picture below? Does it take the form of small bumps on your forehead and other parts of your face? Maybe it also itches and you have dandruff as well? If you answered yes to even some of these questions, you likely have fungal acne. While it may look like acne, it's a different animal and requires somewhat different treatment since a lot of things that may work for regular acne, won't work if your acne is fungal. We have an extensive amount of experience treating fungal. Here are just a few images that clients have shared of their results. Here's everything you need to know about fungal acne and how you can get rid of it, just by having a solid, fungal-acne safe skincare routine in place. Contents What Is Fungal Acne? What Causes Fungal Acne? Diagnosing Fungal Acne Treating Fungal Acne Recommended Skin Care Routine What Is Fungal Acne? While regular acne, or acne vulgaris, is caused by bacteria, malassezia folliculitis, also known as fungal acne, is caused by the malassezia fungus. This fungus has 22 currently known species, and is naturally found on our skin. Malassezia is an opportunistic pathogen. This means that it is generally harmless and only causes disease when immunity is in some way compromised. It has also been linked to other conditions in dermatology including seborrheic dermatitis and dandruff. Malassezia is lipophilic and needs to feed on fat to grow. It is thus, most commonly found on areas of the body that have a dense population of oil-producing glands: the scalp, face, and trunk. Rapid growth of the fungus disrupts the natural renewal of skin cells, resulting in flaky skin (dandruff) and itching. What Causes Fungal Acne? The causes of fungal acne are poorly understood. Some health conditions however, can make people more susceptible to it. These include diabetes, HIV, organ transplant, and immunological deficiency. Studies have also linked fungal acne to obesity, steroid use, birth control pills, and stress. The infection can also be triggered by prolonged antibiotic use. Antibiotics alter the delicate balance of our skin’s microbes, causing the death of bacteria that keep the growth of malassezia in check. This is especially problematic because fungal acne is often misdiagnosed as acne for which doctors are quick to prescribe antibiotics. This ends up further aggravating the condition. There are also factors that increase how quickly the fungus is able to grow. We know that malassezia multiplies faster in a pH range of 5.5 to 7.5 and in hot, humid climates. This explains the high incidence of fungal acne in countries like the Philippines, and from my personal experience, also in Pakistan. Diagnosing Fungal Acne It is often difficult to distinguish fungal acne and regular acne. However, there are factors that can help us differentiate between the two: Itching of the affected areas is characteristic of fungal, but not of acne vulgaris. Plentiful small, uniform, whitehead-like lesions. These tend to be more common on oilier areas of the face such as the forehead. Dandruff. Individuals with fungal acne often have dandruff as both conditions can be caused by the same fungus. Unsuccessful attempts at treatments with antibiotics in the past. If you’ve had antibiotics in the past but they didn’t help, or made your acne worse, you most probably have fungal acne. Treating Fungal Acne Treating fungal acne starts with choosing the right skincare and sticking with it even once the fungal acne has cleared, to keep it from coming back. If you’re prone to fungal acne, you need to avoid most oils and a wide range of other lipids as they are food for malassezia and cause it to grow very quickly. Fungal acne safe lipids include our Medium Chain Triglyceride (M.C.T.) Oil, and squalane. Once your skincare routine is in order - I will make recommendations below - it also often helps to use a topical anti-fungal, for 3-5 nights if the acne is severe. Leaving it on overnight often results in skin irritation. Contact therapy, where the ointment is applied for 20 minutes and then rinsed off, tends to be just as effective but carries much lower irritation risk. Ask your pharmacist for an ointment containing 2% ketoconazole for this purpose. If you're unable to find an ointment, a ketoconazole shampoo will also do the job. Apply a thin layer of it over affected areas for 10 minutes and then rinse it off. Several active ingredients in skincare can also treat fungal acne and prevent it from coming back, when used in a fungal acne safe formulation. These include honey, azelaic acid, sulfur, urea, and my personal favourite: salicylic acid, which also has anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial properties and helps unclog pores. Recommended Skin Care Routine When it comes to skincare for fungal acne, we recommend keeping it simple - an excessive number of products might just work against you. To start with, stick with only what's recommended and continue this routine even after your fungal acne has cleared. It’ll keep the fungal acne from coming back and will also help maintain general skin health. Pro tip: if you're confused about whether your acne is fungal or bacterial, you can still start out with this routine. It's also suitable for acne vulgaris! And if you need more help or have more questions, feel free to reach out. Here's the routine, in video form, and in writing. 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The Inspiration As someone who suffered from acne myself, when I started AccuFix Cosmetics, I initially set out with just acne in mind. I wanted to create products for myself, and for other acne sufferers, that would finally treat our acne, without causing any of the nasty side-effects that come about with the use of antibiotics and oral isotretioin, also known as accutane. I was aware of other skin conditions that resemble acne but didn’t initially pay much attention to them, primarily because I didn’t think they were common. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. As I spoke to hundreds of people who suffered from acne or what they thought was acne, I realised that a large percentage of them were actually not victims of acne at all, but of fungal acne, or to be more technically correct, malassezia folliculitis. How it’s different While our current acne products offered a great deal of benefit to acne sufferers, they hadn’t been designed keeping some specific qualities of fungal acne in mind. Namely, the ability of fungi to feed on a number of, otherwise fantastic, cosmetic ingredients, including oils and glycerin, and proliferate. So I wanted to make something that catered specifically to the needs of fungal acne sufferers. In a lot of cases, I also noticed that bacterial and fungal acne occurred together. The ideal product then would be able to cater to both types of acne. I do not have enough words to express the amount of love I have for salicylic acid as an ingredient, and I’ve written about it at length in a previous blog post. Salicylic acid is a well-known ingredient in acne circles. And I was well aware that in addition to having exfoliating and comedolytic (where comedolytic describes an ingredient that prevents pores from becoming clogged with oil and skin cells) properties, salicylic acid also functions exceptionally well as an anti-fungal and effectively exfoliates skin without increasing skin photosensitivity. There was no question in my mind then, that salicylic acid would be the key active ingredient in the formula. I’ve been using the formula ever since I developed it and have also given it to a number of my contemporaries, particularly those that suffer from fungal acne, and we’ve all been thrilled with the results. Not only does it destroy fungal acne, it also heals regular blemishes and keeps new ones from coming, all while moisturising, and being extremely gentle on your skin. And the exfoliating properties of salicylic acid mean that you wake up with the smoothest skin ever and see visible improvement in your skin within the very first few days of use. Get in touch to learn how you can incorporate it into your routine!

A lot of people assume that cleansers don't matter since they only stay on your skin for a short period of time. I’ve interacted many who simply use soap, or whatever else they can get their hands on, to wash their face. However, few things are more important in skincare than your choice of cleanser, where cleansers include everything used to clean the face from bar soaps and face washes to micellar waters and cleansing balms. In this blog I’m going to do a deep dive into cleansers and cover everything that you need to know about them. I’ll address the following points: What are cleansers? How do cleansers work? How does cleansing damage the skin? Choosing a good cleanser Other tips to ensure that your cleansing experience is as gentle as possible P.S. We also have a video on this topic on our YouTube channel for those who prefer watching videos as opposed to reading blogs. Here it is: What Are Cleansers? A cleanser is anything that cleans the skin and include a wide variety of products with variable formats and textures. Soaps, micellar waters, face washes, cleansing balms, cleansing milks and cleansing creams, are all cleansers. And yes, all of these generally tend to be suitable to use for washing your face everyday. How Do Cleansers Work? Oil and water don’t mix on their own. Cleansers use surfactants to dissolve and rinse away grime and other oil-soluble impurities from the surface of our skin. Surfactants allow oil and water to mix as a result of their structure, which is demonstrated in the figure. A surfactant molecule has two parts, a water-loving head, and an oil-loving tail. Because of this structure, surfactant molecules for structures called micelles when dissolved in water. Micelles trap dirt and grime within them and are then easily rinsed away with water. Surfactants commonly found in skin cleansers include sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS), sodium lauryl ether sulfate (SLES), cocamidopropyl betaine and lauryl and decyl glucoside, among several others. How Does Cleansing Damage The Skin? While cleansing is a necessary part of any skincare routine, it's also generally the most damaging. This is because surfactants aren’t always good for your skin. The outermost layer of the skin - the stratum corneum - has a brick and mortar structure where dead skin cells are the bricks and the lipids, which consists of ceramides, cholesterol and free fatty acids, that surround them, are the mortar, as illustrated in the figure. The stratum corneum acts as your body's barrier against the outside world. It keeps hydration in and irritants out and its structure makes it perfect for this job. But when its structure is disturbed, skin becomes eczematic: dry, itchy, red and irritated. The stratum corneum is generally resilient, but a harsh cleanser can upsets its structure and creates trouble, leading to, or aggravating, conditions like acne and eczema. Here’s how: Surfactants remove important compounds from the stratum corneum. While surfactants excel at removing dirt and grime, they aren’t able to differentiate between the chemicals that make up the stratum corneum, and the chemicals that need to be removed. In addition to excess sebum, dirt and grime, surfactants also tend to remove important lipids, cholesterol in particular, thus messing up the structure of the stratum corneum so it becomes more susceptible to water loss. They also remove proteins and natural hydrating compounds from the skin so skin isn’t able to hold onto water as effectively either. These factors lead to dry, dehydrated skin and can also cause skin sensitivity and eczema. Skin dehydration also causes the skin to produce more oil as the skin tries harder to keep water from evaporating. This spells disaster for people with oily or acne-prone skin. Surfactants remain in the skin resulting in irritation and skin barrier disruption. Most surfactant molecules get rinsed off after cleansing but some don't. These bind to proteins in the skin and change their structure, leading to irritation and the feeling of tightness that people often experience after cleansing. Residual surfactant molecules also disrupt the lipid matrix so the stratum corneum ends up compromised and more prone to letting water out and irritants in. The cleanser changes the pH of the skin. Healthy skin has an acidic pH between 4.2 and 5.6. Maintaining this pH is essential as the biochemical reactions that occur within the skin are sensitive to changes in pH as is the delicate balance of microbes that live on the skin's surface. Alkaline cleansers - and most cleansers, especially soaps and foaming cleansers, tend to be alkaline - change the pH of the skin and this change persists for quite some time even after they've been rinsed off. This puts the brakes on essential biochemical reactions and keeps the skin from being able to repair itself. An alkaline pH also encourages the growth of the acne-causing bacteria. Choosing A Good Cleanser Three factors need to be kept in mind when selecting a cleanser, regardless of your skin type, age, or anything else. Accounting for these will ensure that your cleansing experience is as gentle as possible. Factor 1: Surfactants Surfactants are key when it comes to determining how harsh a cleanser will. Surfactants with small, negatively charged heads and tails with carbon chain lengths of 10-14 seem to be particularly harsh. Surfactants that fit this definition include the infamous sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS), and soaps such as sodium laurate and sodium cocoate. Milder surfactants include sodium laureth sulfate, cocamidopropyl betaine, sodium cocoyl isethionate, lauryl glucoside and decyl glucoside, among others. Mixtures of surfactants also tend to make cleansers gentler as the micelles formed by surfactant mixtures tend to be larger than micelles formed when surfactants are used alone. Factor 2: Power of hydrogen, i.e. pH pH is a measure of the acidity of a substance. It’s a scale that ranges from 1 - 14, where 7 represents neutral, the pH of distilled water. A pH of less than 7 indicates that the substance is acidic, where the smaller the number, the more acidic the substance, while a pH greater than 7 indicates that a substance is alkaline. Acids, like lemon juice, are generally sour, while alkalis like baking soda, are generally bitter. As previously discussed, the pH of healthy skin lies between 4.2 and 5.6. At this pH important biochemical reactions can take place undisturbed. Alkaline cleansers however, shift the skin’s pH and disrupt the skin’s biochemical activity. Soaps and baking soda have an alkaline pH and are not good for your skin, while lemon juice has a pH of less than 2, making it overly acidic and also not good for the skin. Cleansing oils and balms tend to be an exception to the pH rule as oils don't have a pH. Factor 3: Moisturising ingredients Moisturising ingredients like oils - sunflower oil and grapeseed oil are also great for people with acne (unless you’re prone to fungal acne), and humectants, such as glycerin and sorbitol, also make a cleanser more gentle on the skin and are generally good ingredients to add to cleansers. Other Tips To Ensure That Your Cleansing Experience Is As Gentle As Possible Use cooler water. Hot water increases the ability of surfactants to go deeper into the skin resulting in more damage. But also make sure that the water isn’t too cold as extremes of temperature in either direction are not good for the skin. Use less cleanser and don’t cleanse for too long. 30 to 60 seconds of contact time tends to be enough for a cleanser to get its job done. If you’ve been wearing heavy makeup or sunscreen that’s hard to remove, try double cleansing using an oil-based cleanser, such as our Butter But Better Cleansing Balm, in the first step to minimise the damage from harsh surfactants. Don’t overdo it. I see a lot of people, especially those with acne-prone or oily skin, washing their face multiple times a day. This will only irritate your skin and make the problem worse. Wash your face 1 to 2 times per day, not more. If you choose to wash it once, wash it only at night. While products like micellar water and wipes might claim that you don’t need to rinse them off afterwards, they do contain surfactants which will irritate your skin if left on for too long. Make sure you always rinse your face afterwards if you use them. Do not skip moisturiser, regardless of your skin type. This is essential so you can replenish what your skin has lost during the cleansing process. There is a moisturiser out there for you. Find it, and use it. Your skin will thank you for it. Our AccuHydra Hydrating Gel Cream Moisturiser is an excellent option for all skin types including sensitive skin and skin prone to acne or fungal acne. In Conclusion If you ever thought that cleansers are something that are just meant to be rinsed off and don’t have a significant impact on the health of skin, I hope this post has convinced you otherwise. In the words of Stephen Alain Ko, “Cleansers are one of the few times in skin care when we actually remove things from our skin, and a good cleanser will remove things that we don’t want on our skin, while minimizing the removal of things we do want in our skin.” A solid skincare routine is always built on the foundation of a good cleanser, moisturiser and SPF. If you have these wrong, you’re only wasting your money on other expensive products. And yes, harsh cleansers can definitely cause and aggravate everything from eczema and skin dryness, to skin sensitivity, oiliness and acne and set you up for premature skin ageing. Hydrating Daily Gentle Shop Now Salicylic Acid Cleanser Shop Now Moisturiser Cleanser Shop Now

My story starts in the nub of adolescence and disappointment. My very first pimples appeared when I was sixteen - and decided to make a home on my face for the next seven years, like unwanted tenants that fight hard at the mention of eviction. I searched long and hard for a solution, a sneaky means of fighting off the gadfly. I sought the assistance of several people who, having studied and practiced dermatology for several years, should theoretically have been able to solve my problem. A single step forward though, was always succeeded by two back. Many remedies and medicines later, things were worse than they had been to begin with. My skin in October 2016 It didn’t take long for me to realise the sheer absence of affordable and effective, science-backed skincare in the Pakistani market. I was acutely aware of the numerous myths that surrounded skincare and the lack of solid advice about how to actually care for your skin. While new local brands have been popping up left, right, and centre, in an attempt to capitalise on the sudden interest in all things “natural” and “organic”, they are not backed by science and rely on fear-mongering, engendering in their consumers a trepidation of the dreaded “chemical”, to make their products sell. Little do unwitting clients know however, that there is no concrete legal definition of the words natural or organic and that all things natural are also made up of chemicals - some of which can actively harm your skin and body. Water is a chemical and apples seeds, cherry pits and almonds, all contain doses of cyanide - a well-known, lethal toxin. My skin in January 2019 Against this backdrop, I wanted to build a brand on the foundations of hard-core science that offered consumers with problematic skin types safe, and effective products at a reasonable price point, along with education about their condition so they would get the most out of was made and sold. It was a difficult pitch because it went against what marketing was ingraining in consumers as conventional wisdom. With the swathe of people with skin problems, who had given up on doctors, that I’ve been able to help, and my recent appearance on Juggun Kazim’s channel (video follows), the challenge has been worth the effort.   Through the scars on my face that still persist, I realise that I wouldn’t be where I am today had it not been for all my struggles, for in the words of Steve Jobs, “You can’t connect the dots looking forwards, you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”   Welcome to the blog! I thought the story of how AccuFix Cosmetics came to be would be a fitting place to start. I hope you enjoy it and find it informative. Lots of love!