One of the writers for The Beauty Brains was interviewed for a recent article in Slate magazine. The topic was the ProActiv skin care line.
Is ProActiv worth the bother?
The title of the article is Don’t Bother with ProActiv and it was inspired by a story on Jezebel.com about people who felt they were getting ripped off by ProActiv’s subscription purchasing model. The question to us was “is better than anything else on the market for clearing up acne?”
Basically, ProActiv uses the same over-the-counter drug technology that is available to any company selling acne products. Because these drugs are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration manufacturers are only allowed to use a limited number of active ingredients and they can only make specified claims. In the case of ProActiv they use benzoyl peroxide 2.5 percent.
Click the link above to read the entire article and learn why the cosmetic industry has so many “shady” business practices.
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{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Yeah! This is what I suspected when I looked at the actives, didnt look like anything special and wasnt available anywhere else.
ooo theres a great article on chemophobia most brains would like too!
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2013/02/curing_chemophobia_don_t_buy_the_alternative_medicine_in_the_boy_with_a.html?wpisrc=most_viral
Great article! I just tweeted it and subscribed to her blog (Culture of Chemistry.)
I tried this a while back and it was disastrous for my skin….thanks for posting this so others won’t have to go through this trial and error and waste their money.
I have also tried it. Who hasn’t? While I found that it reduced the number of breakouts and lessened the overall severity, it was not a fix-all as they claim it to be. The skin around my nose became red and flaky and took over one month to go away even though I switched to something gentler.
Awesome article! I tried ProActiv before and it didn’t do much. The bottom line was that I had too bad of acne for OTC products to work and had to see a dermatologist.
Does “delivery” matter at all? The active ingredient is the same, but is it possible that one kind of inactive ingredient would help the active ingredient stay on the face longer, for example, increasing effectiveness over a inactive ingredient that caused the active ingredient to slide/wash off?
First of all, I’d like to thank the person who ripped off my AmEx number and purchased 6 months of ProActive with it.
Second, ProActive knows that it has a rapr audience. As anyone with acne will tell you, they will do ANYTHING and try ANYTHING to get rid of their acne.
Even when we know the likelihood of something working is next to nil, our insecurities drive us to products like these.
Tovah, sorry to hear what you have gone through. You are so on point., desperate people will do desperate things…
Stay safe!
Thank you so much!
I meant to say rapt audience. Trying to type too fast. lol.
Anyway, I wonder if the person that took my card got his/her acne cleared up?
LOL! it’s good you have a sense of humor about it. That goes a long way!
I used to use pro-activ because of the benzoyl peroxide, I felt like I saw results. I was then shopping at Target and saw the two products from Clean & Clear have even higher percentagves than Pro Activ… I made the switch and haven’t regretted it. Plus, the price tag is nicer too!