Face reality damaged my sensitive skin - am I the only one? (3 months on program)

I have struggled with acne on/off for most of my life, but over the past few years as I got into my late 20s it’s gotten worse and worse. After spending thousands on naturopaths, dermatologists, and other skincare, Face Reality was my final attempt to heal “naturally” without resorting to prescriptions like spironolactone. I have sensitive combination skin, and I was nervous about Face Reality because I did a lot of research and it seemed like they contain a lot of alcohol. I’m not sure if that’s what did it, but I feel like I should’ve listened to my gut and known better because the results suck and I feel like my skin barrier is damaged. I am so disappointed it didn’t work because of all the success stories online that lured me in.

Pretty much immediately I felt like the products were too drying &stripping, but I thought my skin would adjust over time so I kept going. I started with/ the Mandelic serum at 5% every other AM until I could do it every day, and then their benzoyl peroxide “acne med” at 5% every night with their Hydra balance gel. Since my acne wasn’t improving fast enough after about a month or so of this, my esthetician told me to add the mandelic in the nights as well before applying BP (so using mandelic 2x a day with BP). While I already didn’t love the products, this is where things started to take a negative turn.

Doing that sensitized my skin so much - dryness, flakiness/peeling, redness, irritation, inflammation. I backed off, and when I went back for my next facial and told her what happened, she couldn’t offer me much except to keep trying and just change up toners. It was still bad, so I eventually decided to stop using the mandelic altogether and I was fine with that for a few weeks, but every time she recommended adding the mandelic back in and I did it even once, my skin reacted awfully. Makeup was becoming impossible to wear because of the flakiness from this routine and I was depressed because this is my only saving grace with acne.

Since my acne wasn’t improving enough without the mandelic, the last thing she recommended was to bump up my Benzoyl to 10% since I “need it” and to try the mandelic again and just “deal” with some dryness despite my concerns about barrier damage. I even sent her photos of my red, flaky skin to prove what was happening when I used it this last time (my face even felt like it was throbbing), and she had absolutely nothing to say or suggest differently.

I used a Clearstem mask a few times here and there to try to speed up my healing when I’d get flaky and she told me to stop using it because of some of the ingredients - thinking back now, this is such a joke considering I only used it twice for months and it helped me combat FR’s damage.

I’m so, so frustrated and angry. Are Face Reality estheticians not allowed to sell or recommend anything else, despite a client reacting poorly? It feels like a scam. I gave it the recommended 3 month commitment but I am throwing away all the products and never going back. My acne is not even improving very much - some of my main problem areas have flattened out but I am also getting a lot of new breakouts in areas I don’t normally break out in. I wanted this to work since it seems to work for everyone else.

I need to know, am I the only one who’s had an experience like this with Face Reality??? Or can any estheticians weigh in?

I’m almost done with my acne program and have had similar issues. My skin hates most of their products except for the acne treatments. I think there’s too much alcohol in everything for dry skin. And the cran peptide cream truly makes my skin feel dry and tight after using it which makes no sense to me. The gentle cleanser is okay for my skin but doesn’t seem like anything special. It’s just a basic cleanser. My skin does love the acne med which is surprising, but not using moisturizer at night has destroyed my skin. I got to the point where I’d leave it on for a while, sometimes a few hours, and then put on my moisturizer without washing it off. I also think a peel every 2 weeks is way too harsh with continuing the intense routine during that time. It seems like there should be time given for the skin to heal.

I have my last treatment coming up and I can’t lie, I’m counting down the days until I can use my Clearstem products again :joy:


Does this look like primordial dermatitis??

The same thing happened to me. I spent so much money on Face Reality products and they only made my skin worse, and then my esthetician tried to gaslight me about how much my skin improved! I was like….uh…no. And eventually, she put me on another specialty skincare thing that was well over $100 for a moisturizer and that didn’t work very well either. Then it was more “Oh your skin looks great” even though I still was having a lot of breakouts and dryness. At that point I realized she had no idea what she was doing and I told her I needed to find some more affordable products she CONTINUED to try to talk me into the super expensive products because cheap products “wouldn’t do anything” and this was as good as my skin was going to get :unamused: I broke up with her and I’m still pissed about the whole experience.

I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with it too. I think the aggressive routine of those products only works for people with really resilient skin, but if you have any sensitivity it’s a recipe for disaster. I hate how they bombard your skin barrier with multiple activities right away.

My acne has improved a ton since I started using an oil-based serum and balm and I stopped all of the strong active ingredients. It’s still not perfect but I’m the happiest with my skin that I’ve been in a while.

Wow! I’m so sorry you dealt with this too. It makes me feel somewhat better that I’m not alone since I see so many positive stories. it probably does work for a certain skin type, I can see how but I just don’t understand why these estheticians seem to want to treat everyone’s skin the same and refuse to admit when they’re wrong. I’m so glad you finally found some relief!! Do you mind me asking what that serum is?

I’m having the same issue currently. I’ve been seeing my esthetician for well over a year and she told me yesterday she doesn’t know what to do. We’ve cleared my skin up twice but it always comes back worse in a few months. She told me to keep upping products. She has me on benzoyl peroxide 10% twice a day and switched me from 11% mandelic to salicylic. I told her that in my opinion my barrier is just completely stripped and maybe we need to back off. She told me to just do her routine and she would send my photos into face reality. She’s one of the best acne specialists in my area and she has helped me. But I told her I was going to stop using face reality for a bit to see what happens. What did y’all switch to? My face is so dry and honestly hurts so bad with cystic acne. I know beef tallow is popular but that just seems like a disaster waiting to happen lol

I did face reality and facials every two weeks, at first it seemed to work but gradually my skin got worse and worse. It’s so dull and I feel like the months I gave it all a try aged me, I went from people asking what grade in high school I’m in (I’m in my 20s) to people calling me ma’am. Now my skin reacts to everything. I stopped going to the facials when my face started to have these weird swelling episodes in the evening. I eventually started looking for new products but my skin is so ruined that nothing is working. The weird thing though almost as soon as I stopped the face reality products my swelling stopped, I gaslit myself months later out of frustration with my skin to try other face reality products, and two days in with just a cleanser of theirs and their sunscreen and my face is back to swelling :grimacing:

Does this look like perioral dermatitis??? My acne was so good until I started to face reality… the acne specialist recommended it… I only went in to see if I could do microneedling for scars… I only had 2 small unnoticeable spots and he recommended this… I have the big hormonal one, but the small little dots appearing around my mouth aren’t normal for me.

Ugh, this sucks, and I’m sorry you have to deal with it now. I think it was the incompetent esthetician who proposed to burn your skin off your face guilty here, not the products themselves. Skin healing takes time, and one month isn’t enough to see significant progress even with prescription topicals. That’s why you haven’t seen rapid progress at the beginning. I know that the esthetician recommended you add more, so I don’t blame you, there was no need to add more, and all you probably needed was more time to see results. I hope you heal from it as soon as possible.