Monastery founder and celebrity esthetician, Athena Hewett, has become a well sought after acne specialist over the course of her career. She has cured thousands of client’s acne without medication or extensive routines and it was her own struggle with acne that inspired our hero product, Rose Cleansing Oil. She answers our most FAQ questions about acne.
Q: What are the most common causes of acne that you see in the treatment room?
A: I often notice that an overuse of active ingredients within a skincare routine is causing more harm than good. A lot of acne is a struggle of imbalance within the body that is showing itself on the skin of the face, but it’s often accelerated by a self induced topical routine. This part of the equation can easily be solved.
Q: I’ve tried everything and I still have acne. What do you recommend?
A: I recommend a complete cleanse of your entire skincare routine and trying what we call "the Rose Reset." This will allow your skin to find its natural balance. Using only the Rose Cleansing Oil; formulated not to penetrate the skin will allow the rebalancing of your microbiome to start. The following week you can introduce a gentle healing moisturizer during the day like our Gold or Attar, also formulated to gently heal the skin with high end botanicals. Continue on with this routine for up to six weeks. When the skin is finally balanced you will be able to incorporate 1 product at a time, watching to see how your skin reacts to it and then deciding if it’s a fit for your skincare routine.
Q: What are the best ingredients for acne? Which ones should I avoid?
A: When first treating acne I love to think of using no ingredients or as I mentioned starting with the Rose Cleansing Oil, an impenetrable ingredient. Think of this as fast for your skin. Once the fast is over you can introduce super clean ingredients that are super high in skin nutritional value, ingredients like raspberry seed oil, rosehip seed oil - oils high in vitamins k, A, and omega acids.
There are a few ingredients that I think disrupt the microbiome in a way that make it very hard to see what's really going on with the skin. In other words, they could possibly be causing acne even though they are thought of as ingredients that heal acne. There are ingredients that I would always suggest avoiding like salicylic acid and benzoyl peroxide as they really disrupt the natural process of sebum flow and can cause long lasting negative effects when it comes to healing. Ascorbic acid (vitamin C), retinol (vitamin A), and glycolic acid should also be avoided when in the process of resetting your skin. These ingredients are too disruptive to the microbiome.
Q: I’ve conquered my acne but I still have scars and pigmentation from the past. What can I do to help?
A: This is when you can be a little more aggressive and start adding in products in a one by one slow approach. Your skin is balanced and can now handle a retinol or AHA to help brighten, but you should still supplement this with products that contain high nutritional ingredients like our Gold, Flora, or Attar for example.
