How to Get ProActiv Without Giving The Scammers Any Money

[damselfish]

"Why don't you try ProActive?" asked my grandmother, ever on the search for the solution to my acne. "Because I've heard it doesn't work." "But it works for a lot of people. You can't say that if you don't try it!" "Fine, whatever, but if it's got benzoyl peroxide in it, I won't use it."

So the box arrives in the mail and I take one look at the "system" and laugh. "Grandma... I have all of this at home already! Most of it stronger!" "Well maybe the system--" "I said no benzoyl peroxide. But... fine." I went home and googled, and learned that ProActiv is essentially a scam where they'll keep sending you/billing you and you can't cancel. I went to tell my grandmother this, and she already had another box, and three pending charges on her card. ProActiv told her that the box was "free" and they hadn't charged her, teehee! There was nothing they could do, haha! Round-and-round she went until she blew up and informed them that they'd been feeding her the same lie over and over, and they could deal with her credit card company if they tried to charge her after she's attempted to cancel.

Don't believe me? Just Google Proactiv scam. Looking at those results tells me that AmEx has heard this all before, too. The Consumer Affairs reviews are an object lesson in always using a credit card and never debit, too. I know a lot of people use debit cards, but this is a great reason why you should never, ever give a company a toehold into your bank account. I've heard too many stories where people get unexpectedly overdrafted and left with fees spiraling out of control because of shady third parties. I digress.

"But Sam," you're saying, "I've heard good things about Proactiv and my acne sucks! What can I do?"

Well, I'll tell you. I've been around the block and have been willing to try damn near anything, so I recognized immediately what was in Proactiv's "program." What I saw: salicylic acid, benzoyl peroxide, and a sulfur mask.

"I don't know what those are," you say.

I'll tell you: they're in just about every OTC treatment you can get your hands on, and I'm going to tell you how to get your hands on them.

Salicylic Acid
Pick up any "acne treatment" in the beauty care aisle and look at the ingredients. What do you see? 99% of the time, this is it. It's Clean&Clear's bread and butter. ProActiv's face wash comes in a 2.5% solution (the one I got, Google tells me the benzoyl peroxide cleanser is more common, which I'll get to later). 2.5% is about normal for what you'd expect, which means you can find it in anything your heart desires. Cleanser? Toner? Spot treatment? Scrubbing pads? It's all out there waiting for you.

Salicylic acid is a chemical exfoliant (versus mechanical, which scrubs). It basically strips dead skin off your face, helps open your pores, and dries the fuck outta everything. Like most topical solutions, it is not going to fix your hormonal acne, but it could lessen it.

I find it way too harsh to use all over my face, but I like Clean&Clear's astringent on my eyebrows and sometimes around my jaw/ears. Just not on the more delicate skin around my cheeks. It's extremely drying. I got it first because I tended to break out when I waxed my eyebrows, and it works like a charm. Though this is an astringent and not a cleanser, so if you want something that does what ProActiv does, I would recommend looking for a cleanser in a 2.5% solution (most come in 2%, and 2.5% makes me wither a little to think about). There are tons of them out there!

I don't think it's much of an acne cure on its own because it will either: burst a zit or dry it out and make sure you can't extract it for days (I am a much bigger proponent of extraction than I am of drying things, because it's worked best for me). IME it's worked better on small, infected follicles (like what happens after you pluck your eyebrows and get tiny whiteheads) than on acne, but since everyone's acne is different, it's worth a shot. Though chances are if you have acne, you've used this.

Benzoyl Peroxide
This is the toner and lotion that came in my pack, but apparently most people also get it in the cleanser (I guess I got the "deep cleaning" pack?) I've used various prescription strength forms of this, back in the days where you had to refrigerate Benzaclin, to the Benz-E-Foam sitting under my sink right now. Benzoyl peroxide is an antibiotic that forces oxygen into the places bacteria like to live and make them die like a microscopic Pompeii. It also "encourages" skin turnover according to the internet, but in my case all it really encouraged was some itchy burning, but I have the fussy skin of a princess, so your experience may not be mine.

It's not as common as salicylic acid, but some googling tells me that it's available in strengths of up to 10% (ProActiv offers it at 5%). Cleanser, toner, lotion, take your pick of what you want. Here are some cleansers because while I can find gels fairly easily, these were tougher to locate.

A lot of people like this stuff. I've used it on and off for a decade, and like many acne treatments I can't really say whether it works or not because so much of acne cures seem to be finding that one magical combination of things. It wasn't my magic bullet, but maybe if I put it on under the light of a noonday sun while praying to Grgleflex, Lord of the Letter M, it would have been.

Before I go on I have to say: I hate this stuff and you should exercise caution using it. It will stain everything you love. Get your white pillow case, get white towels. Be careful what you touch. And then when you think you have taken every precaution, you will find the orange-yellow stains where you least expect them. Take off/put on your shirt? Now it's on your collar where it touched your face. Wash your hands after applying it? On your towel. Touch your jeans after washing your hands after applying it? Well usually you'll be fine, but it only takes once.

Sulfur
This shit. This shit, man, IS THE BEST! All caps necessary. I have never found any topical treatment that works on my acne quite like a sulfur mask. I started with prescription Plexion and at first was all "woooeee it's so stiiiinky /sob" and annoying because it needs to be applied to a wet face. I couldn't deny that it works like a boss, though. It dries everything out and exfoliates and oh man if you told me it's unicorn shit I would believe you.

But there was a while there where Plexion wasn't available, and I found the Queen Helene Mint Julep Mask which is mint/sulfur and not particularly stinky. I didn't think it worked super well but it did okay, so I'm recommending it because at $8 (from Walgreens) it's cheaper than my go-to. I accidentally stumbled across Origins's Out of Trouble mask. I think most of Origins's line is over-priced snake oil, but this stuff is legit amazing, and I kind of like it more than the prescription mask. It smells more like Vicks (thanks to the camphor) than sulfur.

Yeah, you'll be able to smell it hours later, occasionally catching whiffs. It's technically sulfur but not as offensive as some of my other sulfur experiences have been (hiking with a kayak through waist-deep sulfur-smelling mud tops that list) and no one else has ever noticed it.

The sulfur mask is really the only thing ProActiv got right, as far as I'm concerned, and the only thing I would've been interested in. Fortunately there's options.

So there you go. Now you can make your own ProActiv kit at home without giving money to scammers.