[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Paula Begoun! When you first mentioned milk of magnesia for oily skin my thought was, "Wow, that's what Paula Begoun recommends, too."

I encourage anyone who really wants to understand cosmetics and "cosmeceuticals" as well as medical interventions for skin to read Paula Begoun. She has a website at

cosmeticscop.com

There is a lot of info there that will make sense of the short form that Dixiechick provided above. There is just lots of info no matter what your skin type is.

Paula Begoun of cosmeticscop.com does sell products, but I get her product reviews by email and she does not ever even mention her own products, but only reviews products available elsewhere. And she tells if they are harmful, no good but harmless, some good, average, or exceptionally good from both an aesthetic and scientific point of view. She also will tell you when something cheap and probably already in your home is a good choice. I find her very fair, especially since she is very understated about her own products. I have never seen her recommend her own products over any others.

My personal testimonly is that I am nearly fifty years old and I made ONE simple change in what I do for my facial skin. About two months later, I could definitely see a difference in blackheads (Yuck, I hate to even have to type that!), redness on my cheeks, the smoothness of the skin and some sort of spots on my forhead that I don't even have a name for. So I kept up the new change and after a total of six months, it was still getting better; then my own sister gave me a huge compliment on my skin. This may sound silly, but she said it looked like my facial skin was almost sparkling. I was astounded. She was practically gushing about my skin. I had never in my life gotten a compliment on my skin, much less by my way prettier sister.

Well, it's been a year and a month now and I think my skin has improved as far as it is going to, but I have not had such tight pores since I was 11 years old. That is when all this yucky skin stuff started for me, and then I had to wait until I was ~50 to ever get it fixed and hear a compliment. If only I had known decades ago.

You want to know what the one change is? It is use of the 2% salicylic acid, as Dixiechick mentions above. Begoun says that the salicylic acid must also be in a solution of a certain low pH in order to work right. Some products have 2% salicylic acid but then other ingredients are added which make the pH too high to be effective. I don't recall what the pH level must be, but that info is never included on the lables anyway. I used Begoun's product reviews to guide me in finding a suitable salicylic acid.

To the original poster, Paula Begoun has lots to say about dry and flakey skin.