Paula Begoun's Five Skin Care Products To Avoid

I am a huge fan of Paula Begoun, the creator of Paula's Choice skin care and cosmetics and author of 18 best-selling beauty books which have sold more than 2.5 million copies worldwide. 

Her work as a nationally-recognized consumer expert for the cosmetics industry has led to repeat appearances on CNN, as well as programs such as Oprah, The Today Show, 20/20, Dateline NBC, The View, and Dr. Oz.

Paula's website The Cosmetics Cop is a great resource to find products for your skin as well as best selling products, new products and products that the Cosmetics Cop Team thinks should not be on the market.  Check out their Beautypedia.com site for an extensive list of the greats.

Below is a list of five products that "flabbergasted" Paula's team last month and are currently posted on her web site as the top five skin care products to avoid:

1. Avon Mark Break Out Plan Anti-Acne Gel Lotion Apple/Cinnamon ($16 for 1.7 ounces). First, apples and cinnamon are for your oatmeal in the morning. They aren’t helpful for acne or any other skin type for that matter. This does contain a 1.5% concentration of salicylic acid which is helpful for acne but the pH of this product is questionable for it to work as an exfoliant. What is really a breakout waiting to happen is the amount of alcohol, peppermint, cinnamon, and rosemary it contains. These ingredients are seriously irritating and irritation hurts the skin’s ability to heal, stimulates oil production in the pore lining, and causes collagen to breakdown. All of this makes acne worse, not better. The amount of redness and inflammation that accompanies these ingredients will also make acne look redder than it already is.

2. Clarins Fix’ Make-Up ($25.50 for 1 ounce). Designed as a spray-on mist to set your makeup, this product does little more than make skin feel damp and slightly sticky. It contains nothing that enhances makeup wear; in fact, overdoing this can lead to makeup meltdown or streaking, plus this contains fragrance chemicals and fragrant plant extracts capable of causing irritation. Whoever thought this overpriced, gimmicky product was a good idea needs to rethink their career!

3. Clarins SOS Sunburn Soother ($36 for 1.3 ounces). The problem with this product is that it contains a heavy duty occlusive emollient as the first ingredient and that is not what you should be putting on acutely sunburned skin. Of course, the goal is to avoid sunburn but if it occurs, slathering thick creams such as this on the initial burn can make matters worse because occlusive emollients (think butter from the old days) can trap heat beneath the skin, pushing the burn deeper. Applying cool water or cool aloe compresses and taking anti-inflammatory medication (with your doctor’s OK) is a far better treatment modality for acute sunburn. Even initial use of over the counter hydrocortisone (which has research showing it helps sunburned skin) would be preferred over this. SOS Sunburn Soother also contains fragrant plant oils but adding irritating ingredients to a burn isn’t wise. Moisturizer isn’t a bad idea, it just needs to be incredibly lightweight. After the burn calms down you can use more emollient moisturizers to reduce dryness and calm skin. There is research that antioxidant-rich plant oils also mediate burn damage.

4. Nu Skin AgeLoc Gentle Cleanse & Tone ($53 for 2 ounces). We had to double-check the price for this cleanser to make sure we weren’t seeing things. For a huge amount of money (this just may be the most expensive cleanser in the cosmetic world) you’re getting an exceptionally standard, detergent-based water soluble cleanser, and we mean really standard. Sure it works to cleanse and remove makeup, but the price is completely out of line. Similar cleansers are available from Olay, Neutrogena, Clean & Clear, and Paula’s Choice for a fraction of the cost (and in sizes that won’t be depleted in two or three weeks). Although fragrance isn’t listed for this cleanser, it does contain fragrant plant extracts that aren’t the best in any product.

It pains us to give this a happy face rating, so we’re not going to. The price is just offensive and to reward a cosmetic company for taking this kind of blatant advantage of women and their beauty dollars is insulting. While we can’t fault the formula because it does what a good cleanser should do, the price makes for bad skin care as the stress to your budget can go straight to your skin as well.

By the way, this doesn’t offer any toning benefits over and above what any detergent-based cleanser can provide. Rather, a well formulated toner and salicylic acid exfoliant that are left on skin (not rinsed off) are the best you can do and that certainly is not the case with any cleanser!

5. Revive Acne Reparatif Acne Treatment Gel ($125 for 1 ounce).Wow! We’re shocked (though we shouldn’t be) that the formulators behind the ReVive line are charging such an insane price for an anti-acne product that differs little from countless other terrible options found in many lines whether they’re from inexpensive or expensive brands. It is really bad news for all skin types that alcohol is the second ingredient in this anti-acne gel. Alcohol causes free radical damage, causes the breakdown of collagen, hurts the skin’s healing process, and stimulates oil production directly in the pore lining. Adding insult to injury, this formula also includes fragrant citrus oil and volatile fragrance chemicals which further irritate. The 0.5% salicylic acid, which is barely enough to exfoliate skin, is wasted in this sad formulation.

For more information on this posting go to: BONUS BEAUTY EXCLUSIVES from Paula Begoun