La Roche Posay Effaclar Duo + First Thoughts

December 26, 2017

Hello blogletts,

I hope you have all had a wonderful Christmas, you where well fed and watered and spent some quality time with the people you love the most.

Today I am going to be writing about my first thoughts on La Roche Posay Effaclar Duo +. I thought we'd try something new!



I haven't been sponsored to write this nor have I received a sample of this product. This is total, honest, unbiased opinion on the cream.

For those who don't know, I'm thinking that's almost all of you... I have PCOS (Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome). I will write more about it another day as it is a lot to absorb but basically it never majorly bothered me until April this year, when I started to get deep, cystic, hormonal, nasty acne on my previously 90% perfect skin.

This was a gradual thing, I didn't just wake up one morning covered in spots but it did get pretty nasty, pretty quickly. I have never, until this year, ever, ever suffered from acne of any kind. All my siblings did, but not me... of course I have had the occasional spot but nothing like this.

So first of all I stopped wearing makeup as I thought that may have been contributing to the acne as I had treated myself to a Bare Minerals set in January. The acne got worse, so I tried different face washes, different moisturisers anything I could get my mitts on over the counter I was trying, until I had to go to the doctor one day and I told her what was going on.

Unfortunately this is one of the many symptoms of PCOS, so my doctor put me on a topical cream called Differin or Adapalene and after a couple of months of using it, it did start to calm down the breakouts but not stop it.

I have really struggled with confidence since having cystic acne, its funny because when my siblings or friends had it growing up, I never noticed it to be as bad as mine was getting. I'd look in the mirror and it is all I would see, I felt that I looked dirty and that people where staring at me in the street and worst of all I worried that Miles didn't find me attractive anymore. Of course, none of these things were true but there is no where to hide with acne. Sure you can cover it up but at risk of making it much, much worse. (I have now found a full coverage foundation which doesn't cause me to break out, I will write a post on that another day too!) and after the spots have finally made its way to the skins surface, you are almost always left with a horrible, in my case deep purple scarring.

In September I had to visit the hospital to talk to a specialist about the PCOS symptoms I was experiencing, and he suggested I try a drug called Metformin. Long story short, it is used to treat people with diabetes but it has also been used to treat people with PCOS with great results too!

About a month after I started to take Metformin, I started to notice my skin was beginning to clear up. Now, its almost 4 months since I started to take it and my face had been cystic acne free (minus 1 pimple which came up yesterday!!! Grrr!!) for 3 weeks now. So I began to research how to get rid of the nasty scars which now live on my cheeks.

As mentioned above I came across this cream and the reviews I have seen have been really good so after much thought I bought a tube along with one of their BB creams. I found it online at Feel Unique for £12 but it is usually about £16.

It claims to make your skin look noticeably different after a day, I was verrrry sceptical as I had tried other products claiming to do the same. We've all been there, but I guessed the worse that could happen is that I'd be £12 down!

Here is a picture from Day 1, this was taken the morning after I had worn it over night with my Adapalene, washed it off in the morning and re-applied just the Effaclar Duo +.


My brother (who I see everyday) didn't notice any difference on the first day. I didn't think to get a picture of the day before I started it because I am a doughnut!

This next picture is another 24 hours later... With the same routine.


Although there is very little change I can see that the pimple on my chin is much smaller, the skin on my cheeks isn't as red and the acne scarring is that tiny bit less in your face. My pores also where beginning to look much smaller as well !

This picture is from a week later:


The scarring is much less angry and obvious, I am amazed at the difference!

So far I feel that things are heading in the right direction with this cream. I can see a significant change in just a week. Look out for a blog post in the future, with a months update!

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