I too hopped on the bandwagon that was set in motion by one of the members on the Krémmárka-voks thread, and bought Garnier's PureActive Anti-spot roll-on. It's a simple local treatment for spots, and promises to reduce inflammation and make those much-hated bluish-red scars disappear faster.

Can it live up to those claims? Yes, it can. If you don't expect your hormonal acne to disappear overnight. ;-) If for some reason you overindulged in your favorite junk-food and are now facing the consequences, sure, go ahead and use it. If you've been working out and sweating, and thus have zits here and there, then don't hesitate, buy it. If your only problem is that once every month some zits make your otherwise perfectly acne-free life miserable, then this product is for you. But then so are pure tee-tree oil, cologne, toothpaste and all the other tired, tested and proven methods of getting rid of an occasional zit here and there. (Okay, fine, this one might make them scamper off a bit faster.)

I admit used to be guilty of expecting anti-acne products to Photoshop my face into perfection, but I have long since realized that that won't happen anytime soon. Thanks to the diet and medication I'm on my face has cleared up considerably, but I still suffer from one or two new breakouts that appear every 3 or 4 days, so this stuff is a godsend.

Here, take a look at the INCI list first:




The alcohol and the salycilic acid are responsible both for drying all those dratted zits and making them less inflammed/red and for making the product potent enough to give you a slight hangover upon inhalation. :-D The zinc gluconate at the end of the list is a bit unconvincing, but it must be good for something. There's also some blueberry extract in there, which has strong healing properties and should make scars disappear faster.

Notwithstanding the fact that it reeks of alcohol, the product itself is quite a good one: it manages to accelerate the lifecycle of a spot considerably, at least mine certainly healed faster than on their own.




You might want to be a bit careful though when you first apply it: my skin is used to getting a nice, big dose of salycilic acid every night, but when I first dapped this treatment onto my zits, they got redder than they originally were and the stuff stung a bit too. Nowadays it's fine though, and I don't experience any problems, which might be because I don't just apply the liquid to spots, but to problems areas as well (lower part of my cheeks, chin, area below my lips).

All in all, I think it's definitely worth a try if you don't have that many zits, just the occasional one or two: it's practical, doesn't cost much, lasts long (been using it for 2 weeks and haven't really made a dent), and most importantly, it works. It soothes the inflammation, reduces redness and speeds up the healing process of your skin.

Where to get it: DM, Rossmann, Schlecker stores
Price: Erm, I don't exactly remember, probably around 1300 HUF
Amount: 15 ml
My rating: 5 out of 5