Pimple Attack! 01 : Nexcare 3M Acne Cover Fun Pack

Hey guys!

When i was about to blog about this Nexcare acne cover, i realized that i didn't have a proper category to put it yet-so i'm making a new one! Now anything that's got to do with acne battling would be listed under Pimple Attack! Teehee...

So i'm sure most of you must already been quite familiar with Nexcare 3M Acne Cover (sometimes referred as acne patch as well)?

I first saw them in a drugstore in Singapore (most probably Watsons) and was immediately drawn to it, i especially think that the fact acne cover would, well.. cover your acne and prevent you from touching it (this is my biggest problem, i cannot stop touching them, trying to pop them and then picking on the scab once they pop-which make healing process becomes a lot longer than it should!) and i immediately bought one, LOVED it but couldn't find it anymore when i went back to Indonesia. It was also very pricey, around SGD 7.90? Even with lower exchange rate back then it's still very expensive for such little products!

Thankfully then i saw disdus.co.id had an open order for them for much cheaper price, bought quite a lot (it was package with assorted variants) and gave one to #Undecided-promptly made her fell in love with acne covers as well hehehe. Not too long from then, 3M Nexcare Acne Cover become readily available in local drugstores and major supermarkets-so it's very easy to find in Indonesia now!

Even tough they are all essentially the same stuffs, these Acne Cover has several variants :

The variants include Ladies, Fun Pack, Combination and Big Dots. The only difference of each variants? The shape they come in *LOL*. I find this highly unimportant, what they do is what i care about. They are not a decorative product anyway!

While i've used every single variants (i find Combination and Big Dots to not be suitable for me because of the big sized covers they have, i rarely have more than one pimple at once and usually they'd be pretty small so i don't find any needs for bigger sized covers) they have, personally i find them to all work exactly the same. So i'm just going to blog about one that i happened to have stocks on (FYI the Ladies and Fun Pack are the easiest to find, i very rarely seen Combination and Big Dots in stores-if ever!) : Fun Pack!

Yes, i love them so much i have to have a few of them on my stash at once to feel secure!

According to their Indonesian website, 3M Nexcare Acne Cover is a non-chemical Hydrocolloid dressing that has a water-based layer and effectively absorbs puss inside acne in eight hours. The cover would decrease infections on acne from contamination-both air borne or from your hands (if you like to touch your acne, like me >.<). Acne Cover is waterproof but still allows air circulation to speed up healing process. It is sterile and suitable for all skin types including sensitive skin.

These acne covers comes in a very light (so light i almost thought they contained nothing inside >.<!!!) box with different colors and illustration depending on the variant you're getting. Fun Pack's box is pink with a curly haired girl illustration on the cover.

The top rows were missing because i already used them hehehe

And this is how the acne covers themselves looks! Fun Pack got its name because of the cute shapes the covers have-heart and star shaped! Fun, indeed :p. They come in a little package-each box has one sheet of mica with errr.. I honestly have no idea how many covers they have in one package but the website stated 28, so imma go with that :p.

The patches are yellowish, semi transparent gel/silicon textured with adhesive on one side and smooth, matte surface on the other.

Nexcare 3M Acne Covers are not completely flat, they are approximately 1 millimetre in dimension

One of the things that stated to attracted me to them was how it's supposed to be invincible and you can even wear it under makeup and just go. Well....

I would hardly call this invincible!

In fact i think it's more noticeable than your acne itself >.<, so no! I would not really wear it out! Except to the mini market, or for a yoga class coz i just don't care *LOL*. It's also impossible to apply makeup on top of it, not only the surface would not stick well with makeup, it would also make your makeup looks fugly! 

It is very easy to use, just : 

1. Cleanse your face thoroughly 

2. Stick it on your acne for 8 hours

3. Remove after 8 hours

Acne cover would change color into milky white which means that the fluid inside your acne is being absorbed by the cover.

Now onto the effectiveness... While i would say that they definitely would not get rid of your acne in 8 hours unless your acne is VERY ripe and ready to burst RIGHT NOW, then yeah... When i had an acne super ripe, it did got rid of it once i removed the cover. But actually instead of absorbing the fluid, the cover speed things up. When i removed the cover, the acne burst and all the fluid oozed out (so not absorbed into the patch) and the pimple dried out within minutes.

But for new pimples, even when you can see the "eyes" (the white dot filled with puss, ewww) already-if it's not very ripe then it'll take probably two days to heal while using acne covers. While the cover really turns milky white,  instead of absorbing acne fluids they actually were just absorbing my skin's oil hehehe. So they always turns milky white in the center (because i have very oily skin) but not really from the acne itself hahaha.

How about cystic acne? The ones imbedded deep inside you skin? Or the ones that are just read and painful but has no white dots? For me, it still helps although it would take a lot longer. I admit i don't get pimples a lot, cystic acne even less-but when i do, it helps turning the cystic acne into regular acne (with "eyes) and it'll heal a lot faster than if i just let it be or use other type of acne medications. 

I know acne covers doesn't work for everybody, i read some reviews about it not being effective, but thankfully they actually ARE very effective for me. Not miraculously like how i feel they are advertising it to be, but effective enough for me to want to keep on buying it. REMEMBER, every skin are different, and while it works super well on me, it might not work as well on yours. #Undecided (who has acne prone skin) loves acne covers as well, but she finds them totally useless for cystic acne, so that's already two very different results on two different skin conditions!

I love them because one, they help me prevent myself from constantly touching my acne so it wouldn't be inflamed and heal faster, two-they actually really do help healing my acne! I think they are also correct about it being suitable for all skin types including sensitive ones because the worst thing i heard about them is that they don't do anything at all, i have yet to hear people getting allergic reaction to it so far.

One more thing i have to mention is that the adhesive can fail sometimes and the acne cover would refuse to stick on my skin-i am then forced to discard it and get a new one, or it would get loose and dropped within minutes-which is frustating since every box of acne cover only has so many and they are not cheap (the last time checked it was about IDR 33.000 per box, could be cheaper or more expensive slightly depending on where you purchase them, but that is quite high in comparison to most drugstore acne ointments that cost half the price and can be used for much longer).  But the ones that sticks REALLY sticks, even when i shower, wash my face and wash my hair the cover would stay in place!

You should also put the acne cover BEFORE putting anything else on your face (moisturizer, sunscreen, etc) because if you skin is even slightly moisturized, the adhesive would not work, and after you put it on and continue to apply moisturizer, you still need to avoid the cover area because the moisturizer can still make the adhesive fail-so that's also kinda tricky!

I also noticed that Nexcare 3M Acne Cover made in different countries has different effectiveness/quality in adhesive. By now i have used Nexcare 3M that i purchased in different countries (i also tried different brands as well) and i will review them in the future. 

The Indonesian one is pretty decent (i would really encourage them to work on the adhesive though) and i would definitely continue buying and using them (i probably has gone through more than a dozen boxes so far!) as long as i have acnes hahaha (it's rare, maybe once in three months, but that still happens).

I dare not recommend this to specific types of people because lots of you have find it not to be effective, but if you have the usual types of acne (not the cystic ones) and want to find an alternative to traditional acne ointment that can dry your skin, you should give these acne cover a try and see if they work on you. If all fails, at least you can use it as a cover so you won't touch your acne!

We all know this is a no no but that doesn't mean we can just stop doing it, sometimes it's like our hands have a mind of their own...

I always write such a long review, i know it seems to be so tedious (i often got comments of the length of my reviews, once i even got a "It's amazing that you can write so much on a lotion!) but i really like to go in depth and cover all bases, that's just the way i am. Some people likes their reviews  brief, simple and direct, well... I am sorry to say that you've definitely come to the wrong place if you're looking for that. We all have place in the net though, right...

Anyway, thanks for all of you who read this post til the end *LOL*. Have you ever tried acne covers and did you find them effective at all?

#Pink