Does Calamine Help In Curing Acne Redness?
Calamine has been used for a long time in medicine. From poison ivy to treating acne, it has been the magic potion of physicians, alchemists and men and women alike. Indeed this miracle potion is often a boon in dermatological emergencies. Mosquito sting? Turn to calamine. Rashes and sun burns are also soothed instantly with the help of this. This is even used to treat the skin in chicken pox, mild eczema, insect bites… well, the list goes on. There is only a few who do not know or have not heard about this skin lotion which is so widely used. If you do not believe that it is really that popular, go to your nearest chemist’s and ask for a bottle of calamine. He is sure to hand you over this light pink or flesh toned lotion without even as much as a bat of an eyelid or a further word.
So, what is really a calamine? What is the ingredient of this almost all purpose lotion? The key ingredients are very simple.
It is actually a lotion which contains zinc oxide and ferric oxide. The word ‘calamine’ is actually the chemical name of zinc oxide which any chemistry book would tell you. Zinc oxide is a natural sunscreen and hence, many women use this potion to soothe sun burn. For those who do not like to coat their skin with lot of chemicals, they use calamine lotion to protect the skin from sun burn or simply as a sunscreen.
The most popular belief about calamine is that it is a cure of acne and acne redness. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, in a press release announced that there is no real evidence that calamine is actually acne to be used on sun burns or insect bites.
This led to much confusion because people believed in this age old remedy. But, in 2008 press release, the US Food and Drug Administration , again, issued a document which stated among many other over the counter skin protectants, that calamine can be safely used for the itching and rashes caused by plaints like poison oak or poison ivy.
Nevertheless, many women swear by calamine when it comes to acne and pimples. So does it really work? The answer would be not very difficult to find. Calamine is a mild antiseptic. The zinc oxide and the ferric oxide is again, a bit drying to the skin. So, if you put on the lotion, the excess oil and sebum is absorbed. This also results in the absorption of oil and juices from the acne or the pimples. Consequently, the acne or the pimple would dry up.
The redness of acne is caused when the skin is still raw and the inside is still wet. Drying up those would kill the bacteria which proliferate better in a liquid medium. The anti septic property would accelerate the situation by helping to destroy the bacteria faster. So, if you skin is free from the infection inside and also dry, the rawness would be cured. This translates as, the redness would be gone. So, that is the reason, why many women would actually solemnly swear that calamine lotion helps in curing acne redness in spite of the skepticism.
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