The biggest thing I want you to remember with your skin is that we're not going to try and fix everything at once.

You've had acne on and off for years, you've previously been on antibiotics for it, and although it can completely settle at times, when it comes back it tends to come back quite aggressively. You've also now got some scarring and larger/visible pores that you'd really like to work on.

We absolutely can work on those things, but first I want to get your skin calm, consistent and in a really good place before we start treating the damage the acne has left behind.

For the first 6 weeks

At the moment you're using quite a lot on your skin, adapalene, azelaic acid, vitamin C, niacinamide alongside your cleanser, moisturiser and SPF.

So initially, we're going to do the opposite of adding more.

We're stripping everything right back and focusing on supporting your skin barrier.

Morning

• Cream cleanser
• Skin soak
• Derma Aid
• Prologic Oil Free SPF - start with the tester

Evening

• Cream cleanser
• Skin soak
• Derma Aid

That's it.

I don't want you chopping and changing products or adding something because you've had a breakout and panicked. Give the routine time to do its job.

Around the 6 week mark

We'll reassess your skin and, providing it's happy and tolerating the new routine well, we'll start adding things back in one at a time.

The first product I'd look at introducing is

Bio Balance Serum - £39.50

Then, once your skin is comfortable with that, we can look at introducing

Antioxidant Oil - £69.50

There's no rush to get everything into your routine. I'd much rather introduce things gradually and actually know how your skin is responding to each product.

Then tackle the scarring

I know your acne scarring and pores are a big concern for you, but I don't want to start aggressively treating scarring while we're still trying to understand and stabilise the acne underneath it. So I'm giving us approximately 8–12 weeks first.

I want to see how your skin responds to

simpler skincare + barrier support + better consistency + food/hydration foundations + working on sleep/stress

If your active acne is well controlled and your skin barrier is in a good place, that's when we can move into Exceed Medical Microneedling.

For your scarring, I'm potentially looking at a course of around

6 Exceed Medical Microneedling sessions
Approximately 4 weeks apart

We'll confirm that once I've reassessed your skin because the number of sessions will depend on the type/depth of scarring and how your skin responds.

If we were ready to start around November, the timing would actually work really well, we'd have the autumn/winter months to work through your course before heading back towards the higher UV summer months.

The purpose of microneedlinge is controlled collagen stimulation and remodelling to start working on the structural changes the acne has left behind.