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As I never hesitate to mention, I started going through puberty rather early. Or, at least much earlier than my peers, which was endlessly troubling to my eight-year-old self. I had B.O., body hair, stretchmarks, and a pair of pretty large breasts that were not the least bit in fashion for another six years. Though I cried about at least one of these things almost every night of elementary school, my (second) bloodiest battle in the Puberty Wars was the one fought with my raging acne. A persistent clump of gigantic whiteheads maintained their stake between my eyebrows, flanked by some deeper hormonal ones all over the rest of my forehead. My only respite was my belief that by going through this early on, I would be completely acne-free by middle school.
This was definitely not the case. In reality, my trouble spots just migrated: from my T-Zone to my cheeks, then from my cheeks to my chin, leaving deep scars and hyperpigmentation along the way. The process of trying different contraceptives throughout college continued to exacerbate my hormonal acne long past my pubescent years. Though my skin has calmed considerably since then, I still get hormonal acne right before my period starts, and hyperpigmentation remains one of my bigger skin concerns.
A BS-Free Approach
Since whiteheads are the least of my worries, I’ve always thought that pimple patches were simply not for me. Plus, anything that promises to clear acne overnight gives me flashbacks to my mother dabbing toothpaste all over my face. It wasn’t until I started seeing ads for ZitSticka that this skepticism started to change.
What hooked me was ZitSticka’s no BS, science-backed approach to products and ingredients. ZitSticka’s tone is shrouded in realism; there are no claims that it will completely change the nature of your skin. The aim is to create products to better help you prepare and care for your skin when breakouts do occur.
What hooked me was ZitSticka’s no BS, science-backed approach to products and ingredients. ZitSticka’s tone is shrouded in realism; there are no claims that it will completely change the nature of your skin. The aim is to create products to better help you prepare and care for your skin when breakouts do occur.
I decided to try the Patch It Up Kit, which includes the three types of patches for deep zits, surface zits, and the scarring afterwards. While traditional zit patches soak up excess fluids and oils from late-stage zits, this kit is “built for the total zit life cycle,” and is made to extract, treat, and fade any blemishes as soon as you notice one coming. Incidentally, the week my kit arrived my skin delivered: I had a juicy whitehead, a post-zit scar, and one deeper zit (among other things) all on the same side of my face. Perfect testing ground.
Here are the three patches and my thoughts:
KILLA
KILLA is for those deep, painful, less-obvious blemishes that you can feel more than you see. Each patch has tiny micro-darts that gently penetrate your skin and flood each zit with ingredients like hyaluronic acid and niacinamide to fight zits at the source and calm any inflammation before it rises to the surface. I was very pleasantly surprised with how much KILLA helped the inflammation go down overnight. It definitely did not clear up my zit 100%, but that was never its promise. On a particularly stubborn hormonal zit, I only needed to use KILLA two nights in a row before it reached a head and I was able to deal with it on the surface. Others came to the surface in even less time. This was a huge relief for my psyche and skin alike, because I usually will pick, dig, and fuss with my deeper-level zits until my face is all red and marked up.
Each patch has tiny micro-darts that gently penetrate your skin and flood each zit with ingredients like hyaluronic acid and niacinamide to fight zits at the source and calm any inflammation before it rises to the surface. I was very pleasantly surprised with how much KILLA helped the inflammation go down overnight.
GOO GETTER
More like traditional zit patches, GOO GETTER absorbs excess gunk from surface-level zits to drastically minimize their appearance overnight. As any Dr. Pimple Popper fan knows, these kinds of whiteheads are incidentally the most fun/satisfying to pick at, and here’s where the real blessing of GOO GETTER comes in. While the salicylic acid, tea tree oil, and vitamin c work to zap the zit, GOO GETTER protects your face from your own pesky little fingers, helping the blemish heal on its own. Possibly because whiteheads are the most visible kind of zit, the immediate overnight effects of this patch were the most drastic and tangible. Peeling off one of the GG stickers to find a little spot of pus on it is almost as satisfying as popping it used to be, without any of the irritation or contamination. Huge winner for me.
HYPERFADE
As a Black woman, scars and hyperpigmentation are one of my biggest skin concerns. Even the most subtle of zits will leave their mark on my face. I was therefore the most hopeful and skeptical about the effectiveness of the HYPERFADE sticker. Like KILLA, HYPERFADE also uses ZitSticka’s signature micro-dart technology, injecting brightening, regenerative ingredients into a post-zit surface. Unfortunately, I saw less change using this product than the other two, but I haven’t fully given up just yet. Scars take a notoriously long and gradual time to fade, and I wasn’t expecting these stickers to clear up any existing marks within my short trial period. However, using HYPERFADE immediately after minimizing a zit with either GOO GETTER or KILLA definitely reduced the darkness of the ensuing mark.
The Verdict
Just to be clear (pun intended), ZitSticka patches should not completely replace your skincare routine, nor should you use them as an excuse to skip any important steps. You should still be diligent about keeping your skin clean and moisturized. The patches are simple, easy tools to add to your arsenal when you need to be rid of a couple of blemishes in a pinch, and each one is packed with thoughtful, effective ingredients. The most immediately impactful benefit, in my opinion, is that the patches will prevent you from touching your face –– an action whose sanitary impact we’ve learned all-too-well this year.
The price points are also somewhat prohibitive, considering the number of stickers per pack. As someone who can roughly predict when and why I will break out, it personally made more sense to incorporate them into my schedule –– the 2-day hormonal breakouts before my period, the Sunday after a night out, or bringing them as a companion on a weekend away. If you need a more consistent or nightly spot treatment, I would suggest something else.
The price points are also somewhat prohibitive, considering the number of stickers per pack. As someone who can roughly predict when and why I will break out, it personally made more sense to incorporate them into my schedule –– the 2-day hormonal breakouts before my period, the Sunday after a night out, or bringing them as a companion on a weekend away. If you need a more consistent or nightly spot treatment, I would suggest something else.
Throughout life, there have been many things about my body that I was taught to see as cringeworthy –– my boobs, my stretch marks, my body hair. My relationship with my zits and scars has been one of my longest and strongest yet, and rather than letting breakouts keep me from going outside, I’ve learned how to work with and care for them. Like an impending family visit, I sense when they’re near, I prepare for their stay, and finally, after a week of stress and anxiety, I relish that first moment of peace once they’ve officially left my orbit. When it comes to our skin, the only thing that we can rely on is that it will adapt and change over time. The best we can do is take care of it while it does. ZitSticka’s Patch It Up Kit is a perfect way to take care of a zit through its natural life cycle, ensuring that its stay is clean, quick, and comfortable.
5 More Reasons To Love ZitSticka
- The ingredients are pre-measured per dose, so you don’t have to worry about over or underdoing the amount of product on your face.
- The patches are pretty transparent; I felt comfortable enough to wear them at a dinner party without any makeup (of close friends, mind you).
- Be it cystic, scarred, hormonal, or one-off zits, ZitSticka uses models that actually have the types of acne that the products seek to address.
- ZitSticka aims to treat acne holistically. Supplements like Blur Potion and Skin Discipline are designed to treat acne and discoloration from the inside out.
- The company is big on giving back: for the month of May, 20% of the net proceeds from GOO GETTER were donated to Trans Lifeline.
