Beauty: giving you the skinny on adult acne treatment

THERE are many things which your body does without your permission as you get older.

Of course you expect a network of fine lines, crow's feet and grey hairs. And shifting extra pounds also becomes harder work, while aches and pains begin to niggle in places you never realised they could exist.

But the last thing you expect is for spots you had thought you had banished forever at the end of your teens, to raise their ugly little heads again.

Acne as you career towards 40 is not only horrible and painful, it's blatantly unfair.

But for the last year I've faced a daily battle with spots all over again. While they kept themselves to my forehead as a teen - easily hidden behind a greasy fringe - they have now annexed my cheeks, chin, and worse, nose.

Antibiotics from the GP worked, but who wants to be on constant medica-tion? It was time for another solution - hopefully in the form of Jackie Patridge.

The registered cosmetic nurse, known to many in Edinburgh and the rest of Scotland as "Jackie Botox" given her expertise in applying the age-defying needle, has just opened her own clinic in Morningside where she not only offers cosmetic treatments to tackle the advancing years but also sorts out skin complaints, in particular acne.

A first consultation saw her declare my GP's diagnosis of acne rosacea, as off beam. Instead she suggested the redness was the result of underlying acne which, I was delighted to hear, really wasn't that bad. On a zero to five scale, I was a two.

The prescribed treatment was a course of salicylic acid skin peels - but first the skin had to be prepared properly. Three weeks' worth of washing morning and night with SeSDerma soap-free cream, followed by a moisturising gel, both developed specifically for acne skin.

After just a week - and not wearing any make-up, perhaps the hardest part of the whole process - my skin was already looking clearer. The redness was fading, it felt tighter, and basically cleaner. I was off the antibiotics, and so far there had been no new eruptions.

Then it was back to Jackie's Dermalclinic for the next stage - the first of six skin peels.

After cleaning and then "degreasing" my skin, a scrub was applied. Three "passes" of the salicylic acid peel were applied using cotton wipes.

Admittedly the very first layer of acid did sting, but only for a few moments. The following two applications went on without even so much as a tingle.

A fourth solution, a nomelan peel, was applied before Jackie "sealed" the skin with Retises cream to repair it, and then most importantly an SPF 50.

Strangely, despite my skin feeling like it had been gone over with a scourer, there was no redness at all.

And so that's it for a fortnight at least. Then I have to go back and do it all again.Meantime there's a daily ritual of washing and moisturising, Retises nightcream, the Heliocare SPF 50 every day and SesDerma Silkses moisturiser for when the flakiness begins.

Spots and flaky skin at the same time. . . let's hope it's worth it.

• Dermalclinic, 13-15 Church Hill Place, Edinburgh, EH10 4BE. Call 0844-800 7786 or visit www.dermalclinic.co.uk. Prices start at 100 for a basic skin peel.