I have been constantly battling acne since hitting my teenage years. I thought it would get better once I was in college, but found it to become worse. And of course, it increased during that time when hormones get crazy.

But, did you know that acne can worsen during pregnancy?

Mine did, and it started with many mini erupting volcanoes.

It was my first pregnancy and I was ready to experience the joy of being pregnant. Besides having horrible morning sickness, I didn't expect that anything would affect my self esteem.

But it did.

During my first pregnancy with my son, my face broke out with major cystic acne. No space on my face was spared. I didn't think it could get so bad.

But I decided to ride it out thinking that it would disappear after I give birth.

The acne continued! It seemed as if it would never go down as several months passed. In fact, on the day my husband took a picture of me sleeping with my son, I wanted to cry when I saw the picture. My skin was horrible, especially since it next to my son's creamy, smooth baby skin.

My mother, who was quite concerned on how I was feeling about my face, told me about Proactiv from an infomercial. I found the site on the Internet and ordered the product.

It was a miracle! Proactiv works!

Not only did my acne go down quickly, but I didn't have scarring. What a bonus!

That was 9 years ago.

Now, when I see the infomercials every and think back to when I first started using Proactiv, it brings back horrible acne memories.

But then I smile knowing that there is a product that cleared my skin for good.

Wash...Toner...Moisturizer...

The above is the skin care system of the majority of skin care systems and acne skin care systems. Some may even include "spot treatments" to further help zap that zit.

For a while, I was tired of having so many steps in my skin care regimen. While searching the internet for a simpler approach to keep my acne at bay, I found one ingredient that kept on coming up. Niacinamide (or Vitamin B3). Niacinamide is shown to be an antioxidant, as well as have anti-inflammatory properties. The anti-inflammatory property of niacinamide caught my attention since cystic or acne vulgaris acne is a major concern of mine.

I found a natural acne skin care system called Naturally Clear. It has only two steps, and it is reasonably priced. With the Naturally Clear sytem, the first step is the Naturally Clear Revitalizing Scrub. (There is also the Cleansing Foam for those who don't want to scrub their face.) The second step is the Naturally Clear Topical Spray. I found the spray to be wonderful. At first I it was going to be like a toner, but noticed that it actually has moisturizing qualities. The moisturizing property is the "sodium PCA", a humectant, in the spray to keep moisture in your skin.

This skin care regimen keeps my acne at bay. If I did come up with the one or two cystic acne, I found that most of the time it went down quickly. Naturally Clear also has a blemish stick to help the pesky persistent acne. This is great during the beginning period when cystic acne begins to inflame. It helps to bring down the size considerably overnight.

Naturally Clear topical skin care system is reasonably priced and the products last for about one and a half months. This skin care system works great for me as I'm always in a rush and I do like knowing that I'm feeding my skin natural ingredients.

Let's get down to our hormones. It seems as if everything we do causes our hormones to go nuts, and then here it comes...another zit! Is there any way for us women to control our acne?

Well, there is birth control pills. I, for one, try not take anything of this sort just for the reason of controlling acne. If you use this, use it for the primary reason that it's made for.

But, there is something that I currently use in conjunction with my skin care that helps to control my crazy hormones. It began when I started drinking primarily soy milk. I noticed that when I switched to only soy milk my PMS was better. My mood and irritability was considerably much improved.

The surprise?

I had a considerable improvement in my acne.

So began my search on the web to figure out this phenomenon.

What I found was an abundance of information about soy, which is considered a phytoestrogen. The component phytoesgrogen helps the body to balance the estrogen in our bodies. It is this very hormone, estrogen, that makes us the woman we are, but also causes our acne.

Drinking soy milk, though became expensive over time. Therefore I began searching for a cream that included this phytoestrogen ingredient.

Hence I found Wild Yam.

What is great about the Wild Yam cream is that you use just a little every day or twice a day on your skin. I ordered my jar of Wild Yam cream and began my experiment. It was a joy when I found that the Wild Yam cream continued to clear my skin even futher. My acne is much better controlled in conjunction with my acne skin care regimen. Best of all, I have continued to be less irritable and more even keeled emotionally.

Not only has my skin and body benefited from this change, but so have my children!

P.S. By the way, I don't recommend using this cream if you are a teenager, pregnant or breastfeeding. Better to go natural during this important change in your life.

In my younger days, sunblock or sunscreen wasn't commonly used in our vocabulary. If we did use sunscreen, it was sunscreen oil so that we didn't look like "shark bait" (fair skinned). Living in Hawaii, you can imagine how much we were in the sun.

But now with my "mature skin", (mature skin starts at 35 years old?!) light brown spots started rearing its ugly head.

Some spots were darker than others. At first, I thought they were my freckles getting darker, but they looked bigger then a freckle.

Then it dawned on me. Age spots!

I'm too young!

Sunblock is now in constantly being used by myself and my children. Since I am indoors a fair amount of time and don't tan well, my skin is very fair. Therefore, the sun spots look darker than ever.

Hence I started my search for a lightening cream.

Malic acid, hydroquinone, azelaic acid, kojic acid, nicinamide...

I could go on and on about the different types of ingredients products use to lighten skin. One ingredient I knew I wanted to avoid was hydroquinone since I have very sensitive skin. So it was onto the less harsh melanin inhibiting sources.

Search and search, I did.

There are so many products on the web. But I finally narrowed my search down to one product.

Meladerm.

The prominent skin lightening ingredients were kojic acid and alpha arbutin. What drew me to Meladerm even further is that it markets the product for sensitive skin.

I decided that I would trial Meladerm for a couple of months.

The conclusion? It works.

It lightened my sun spots considerably to the point where I don't have to wear a concealer, only my powder foundation. With continued use, patience (and of course a high SPF sunblock), it will contine to lighten.