Started a 10% azelaic acid three weeks ago. I usually only get spots on my chin, and now I have small closed bumps across both cheeks and along my jaw. Everything online says purging happens where you normally break out, which would mean this isn't it, but three weeks also feels long for a straightforward reaction. How do people actually tell these apart?
Check the base rather than the active. Azelaic acid itself is usually well tolerated, but the 10% suspensions come in some quite heavy silicone-and-oil bases and for some people that's what causes the closed bumps. A different brand at the same percentage is a cheap test.
Hadn't considered the base at all. Reading the ingredient list now and it's fairly heavy.
Small ones along the jaw specifically, check what touches your face. Phone screen, pillowcase frequency, hair products, the strap of anything. I chased a product for two months and it turned out to be a new conditioner.
Photograph it weekly in the same light, same time of day. Skin changes slowly enough that memory is useless, and the difference between clearing slowly and not clearing is nearly impossible to judge in a mirror day to day.
Both is possible too, a bit of purging on your chin plus irritation elsewhere. Which is why the stop-and-restart test beats trying to reason it out from the pattern.
@porosity_nerd · 10mo ago · 3 replies
The heuristic that has held up for me: purging is faster in and faster out, in your usual places, and it's the same kind of spot you normally get, just more at once. New locations plus a new shape, small uniform closed bumps rather than your usual chin spots, reads more like irritation or a comedogenic reaction. Three weeks is at the outer edge of plausible purging and still getting new ones is the part I'd weigh most.
What I'd do: stop for two weeks, change nothing else, and see. If it clears, reintroduce every third day. If it doesn't clear, it was never the azelaic acid and you've learned something more useful.
If it becomes painful or spreads, that's a dermatologist conversation rather than a forum one.
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@margot_teller · 10mo ago
Two weeks off, change nothing else. That's a cleaner experiment than what I've been doing, which is changing two things a week and guessing.
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@hip_opener_hana · 10mo ago
The one-variable rule is the whole game with skin. Everything takes four to six weeks to show, so change two things and you've learned nothing and lost six weeks.
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