The IPhone Skin Care Regimen for Light Treatment of Acne
Sure, they say that you shouldn't stay on the cellphone so much, because the radio waves can cause brain cancer one day. But seriously, nothing is perfect; why can't those Calamity Janes look at the bright side of using your cell phone? If you happen to have an iPhone, all the time you spend talking on it, could actually be time spent at your skincare regimen. This thing is actually true, even if it sounds like something you might expect on April Fools' Day. You can go check it out on the Apple apps store if you can't quite believe this: Dr. Pearsons AcneApp is a $1.99 skincare app designed by a dermatologist from Texas who feels that using those fancy (not to mention expensive) handheld light devices that promise to plump your skin or cure your acne is really for the overly credulous. And, what is more, you can use AcneApp on your iPod touch too,
This little app makes the iPhone's screen flash in blue and red; the blue is supposed to take care of the bacteria you would find in acne, and the red is for the inflammation that the acne leaves behind. And if you don't have acne, you could still use it as an anti-aging skin care regimen - without the collagen injections. At least that is the claim. So basically, are blue and red light supposed to cure everything that goes wrong with your skin? Surely, it can't be as simple as that?
It is important, of course, that the lights be exactly the right tone and intensity. How spot-on the app's designer got it is anybody's guess. But experiments with red and blue lights in clinical settings have found that you would need about 100 sittings with low-level light application before you could see any results at all. But it is not as if this is a completely hopeless idea. There are lots of devices on the market, some costing about $200, that promise to work with red and blue lights, just as this app does. Before you put your cash down for one of those, you could test the concept of this skin care regimen out with this low-priced app.
Acne is just a massive market that is desperate for some kind of cure. There are upwards of 40 million Americans who suffer from acne each year; since acne is a bacterial problem, getting it treated sometimes means using really powerful drugs that can even cause birth defects. People with acne can suffer lifelong self-image problems. While light acne treatment is indeed approved by the Food and Drug Administration, doctors are not quite in agreement that it could actually do anything. At least, the iPhone skin care regimen doesn't cost you an arm and a leg.
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