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Catherine Harshi Gwalani

@msdesiborn

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Acne Skincare, I research ingredients 📚 ⭐️Helping you clear your acne 🫶 I don’t do collabs or brand promotions, it’s just my experience and research I want to share.

catherineharshigwalani

Skin Care

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Just a lil Evening routine 🫶

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It’s a top notch sunscreen:
- blend ability
- fluid serum like texture
- next gen super stable photo filters that’s are super stable
- photoprotective technology (Fernblock anti - oxidant)
Expensive but worth every penny.

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1 MONTH:
1) start with the skin barrier: focus on the skin barrier first (lipids and ceramides) to heal and strengthen the skin barrier. Because if your skin barrier is not built, the tolernece is low, sensitivity is high, and reactions are more. This doesn’t allow you to use the acne treatments properly, because everytime you use it you will have a reaction, stinging, redness, and you won’t use it with the excuse of “sensitive skin”. What’s worse is that using exfoliating acne treatments like salicylic and retinoids without balancing out the skin barrier can actually cause your skin to dry, flake, and become tight - creating rebound acne.
2-3 MONTHS to dissolve acne
2) Salicylic: i am sorry but there’s nothing that can replace salicylic with. It’s the best BHA you can use that’s can dissolve sebum from pores which is the main cause of closed comedones. Use it 3-4 times a week (cycling method) followed by a skin Barrier focused moisturiser. Give it time - 3 months to see the difference.
3-6 MONTHS
3) Retinoids: Use retinoids to promote cell turnover, which prevents new acne and help fade acne marks. Start using this when your acne goes from red to brown, and the pain and inflammation is 0. Starting this in the early brown stages is good because this will help fading the pigment earlier.
You can use salicylic & retinoids together from the 3rd month if your skin Barrier can tolerate both.
Week 1 Salicylic
Week 2 Retinoids
Days 1.3,5 and the rest of the days you can focus on the skin barrier.
Other things to incorporate:
4) double clenasing : oil cleanser & salicylic cleanser
5) HOCL: spray to keep the skin free from acne causing bacteria every-time after cleansing

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Ingredients help fade and prevent tanning in a scientific way. 🫶🌸🎀
🧿🪬

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Fading Tan:
1) Retinal: Retinal encourages cell turnover which helps shed tanned skin cells faster and encourage new cells which are not tanned to come on top of the surface. Indirectly helping you fade your tan. (BEST OPTION)
Prevent Tan:
1) Astaxanthin: a layer of this anti oxidant under your sunscreen during the day can help prevent tan, by reducing inflammation and fighting oxidative stress. What makes this anti - oxidant special is that it’s lipid soluble, meaning it sits in the lipid membranes, protecting these membranes from oxidative stress. Melanin triggers sit under the cells of the lipid membranes. Since the ingredient helps protect lipid membranes, it indirectly protects the melanin pathways from getting triggered and causing a tan.
2) Tranexamic: this ingredient helps inhibit melanin signalling pathways that gets triggered when uv touches the skin. When there is UV exposure these melanin signalling pathways get triggered as the skins natural defence to uv, and then melanin gets formed with pigment getting deposited in the cells creating a tan. When you block the root of melanin trigger, tanning can be majorly cut down.
3) Tinted Broad Spectrum Sunscreen: YOU NEED A new generation broad spectrum sunscreen that’s tinted with all 3 iron oxides (creating the perfect block) along with chemical and mineral filters.

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Fading Tan:
1) Retinal: Retinal encourages cell turnover which helps shed tanned skin cells faster and encourage new cells which are not tanned to come on top of the surface. Indirectly helping you fade your tan. (BEST OPTION)
Prevent Tan:
1) Astaxanthin: a layer of this anti oxidant under your sunscreen during the day can help prevent tan, by reducing inflammation and fighting oxidative stress. What makes this anti - oxidant special is that it’s lipid soluble, meaning it sits in the lipid membranes, protecting these membranes from oxidative stress. Melanin triggers sit under the cells of the lipid membranes. Since the ingredient helps protect lipid membranes, it indirectly protects the melanin pathways from getting triggered and causing a tan.
2) Tranexamic: this ingredient helps inhibit melanin signalling pathways that gets triggered when uv touches the skin. When there is UV exposure these melanin signalling pathways get triggered as the skins natural defence to uv, and then melanin gets formed with pigment getting deposited in the cells creating a tan. When you block the root of melanin trigger, tanning can be majorly cut down.
3) Tinted Broad Spectrum Sunscreen: YOU NEED A new generation broad spectrum sunscreen that’s tinted with all 3 iron oxides (creating the perfect block) along with chemical and mineral filters.

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The routine I follow this month - based on needs.
PM:
I try to use the retinoid every single night, but if i feel i need some extra oxidative stress coverage then I use the anti- oxidant.
AM:
Sunscreen always. Azelaic if needed. Astaxanthin I use it when i feel like i need extra oxidative stress coverage.
Lipids moisturiser AM & PM.
🧿🪬

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Of course these in- clinic solutions will give you amazing results but if you want to do stuff at home:
- retinoids (almost every single day) : collagen synthesis
- peptides : collagen synthesis
- anti oxidants (Astaxanthin and EYK 134) : collagen protection
- broad spectrum new gen Sunscreen reapplication:collagen protection.

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Post Bandra date protocol: antioxidants for stress, not damage. We protect collagen in this house.

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Pls girls if you’re going on a date these days, there’s more oxidative stress that will generate than sitting without sunscreen in the thar desert. Jk. But AM I?
Pls girls - take care of yourselves 🫶

Makeup

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This sunscreen is acne safe, non- comedogenic, no white caste, has the BOOTS STAR RATING at 4 for superior UVA coverage, serum - like fluid texture and LIGHTWEIGHT. Like so so so so sooo LIGHTWEIGHT AND FLUID. Blendable, non greasy. Basically everything acne girls want in their sunscreen 🫶

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The Sali- Ret routine is where you use a POWER FORCE OF 2 ACTIVES that target on the ROOT OF ACNE - preventing new acne and fading old ones.
1) IF YOUR SKIN BARRIER IS GOOD,use this routine: 🌸
- Week 1: Salicylic
Days 1,3,5
-Week 2: Retinoids
Days 1,3,5
-Rest of the days you’ll do skin barrier focus.
2) IF YOUR SKIN BARRIER IS BROKEN, follow this routine: 🌸
-1st Month: Skin Barrier Focus- i know you’re breaking out but trust the process the first thing you need to look at is the skin barrier.
-2nd Month: Salicylic
Days: 1,3,5
-3rd Month: Retinoids
Days 1,3,5
You do it in this order to check if your skin has but tolerance against these actives starting first with salicylic and then with retinoids in the second month. If your skin still has sensitivity and reactivity to it. Then instead of days 1,35 use it on days 1, 5 and more days for skin barrier focus and building as you gradually increase the days of using the active.
-4th month: Sali - Ret (like above) This you will do once your barrier is completely healed and built.
Week 1 : Salicylic (Days 1,3,5)
Week 2 : Retinoids (Days 1,3,5)
Why Sali - Ret works?
Salicylic works by drying up acne and preventing new acne by exfoliating all the clogged oil and sebum in your pores (which also causes closed comedones) this is the primary reason for acne.
Retinoids works by normalising skin cell shedding and cell turnover which helps reduce ded skin cells getting clogged in the pores (sticky sebum acts like a glue and doesn’t let these ded skin cells shed, also the normal shedding itself can be interrupted with the oiliness of the skin, causing these cells to clog in pores, leading to closed comedones)
Hence THE SALI - RET ROUTINE works- works for me and worked as per science. You have the ingredients, you just need to perfect the formula with this routine. 🫶
🪬🧿

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Everything I used 🫶🫶
Acne oily prone skin routine 🌸

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You need to use sunscreen at all times - sunny not sunny, unless it’s night, then it’s fine to skip. Cause it may not be sunny but the UV is still there. This can still cause oxidative stress like lipid peroxidation and collagen breakdown, fine lines and wrinkles.
Vitamin c does not work on acne PIH. Period. These are deeply rooted pigments and vitamin c doesn’t have the mechanism to work on these kind of pigments. What works on them? Technology that actually helps get these deep rooted pigments to the surface and fades them - cell turnover. What’s the best ingredient for cell turnover? Retinoids.
No acne face wash will stop acne unless you use it with a proper routine that includes a salicylic serum, retinoids and skin barrier focus used with consistency.

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By 10 th jan 2026, your fav sunscreen could not be available anymore. 😭🥲 WHY? Because Indian sunscreens have been failing so many tests.
SCARY PART? Indian sunscreens spf 50 on the label could actually be only spf 10 on the skin. (Which is barely enough)
This is because Indian sunscreens are not required to follow ISO protocols.
THESE ARE THE MOST ACCURATE LEVELS OF TESTING.
Indian sunscreens are not required to have these gold standard ISO testing and regulations to claim spf measurement (50 or 100 SPF) or uva coverage tests. So Indian sunscreens can follow like lesser accurate testing procedures that show spf 50 in the lab but on real skin conditions that spf 50 can actually be working as 10 only.
Cause they can be using lesser accurate testing in the lab using a plate (in vitro) instead of testing on real skin (in vivo)
Countries in Europe, Japan, Korea and Australia are required to follow ISO protocols (testing on real skin) Meaning that SPF In Europe = SPF in Korea. But SPF in India is not equal to SPF in Japan or Korea, or Europa etc because we don’t follow these standardised rules and testing requirements of the ISO (that all these other countries use)
So we don’t really know if the Indian sunscreen label that says 50 - is actually SPF 50 or 20 :(
The good news is that by 10 th Jan 2026, Indian sunscreens are required to follow these awesome ISO protocols. If not; they can’t be sold.
So your Indian sunscreens will either be reformulated or continue depending on whether they have been following gold standards testing or not 🫶 WE WILL HAVE TO WAIT AND WATCH.

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NO BS ONLY ANSWERS. #unsponsored as always. AND SCIENCE. 🎀🫶🌸
🧿🪬

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By 10 th jan 2026, your fav sunscreen could not be available anymore. 😭🥲 WHY? Because Indian sunscreens have been failing so many tests.
SCARY PART? Indian sunscreens spf 50 on the label could actually be only spf 10 on the skin. (Which is barely enough)
This is because Indian sunscreens are not required to follow ISO protocols.
THESE ARE THE MOST ACCURATE LEVELS OF TESTING.
Indian sunscreens are not required to have these gold standard ISO testing and regulations to claim spf measurement (50 or 100 SPF) or uva coverage tests. So Indian sunscreens can follow like lesser accurate testing procedures that show spf 50 in the lab but on real skin conditions that spf 50 can actually be working as 10 only.
Cause they can be using lesser accurate testing in the lab using a plate (in vitro) instead of testing on real skin (in vivo)
Countries in Europe, Japan, Korea and Australia are required to follow ISO protocols (testing on real skin) Meaning that SPF In Europe = SPF in Korea. But SPF in India is not equal to SPF in Japan or Korea, or Europa etc because we don’t follow these standardised rules and testing requirements of the ISO (that all these other countries use)
So we don’t really know if the Indian sunscreen label that says 50 - is actually SPF 50 or 20 :(
The good news is that by 10 th Jan 2026, Indian sunscreens are required to follow these awesome ISO protocols. If not; they can’t be sold.
So your Indian sunscreens will either be reformulated or continue depending on whether they have been following gold standards testing or not 🫶 WE WILL HAVE TO WAIT AND WATCH.

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Best lip gloss ever

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So what should you use until the 10th of January 2026?
🧿🪬🫶

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