JOURNAL OF COSMETIC SCIENCE 6 effi cacy, whereas tetracyclines including doxycycline and minocycline are effective when taken orally (25–27). However, overuse of these antibiotics can lead to bacterial resistance (10) and have limited usefulness when used alone. One of the strongest antiseptics in common use is BP, which alone or in combination with other antibiotics can signifi cantly reduce acne lesions and infection (28,13), however, with side effects like skin drying (28). Hydrogen peroxide is a common antiseptic that is used diluted on skin to kill bacteria in a wound. It is a powerful oxidizing agent however, it can act as a reducing agent for strong oxidants. Formulation of stable treatment creams with this agent is a challenge because of its reactive nature. Nevertheless, it has been shown to be a successful agent for acne treat- ment when used in combination with adapalene with better tolerability profi le in compari- son with the combination of BP and adapalene (27). Another study has shown hydrogen peroxide to be as effective as BP in reducing both infl ammatory and noninfl ammatory acne vulgaris lesions in patients with mild-to-moderate disease, with a better local tolerability Figure 2. Area under the curves from Figures 1(A) and (B) showing a précis of the activity of each treatment on reduction of size and infl ammation of acne lesions. Figure 3. (A) Infl ammatory lesion count of the full face from a 6-week in-use study. (B) Noninfl ammatory lesion count of the full face.

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