I Spiked My Skincare Routine With This Random Ingredient, and My Acne Vanished

Lately, my bare skin has just been going kind of right, and up until recently—i.e., about two weeks ago—I wasn't precisely sure of the culprit. I hadn't overhauled my skincare routine or

made significant changes to my diet (if anything, there's been an uptick in wine, cheese, and sugar), so in all honestly, I was blatantly astonished as I watched my skin getting smoother, my acne scarring getting lighter, and my frequent flyer club of acne getting sparser. 

Racking my brain, I made a list of every single thing that I had changed in the course of the last month, and really, the only things I could pen with confidence were my religious usage of IS Clinical's Hydra-Cool Serum ($94) (every damn day, either morning or night and sometimes both), Klur's Supreme Seed Delicate Purification Mask ($60) (once or twice a week), and my one and only new supplement, ZitSticka's Skin Discipline ($44). Of course, I began cross-checking ingredients, and I noticed one factor, in particular, that had a starring presence across both topicals and my supplement—vitamin B5. 

Hours of sleuth work later, I realized that there was a high likelihood that my new regular habit of applying and ingesting the vitamin could very well be the cause of my beaming complexion, but to triple-check my hypothesis, I went to the experts: Kristina Holey, a Marie Veronique collaborator and holistic skincare specialist; Eden Gilliam, an esthetician and founder of Eve Milan New York; and Sarah Koszyk, MA, RDN, a registered dietitian, sports nutritionist, and co-founder/formulator of Mija.

What is vitamin B5, and can it really be used to treat or prevent acne? Keep scrolling! I'm asking all of my burning questions on the topic just below. 

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