How Long Until I See Results on Tazorac? Or Do I Need Something Else?

When people have blackheads and are using a medicine such as Tazorac Gel, it can take up to three months on its own to make these lesions better. You should be under the care of a board-certified dermatologist who can best work with you and determine if there are other medicines that might be useful for you to use – say in the morning – or are there other procedures that can be done to make you better faster. The Clarisonic skin cleansing brush is a wonderful adjuvant for cleansing the skin and has shown to be really useful in patients with acne.Also, some dermatologists have a device known as Isolaz, an IPL type of light-based device with a vacuum apparatus. In clinical studies, one of which I performed in my office and published several years ago, Isolaz showed that not only were inflammatory acne lesions improved (the papules and cysts) but the noninflammatory acne lesions (the whiteheads and blackheads) also improved faster than justusing medicine alone. So this might be an option for you. See who has Isolaz in your area – it’s remarkable for acne.

It can take several months to notice any significant improvement with Tazorac or any other retinoid, but your patience will pay off.  There is no other class of topical acne medications that can unplug pores as effectively as the retinoids.  I tell my patients that their acne may even flare slightly in the first month or so as lesions are "brought to the surface." Then, I see them back in 3 months.  One thing to consider, however, that may be thwarting your improvement, are your other face and hair products.  They could be plugging your pores.  Makes sure all your products say "non-comedogenic" - this means they are not pore-pluggers.

I think you need to give any topical blackhead treatment 3 months.  If not better, time to try something else.