I may not one who can complain about having unpleasant acne-prone skin, but once in a month, I still have the irritating visit from the acne family! Frankly, it is quite irritating, because it’s breaking my Zen in a completely fine looking skin that I’ve built over the past month. And when that time of the month comes, I itch to move my fingers to probe against the acne and finally when I couldn’t help it anymore, god forbid, pop it! And that, leaves ugly acne scars behind. Acne is a vicious circle that one will never part from for the rest of their life.
But anyway, I thought it would be useful to do a Skincare 101 on acne since it’s such a common problem.
Here are ten things you need to know about acne:
1. Acne happens to everyone! Women and men, teens and mature women, dry and oily skin. I mean EVERYONE! It’s not solely a problem hindering those with oily or acne-prone skin. Even yours truly, that have a very dry skin, has problem with acne from time to time. Though it’s most common in teens, but acne will still pop as you age, hopefully at a more controllable state. It’s among the most common skin conditions people face everyday.
2. The cause of acne is bacteria and clogged pores. Oil glands in the skin produce sebum, skin’s natural oil. Where too much of sebum being produced, it can clog pores in the skin. Build-up in the skin occurs and leading to acne popping out in the surface of our skin. Hence, it’s very important to cleanse your skin thoroughly everyday and do regular exfoliation. Though exfoliation will help keeping acne at bay, but scrubbing your face is not recommended during acne breakout period as it will aggravate the breakout. Best to stay out of it.
3. Acne can also occur on other part of the body. Though the most common place you see is the face, but you can also have acne on your neck, shoulder, as well as your chest and back. Fret not, that’s where the body scrub will help to do a thorough exfoliation to help you resolve the matters when you have acne on your body area. Using anti-bacterial body wash will also help alleviating the problem.
4. Cosmetics, skincare and hair skin products may also cause the appearance of acne. If you’re having problem with new acne popping out straight after (or couple of days) of using new products, you may want to check whether the breakout is the byproduct of new products you’re using. The simplest thing to do is withdrawing the use of the product in question. However, skincare regimen may need some time for your skin to adjust, give or take, two weeks to one month. More than that? That means, the skincare that you’re using doesn’t bid well with you.
5. Hormonal changes can cause acne too! That’s why teens with raging hormones often experience acne breakout, because their sex-related hormones (adrogens) elevate sharply, thus leading to sudden eruption in acnes. But this, too, happens to women during ovulation, menstruation, pregnancy, perimenopause and menopause, as well as when you use birth control pills, as these conditions change hormones level. In adult, the hormone testosterone is the cause of acne. When the female body is lacking estrogen (or female sex hormone), there’s a sharp increase in testosterone production. This happens during those phases I mentioned previously, that’s why, when you’re under of the mentioned condition, there’s a big chance of acne breakout.
6. Making sure your pillowcase is clean and changing your face towels every so often will help alleviate acne breakout. Why? As I mentioned above, bacteria is also a cause of acne. Since pillowcases and face towels come into contact with your face directly, it’s in your best interest to change them frequently to make sure that they’re free of bacteria.
7. Acne is hereditary. Well, this is not a myth. The chance of you experiencing acne breakout is far greater if your parents skin’s condition is also acne prone. Oily skin is also more prone to acne, and the condition of the skin is also hereditary factor.
8. Popping out acne is really bad! So, never popped out your acne, under any condition. Your hands can contain bacteria that may worsen the condition of the acne. On top of that, popping out an acne cause disruption on the well-being of the skin, causing a tear and leaving a scar mark. This leads to dark spots developing and even harder to heal.
9. Medicate your acne well. Take the time to treat your acne. There are a number of off-the-counter medication that can work. Bezoyl peroxide and salicylic acid are known to be great ingredients to cure acne. Benzoyl peroxide helps to fight the bacteria that cause acne and exfoliate the skin around the acne, thus helps to heal it. Whereas salicylic acid dries out the skin and helps to exfoliate the dead skin cells. There are many lotion and creams that targets to medicate the acne directly which contains one of the two ingredients.
10. There are non-medication solution too to acne. If you’re not in favour of medicated treatment, like me, because it disrupt the harmony of my skincare routine, then non-medication solution will be your weapon of choice against acne breakout. For me personally, I also don’t like medicated treatment because it usually contains benzoyl peroxide or salicylic acid that makes my already dry skin even drier. And I know pregnant women are told to avoid salicylic acid, so they don’t have a choice but to avoid them. So my best bet lies in Nexcare Acne Cover which don’t contain any sort of medication at all! And I think this product deserves its own review. So that’s for another post.
Anything to add, girls? If you have any tips on how to live with acne breakout or facts related to it, feel free to add.
