Everything You Need to Know About Acne

Your skin is such an important part of your beauty but maintaining your natural glow takes time and patience and sometimes nature just isn’t on your side. Spots are a natural frustration that are normally fine if you leave them alone and continue with your usual beauty routine. However, if you have a lot of spots regularly, this may be regarded as a problem with acne and treatment is a good idea to persue.

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While acne certainly won’t kill you, it can have a serious detrimental affect on your confidence and leave you feeling embarrassed about your appearance. Foundation may help to disguise the redness and uneven surface of your skin but piling makeup on top of acne lesions could exacerbate the problem. A better option is to find out how to clear your skin without any lasting effects.

 

This blog should help you to understand what acne is, how it is caused and what you can do to improve your skin without risking scarring or any skin discoloration. With a few simple tips, 3 debunked myths and a few other recommendations along the way, your skin will be back to it’s most beautiful self in no time.

What is acne?

Acne is a common skin condition, especially prevalent in teenagers, that affects most people at some point to some degree. You might be lucky and just get a few occasional spots that are easy (and almost satisfying) to squeeze out in the mirror without causing further trouble but for some unlucky souls to acne can have a huge affect.

 

Acne can appear in many forms. It may appear as whitehead spots, red bumps, solid, painful bumps underneath the skin, small cysts or blackheads. While it is completely normal to have a few of these spots, if you find that you have lots of spots that just won’t go away, you may need to think of a more radical solution for clearing your skin as the bacteria causing the spots may be spreading.

 

Spots can occur anywhere on your body, but you are most likely to find acne on your face, back, neck, chest and shoulders. This is because these areas tend to have more sebaceous glands and when these glands get blocked, that is where the problems start. Acne in any of these places can be sore and itchy, especially where your skin meets your clothes.

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What causes acne?

It isn’t clear exactly what causes acne and it is probably a combination of factors. Stress, hormonal imbalance and familial tendency seem to be consistent with acne flare-ups as well as reactions to some drugs and steroids. You may also find that some make-up products cause acne to flare too and cleaning your brushes regularly and thoroughly should help to reduce the amount of bacteria that may spread on your face.

 

Acne is basically what happens when a sebaceous gland, found underneath your skin next to a hair follicle, gets blocked. These glands produce the natural oil, known as sebum, that protects and nourishes your skin to give it its usual healthy glow. The problems start when sebaceous glands start to work over time, filling your pores with sebum and causing a blockage of dead skin. Acne bacteria, or Propionibacterium acnes to give it its full Latin name, gets into the blocked pore and causes inflammation and reddening of the skin.

3 Myths You Should Ignore

There are a few myths about spots and acne that it are well worth debunking at this stage.

Scrub Acne Spots

If anyone suggests that you should scrub your face to open up the pores – don’t! Scrubbing your acne isn’t just going to cause you pain, it could cause scarring later down the line. Your poor skin is already suffering enough without you causing more inflammation so go easy and use a gentle cleanser instead.

Oily Food Causes Acne

It doesn’t, and neither does chocolate for that matter. While your skin needs a healthy balanced diet like the rest of your body, there’s no need to go out of your way to avoid oils. However, you should avoid oil-based sun screens as these may cause your pores to clog again, try using bacteria-killing zinc-based sun screens instead.

Acne Only Affects Teenagers

If only this were true! Unfortunately, adults are also likely to get the occasional bout of acne and rather unfairly, women are more likely than men to suffer. This is because hormones play a significant part in oil production and women’s hormonal cycles can cause the overproduction of sebum. As if being a woman wasn’t hard enough!

How Can Acne be Treated?

As tempting as it is to squeeze out a spot, this can cause far more problems than it solves. This method, satisfying as it is, causes the skin to break and may lead to bleeding. The resulting scab will take much longer to heal than the spot would have done if left well alone.

 

But, since acne can be quite persistent, it is worth looking into gentler means of clearing your skin. There are all sorts of different types of face masks and lotions on the market but if you want a fast and effective method of ridding your skin of acne blemishes, you would be well advised to seek help from a professional.

 

A professional will be able to advise you on the best way to treat your acne and then provide you with regular treatments to keep your skin clear. Dore Aesthetics is a highly recommended clinic that makes use of the latest technology and research to give you the best and most effective treatments for your acne.

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Maintaining Beautiful Skin

Acne is a natural, if irritating, problem that will probably recur to some extent after all, everyone gets spots from time to time. However, there are a few things that you can do to help your skin to maintain a good balance of natural oils.

 

You could establish a lengthy skin care and beauty regime but unless you have time on your hands, you would do better to get into good daily habits that take no time at all. Of course, when you do have time to spare at the weekend, you could try face masks and other spa skin treatments that are as relaxing as they are effective.

 

For day-to-day care, try three simple tricks to improve your skin:

Drink Plenty of Water

It really is incredible what water can do. Staying well hydrated will help your skin to glow and maintain a healthy appearance. Your skin is a good indicator of your overall health so if your skin is looking dry and sunken then that could be a sign of dehydration. And, if your skin is dehydrated, that could be a trigger for your sebaceous glands to produce more oils, increasing the chance of you getting spots.

Exercise

Just like drinking plenty of water, exercise should already be a part of your healthy lifestyle. But if you needed another incentive to get moving, sweating might just help to clear out your pores before any build-up of dead skin and sebum can occur. If running isn’t your thing, you could try sitting in the sauna or the steam room. The heat will open up your pores and help to clear them out.

Be Gentle With Your Skin Products

Some skin products will agree with your skin and some won’t. When you use a skin product that doesn’t this can be a disaster, but once you find the cleanser that works for you, stick with it! Ask for advice at the beauty counter to find out what sort of skin you have and base your choices on this advice. Not everyone has just dry or oily skin, most people have slightly different types of skin in the different zones of their face. This means that you might get more spots in some areas than in others and should treat the skin here accordingly.

Inner Beauty is the Most Important

Acne is a prevalent problem that affects people of all ages around the globe. While you might feel embarrassed by your imperfect skin, you can rest assured that this common condition is treatable and should get better with proper care.

 

If you find yourself feeling low and lacking in confidence, talk about your acne with your friends and family and do some research into clinical solutions such as a cool gel treatment designed to kill the bacteria causing acne to swell. While your skin may not be perfect, don’t hold back on having fun and going out before it is healed. With a bit of practise, you can learn to cover up your acne well enough to persuade the casual observer that nothing is amiss.

 

Without a doubt, your inner beauty is the most important part of your aesthetic making your smile radiant and your skin glow. While you might worry about your spots, especially as a teenager, most people will completely ignore them and still see you for the beauty you truly are.