ACNE AWARENESS MONTH PART 3: LIFESTYLE
Alright friends, last week of Acne Awareness Month and last in our 3-part series talking all about lifestyle factors and skin treatments you can try! Remember, like we talked about in the first blog, acne isn’t caused by poor hygiene, it’s an inherited disorder of your pores and many different factors can contribute to someone’s severity of acne - diet, lifestyle choices, gut health, stress and skincare. Everyone is different and experiences acne differently, so take all of these tips & tricks with a grain of salt!
First up, here are some lifestyle factors to keep in mind:
Remember to do your skincare routine morning and night! It’s important to get those ingredients on your skin to combat your acne and get the debris and oil buildup of your skin.
Brush your teeth before you wash your face.
If you wash your face in the shower - wash it last. You’ll want to wash away any residue from other products you use from your face.
Try out fragrance free and dry free detergents and soaps. Sometimes, these can be a source of irritation to your skin and can use pore-clogging ingredients. For example, fabric softener or dryer sheets can lead to a buildup of wax on your skin. Try something more natural like vinegar or “cleaner” detergent brands.
Birth control and other hormones can lead to acne also.
Daily environment - are you around dirt, chemicals, tars, grease etc.?
Wash your face within 15 minutes after you’re done sweating. We don’t want it to dry on our skin.
Avoid picking at your skin - not only can it lead to scarring, but it can lead to more acne as well!
Medications can lead to acne as well so be aware of that!
Acne is so complex there are even more contributing factors. Now, this doesn’t mean that your acne stems from all of these. There’s no “easy fix” for acne, and for some people it can take up to 90 days to clear the skin and pores of existing debris. Patience is the name of the game when treating acne. There are about 90 pores per square inch of your skin so if you haven’t been practicing good skincare for a while, it’ll take a while to correct!
Acne is controlled, not cured.
Working with an esthetician can help you keep it under control via home care and treatments! Treatments are important because we as estheticians can use a little more aggressive or active ingredients or soothing depending on what you need. Different kinds of treatments are a huge part of acne progress!
Here are a few different treatments we can utilize:
Chemical Peels. These have AHA and BHA ingredients which we talked about in our first blog. These can come in a variety of strengths, but typically they are a little more aggressive exfoliation and can usually be used for all kinds of acne.
Enzymes. These are a great form of exfolitaoin too but in a little more gentle form. They can usually help soothe and calm the skin and are perfect for more reactive skin but great for all types!
Scrubs. These are used in conjunction with other ingredients too but typically used for non-inflamed acne. You never want to use a scrub on inflamed acne! Instead, you’ll want to use chemical exfoliation.
Hydration. This is huge! Some people are so dehydrated they need all the calming and hydrating ingredients. Soothing is key for inflamed acne and hydrating masks to allow for easier extractions. Bonus: you can also utilize icing to keep inflammation at bay (check out my fave cold roller to help with this!)
Adding in treatments are necessary to your healing process, these are all great options that can better help address acne for you. And my last note for this post - you are not alone in your acne battle! Literally almost everyone has had a breakout at some point in their life, yes, even us estheticians. But guess what? Our skin does not need to be picture perfect to know how to treat our clients. We’re human too and enjoy things like foods that lead to breakouts. Life’s too short to not enjoy the good things (in moderation of course 🙂)
