Don’t use harsh or irritating skin-care products. Throughout this book I discuss the need for gentle cleansing for all skin types. This concept is particularly difficult for someone with oily or blemished skin to believe, despite the research backing it up, because the desire to really clean the skin is almost irresistible. Yet a paper published in the Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium on Cosmetic Efficacy (May 10-12, 1999, entitled “The Effects of Cleansing in an Acne Treatment Regimen”) concluded that 52% of the time a hydrating face wash gave better results in reducing comedones, papules, and pustules when used with benzoyl peroxide. By comparison, this type of gentle cleanser was more effective than either soap or a benzoyl peroxide cleanser alone.
What is most frustrating is that many of the blemish products on the market actually make breakouts worse or cause more skin problems than you started out
with. Products designed to tackle acne often contain ingredients like harsh surfactants and overly abrasive scrub particles, as well as alcohol, menthol, peppermint, camphor, and eucalyptus, lemon, or grapefruit oils. All of these ingredients are extremely irritating, and the resulting irritation can impair the skin’s ability to heal or to fight bacteria as well as trigger oil production.
What makes all these standard, harmful “blemish-fighting” ingredients worse is that they don’t reduce any of the factors causing breakouts. They can’t disinfect, reduce oil production, affect hormonal activity, or help exfoliation. Instead, they kill more skin cells than necessary, which can further clog pores, produce dry skin, cause irritation, and make skin redder. A blemish by definition is already irritated, red, and swollen, so it doesn’t make any sense to use ingredients that will make it even more irritated, red, and swollen.
Skin-care products with irritating ingredients, such as facial masks, astringents, toners, and facial scrubs (which also contain waxes), are a big no-no. These can all hurt the skin, and that can aggravate acne. If a product irritates the skin, if it tingles or burns, it is not helping. And not only does irritation stimulate oil production, promote redness, increase swelling, and dry out the skin, it can also add small, rashlike pimples to the breakouts you’re already trying to deal with.
Bar soaps and bar cleansers are often recommended for acne, yet all of them contain ingredients that can clog pores. Soaps contain tallow, and bar cleansers contain other heavy, wax-based thickening agents that can clog pores. Shockingly, high-pH soaps and cleansers (those with a pH of 8 or higher) can actually increase the presence of bacteria in the pore! All this makes matters much worse inside the pore, again greatly increasing the risk of breakouts.
Oversqueezing, picking, digging, scraping, or poking at pimples may be hard to resist, and you may think it speeds healing, but in fact it sets you up for more problems.
Creating scabs and constantly reinjuring the lesion just increases the chances of scarring. There is nothing wrong with gentle squeezing to remove a blemish’s contents, but unless you are extremely careful you will create more problems than you started with.
Many women think they can use hot compresses to bring pimples to a head. Actually, hot compresses severely damage skin by burning it; the heat causes more redness and swelling; and the whole process can also rupture the pore, increasing the possibility of more breakouts. The same is true of steaming the face or using hot water. Hot water burns the skin, impairing the skin’s ability to heal and fight bacteria. Tepid water is what you need to help soothe the skin and calm things down. Use tepid water and a gentle, water-soluble cleanser on the face, and do not wipe off makeup. Wiping and rubbing will make the irritation worse, and can also make the skin sag and cause wrinkles.
Be careful that the breakouts you’re struggling with aren’t a result of hair products getting on the face. Hairspray, mousse, hair gel, and other styling products contain polymers (plastic-like, film-forming ingredients) that can clog pores and cause pimples. Be especially careful if you routinely use pomades or styling waxes.
Don’t smoke. A study in the British Journal of Dermatology (July 2001, pages 100-104) concluded, “According to multiple logistic regression analyses acne prevalence was significantly higher in active smokers (40.8%…) as compared with non-smokers (25.2%). A significant linear relationship between acne prevalence and number of cigarettes smoked daily was obtained.. In addition, a significant dose-dependent relationship between acne
severity and daily cigarette consumption was shown by linear regression analysis____ Smoking
is a clinically important contributory factor to acne prevalence and severity.”