Acne in your twenties

Adult acne..bleh. I absolutely hate having to use those words, but I have it and I’m doing everything in my power to help prevent it. I for sure thought that once I hit my twenties my acne wouldn’t be an issue anymore, and I was so wrong.  I feel like my skin is worse now than what it was when I was 13 years old and it is so frustrating!!! There was a time that I could use any acne product and get results no matter what and now my skin is super dramatic about what acne products I use (I have a few favorites that really work linked at the end of this post). I know I’m for sure not the only one who struggles with this either, so I’ve compiled a post to make dealing with acne a little better.

I truly don’t even like using the word dealing when it comes to having adult acne because it isn’t something we should have to deal with.  After some time of having no such luck with products helping, I decided to take take matters into my own hands on trying to figure out what I could do to help my skin out. My skin has to be screaming for help if it’s breaking out this bad!

I partially blame my acne on my every day habits, but I also can blame a big part of it on my hormones. My whole body has been whack since having Laken almost two years ago and I’m still trying to figure it out! I developed an allergy to wheat and am also way more sensitive to what I eat because I’ll get an uncomfortable bloat for hours at a time.  I also know that this summer heat isn’t helping one bit. The slightest bit of sunshine makes me the biggest grease ball. Not just on my face either. My shoulders and chest have been taking a big beating to this. But there is a light on the end of the tunnel! Within the last year (more-so in the last six months) I’ve been trying to really be in-tune with my body/skin to have a much better understanding on what causes my acne and when I should be expecting a breakout. I have found more natural (and easy) ways to help keep my breakouts under control. I’ve found products that work and I’ve also been able to narrow my breakouts down to why I get it in a certain area!

Now, whenever I say ‘I’ve listened to my body’ I always get the strangest of looks, but that is a real thing! You can learn so much about yourself and what you’re body is wanting. If you’re craving chocolate it usually means your body is lacking magnesium, if you’re craving salt you’re usually dehydrated, or if you’re craving ice it could mean you are low on iron. It’s very rare that our bodies will want something without there being a reason. I can say just from doing this and googling literally everything that I craved, I was able to change the smallest of things up in my every day eating habits and that made a huge change on my skin.

 

face mapping

Face Mapping is one of my favorite things to look at! I have known about it for a while but never really looked at until recently. I totally recommend checking it out! Here are a few face charts that really helped me in my time of struggle to have a better understanding of what could be the reasoning for my breakouts. A little tip that helped me make these face maps more personal was pinpointing my problem area, looking at the same area on the face map, and then thinking about what was going on in my life that I could relate to the issue and  change/prevent.

I mentioned above how our skin will totally go crazy if one this is off and that’s how I learned about detox acne. In the past six months I really changed up my diet by cutting sugary drinks out completely (mainly teas and sweetener in coffee because I stopped drinking pop years ago), I cut out fast food, and switched to eating large amounts of veggies. You would think that switching up your diet would help to clear your skin, but we somehow have to cleanse your body of all the toxins it’s holding and detox acne is one way the toxins will naturally come out. I learned that this type of acne doesn’t last long. Although it was a pain and I had the biggest breakouts ever, it didn’t last longer than two weeks.  There is so much more to detox acne than what I’m covering and if you want to learn more, you can find some really helpful posts here and here.

It is craaaazy to me how we can keep breakouts to a minimum with switching up what we drink or cutting out certain foods. The top foods that I read from multiple sources that cause breakouts the most are cheese, milk, fried foods, nuts and chocolate. Switching to drinking strictly water is also proven to help a lot as well.

 

 

types of acne

Surprisingly not everyone knows the cause of certain types of acne. There are way more types than the three I have but these are the most common.

Blackheads: form when a clog or plug develops in the opening of hair follicles in your skin. Each follicle contains one hair and a sebaceous gland that produces oil. This oil(sebum) helps keeps our skin soft. Dead skin cells and oils collect in the opening to the skin follicle, producing a bump other wise known as blackheads.

Whiteheads: are a more mild form of acne that appear as small, round, white bumps on the skin’s surface. This type of acne occurs when a pore becomes clogged with oil(sebum), dead skin cells, and other debris.

Pimples: germs on the skin react with the excess sebum rom sebaceous glands. Inflammation is caused by fluid being trapped inside our skin, causing the pipe to rise and form a white, red spot on the surface.

 

easy ways to ensure you’re living clean to help prevent acne

I wouldn’t necessarily call these natural ways of getting rid of acne but these are super simple at home tips and tricks to help with keeping your acne at a minimum. If you want to know how crazy I am about this, I’ve even switched up my cleaning products to all natural environment safe products to keep any of the chemicals from getting near my face. I can’t verify that it’s working but I feel better about it! lol

-Use a different towel after each time you wash your face and don’t use the same towel you use on your hands! Our hand towels carry up to 90 different germs on them. I keep a decorative basket full of wash cloths near my sink to use each night. These are the cotton washcloths I buy in bulk.

-When washing your face, don’t rub, blot. Blotting will absorb the water without scratching your skin. We can’t see them, but tiny cuts can happen when we rub our faces allowing more germs to get into your pores.

-Washing your makeup brushes on the reg. In a perfect world you should be washing them after each use, but life is way too short for that so once a week would be ideal.

-Changing your pillow case! Umm, here’s a really gross fact. Our pillow cases are as gross as our toilet seats..you can read more about that here.

-Avoid touching your face! This is personally a super hard one because I subconsciously touch my face all the time.

-Wash your hands more frequently! This goes more with if you constantly touch your face but touching anything in public then touching your face can transfer a crazy amount of bacteria.

-Make sure the area around you is clean! You’d be surprised how much dirt and dust we pick up from our living spaces.

-Let your skin breath! If you’re a full face of makeup kind of gal, like me, then you know how much your skin loves to be naked.

-After a workout or after some intense sweating try to rinse your body off or blot your face as soon as you can.

-Wash your face less! Sounds crazy, right?! I’ll touch base on this more next with acne myths!

 

acne myths

When it comes to the beauty and hair world I love being able to bust myths! I love being educated on what I’m using because I’ve found out that 60% of the time I wasn’t aware of something or I was told the wrong thing! Here are a few that I didn’t know and I knew a little about but wasn’t entirely sure of the truth.

–You aren’t washing your face enough. – BUSTED! The oils we produce on our face are very similar to the oils on our scalp where striping all the natural oils out over and over will have our scalp compensating and over producing oils! The same foes for our face! Over-washing our faces dehydrates the skin and causes our oil production to double.  Dr. Oz did a really big segment on his show how washing our face twice a day is really bad for our skin and suggested not to wash our face in the morning because that is when all of our natural oils form. He suggested to rinse with (colder) water in the mornings and wash our face regularly at night.

–Hair products don’t cause acne. – BUSTED! It is a total thing!!! I was always told to scrub my back and shoulder really well after using conditioner so I wouldn’t clog my pores and there’s an actual term for when we get hair products in our pores!!!! It’s called “pomade acne,” and it happens when the oils from your hair products continuously make contact with your face (blame it on the side bangs).  To help prevent this, avoid products with petroleum jelly, and choose water-based products over oil-based ones.

–Moisturizers cause acne. – BUSTED! This is my favorite little fact to tell people. You are less likely to produce acne when your face is moisturized. Use a moisturizer accordingly to your needs but always having that moisture will prevent it on its own.

–Your diet has nothing to do with your acne. – BUSTED!  Food 1000% has something to do with the cause of acne. It’s been proven that those who eat more sugary foods, diary products, and unhealthy fats, and less fish(didn’t know about the fish) are more likely to have moderate to severe acne!

 

my favorite acne clearing products

These are products that I know work. I can’t say they will work for all skin types, but I do know they work. I have tried every single one of these and still use a few religiously! I do also have to say that if you don’t have a skincare routine, I highly suggest looking into having one. Your skin will thank you the more consistent you are with using your products.

 

 

tools you can use at home to give you a spa feel while clearing your pores

 

 

*a little disclaimer – I am not an esthetician or a dermatologist and highly recommend seeing those two on the reg to really help get your skin in check. I have a love for beauty and skincare and love being able to share my thoughts and words on it with you all!

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xx-Kendra