Acne Treatment Blog

These thoughts come to you as a message from the heart of our team to each and every one of our clients and potential clients fighting for clear skin right now. It also comes with our pledge that we are with you every step of the way so together we may turn a promise of clear skin into a reality. Stress is a horrible feeling no matter what time of year it is, but it's especially horrible around the holidays when it tends to creep up on us and keep us from getting the most out of family time.  Read on to turn your thought process around, and get the most out of this holiday season.

Stress is a horrible feeling no matter what time of year it is, but it's especially horrible around the holidays, when it tends to creep up on us and keep us from getting the most out of family time.

Even more unfortunate is the fact that stress is more than just a feeling. No matter what kind of stress you're experiencing, your body will respond in the same way: Adrenaline, the number one stress hormone, speeds up the heartbeat, breathing and metabolic rate to give you a necessary rush of extra energy. Adrenaline is produced and stored in our two adrenal glands, which are situated on top of the kidneys. With long-term stress, these glands will deplete.

Too much stress on our systems releases excess stress-related hormones, enzymes and other chemicals that leave us anxious and tense--and also with overstimulated sebaceous glands, which leads to more acne.

When winter brings cold air, harsh winds and falling snow our way, we're quick to trade in our summer T-shirts and fall jackets for heavier coats, fluffy scarves and warm gloves. But did you know you should be changing more than just the clothes you wear on your body? It's very possible you need to change the products you use on your body, as well.

If you have acne-prone skin, winter calls for a different skincare regimen than the one that got you through the warmer months. Failing to adjust your skincare routine could result in dry, flaky skin that will only make acne worse.

Follow these 4 tips to keep your skin healthy this winter, and come this spring you'll find your skin is as fresh as the blooming flowers.

Who doesn't want to go a bit overboard with makeup on Halloween? Though this is the time to get away with it, you still may want to do it in a way that does not exasperate your acne.  

Here are some Halloween tips to look crazy-good but let your acne-prone skin survive the night.

1. Accentuate - Do Not Experiment

Acne is a result of your pores being stuffed with too much sebum (skin oil) mixed with dirt, sweat, dead skin cells and, of course, bacteria.

Pumpkins. We can't get enough of them during the Halloween and Thanksgiving season.

We carve them, we stick them on our porches, we wait on line for once-a-year lattes, we make pies and soups and then we forget about pumpkins until next year.

So let's talk about why pumpkins should be on our minds all year round if you have acne.

Pumpkins are rich in nutrients and microelements that our skin and body can benefit from:

• Like carrots, sweet potatoes or oranges, pumpkins have an antioxidant power and are loaded with beta-carotene (arytenoids), which neutralize free radicals. This helps keep our skin healthy and young and may prevent cancer according to the National Cancer Institute.
• Pumpkin seeds are rich in amino acids and Vitamin B that are great for the skin. They are also rich in a special amino acid called tryptophan - that is important in the production of serotonin (our good mood player) so you don't only get healthy skin but are also happy!
• Feel a cold coming on? Rich in Vitamin C, pumpkins may help to boost your immune system. One cup of pumpkin soup has 20% or 60 mg of the daily-recommended dose of Vitamin C (15% of the amount recommended for men as they need 75 mg).
• The generous amount of fiber in pumpkin helps your GI system to keep healthy and helps in controlling sugar levels and a healthy weight.

1. Do Not Go to Sleep With Makeup

Acne-prone skin is usually a victim of too much sebum (skin oil) being produced by your sebaceous glands. It clogs your pores, and together with dirt, dead skin cells and of course bacteria will produce inflammation that manifests itself as pimples, comedones or cysts. Even the best makeup staying on your face overnight will add to this inflammation. Wash it out religiously each night.

2. Do Not Exercise With Makeup

When you exercise, you sweat... and sweat is a mixture of water and your skin oils. Adding makeup to this mix will clog your pores more and cause breakouts and enlarged pores, possibly perpetuating the acne cycle. 

An educated consumer is a smart consumer!

You certainly want to make sure that what you use will get rid of or at least contain your acne breakouts. So before you reach out for a bottle, cream or pill, read this.

Acne is actually a rather complex disease, even though the clinical manifestation is rather simple: pimples!  The driving force behind the formation of pimples is what is more complex. For instance, some women have an over-secretion of the adrenal glands that leads to elevated levels of testosterone (and androgen) in their blood, which is the cause of acne. For some, during adolescence, there may be a large growth spurt with very high levels of hormones. For others, acne is linked to their menstrual cycle. Genetic variation is also a large contributing factor; if parents had acne, it is likely their children will also have acne.

Beating acne is not really about what we put on our skin, but about the right treatment that will address the causes of acne (hyperactive sebaceous glands and the inflammation cascade that follows sebum-clogged pores). Since acne is the result of what happens inside of your body, topical products have only a miniscule impact on getting acne under control. Nevertheless, even though the treatment needs to come from the inside, what we do to our skin on the outside may either help or impede the treatment.

Cleaning your skin appropriately is recognized as potentially one of the most important "helpers" in acne treatment, as it can help remove bacteria-attracting dirt and extra, clogging dead skin cells from the pores. Unfortunately, if done inappropriately cleaning may actually hurt your acne-prone skin.

5 Rules for Cleaning Your Acne-Prone Skin

Although diet is not the cause of skin problems like acne, it plays an important role in their treatment. A poor diet can exacerbate acne, even if you do everything else right, but a good diet can help fight it. Since acne is an external manifestation of an internal disorder, the right foods can heal, cleanse and nourish your skin from within.

Here is the perfect menu to keep your kitchen acne-friendly:

Acne-Friendly Breakfast: Kiwi-flaxseed oatmeal and a skin-cleansing raspberry-pineapple-ginger smoothie

Why? If you don’t have wheat allergies, whole grains are great for you. They’re an excellent source of fiber, omega-3 fatty acids, thiamine, iron, beta-glucan (which may help regulate blood sugar), vitamin B6, and the antioxidants known as avenanthramides (which may help promote healthy circulation). Flaxseed provides a good dose of vitamins E and B6 as well as essential fatty acids (EFAs). Kiwi is rich in many microelements including zinc, which is great for acne-prone skin and also contains a load of antioxidants. A skin-cleansing raspberry-pineapple-ginger smoothie is a great healing drink that will reduce inflammation, provide a healthy dose of antioxidants and help your skin, and body, to regain a healthy balance.

Acne breakouts do not come from what you put on your skin, so they cannot be treated by topical products. In short-most acne may be traced to fluctuations in hormone levels, especially androgens (male hormones, also known as testosterone), and their power to over-stimulate sebaceous glands. As acne results from inflammation caused by sebum-clogged hair follicles (pores) and bacteria, routing out the factors that cause overproduction of sebum is very important. So if you want to break the acne cycle, you need to help the body to balance itself and stop over-stimulating the sebaceous glands.

That said, we also need to remember that the skin is the largest organ of our body. Just the top layer of the skin (epidermis) covers about 3000 square inches! This big organ is also a very vulnerable one, and your habits can either help to fight acne or... actually make your breakouts worse.

Everyone makes an occasional mistake or allows for slip-ups in their skincare routine and until these do not become regular occurrences, we should not worry about them too much.

However when those occasional skincare transgressions become bad habits, they may take a real toll on your skin and increase the frequency or severity of the acne breakouts - and even increase the probability of acne scars.

So take a few minutes every day to take care of your skin, and it will pay you back with a clear complexion, less enlarged pores, less blackheads and whiteheads and even less acne scars.

Here are five of the most damaging bad habits for acne prone skin.

Although it may sound counterintuitive, some natural oils may help to fight oily skin and improve breakouts. There is much talk about coconut oil and whether or not it's effective in helping acne prone skin, so here are the facts.

Acne and its predecessor, oily skin, are results of over production of sebum (skin oil) by sebaceous glands.  The increase in sebum production can lead to clogged pores (whiteheads and blackheads), which accumulate dead skin cells as well as bacteria.  This combination leads to a local inflammatory response, which if chronic, can lead to damage to the surrounding tissue. Acne and oily skin have to be treated from the inside out by removing the cause of excessive sebum production, the common denominator for both acne and oily skin.

Acne, especially large and chronic cysts or pimples and blackheads that we squeeze or pop, may damage skin tissue permanently, forming acne scars. The only real way to make sure that you do not get acne scars is to PREVENT acne from forming and to break the acne cycle.

There is however a condition that may follow acne, but is NOT permanent, that sometimes is confused with acne scars; this condition is known as Post Inflammatory Hyperpigmentation (PIH).

What is PIH?

PIH is the medical term for skin discoloration resulting from an inflammatory injury to the skin tissue. It is the skin's natural response to inflammation. PIH is a flat area of discoloration on the skin ranging from pink to red, purple, brown or black, depending on your skin tone and depth of the discoloration.

In short, yes - most acne may be traced to fluctuations in hormone levels, especially androgens (male hormones also known as testosterone), and their power to over stimulate sebaceous glands. As acne results from inflammation caused by sebum clogged hair follicles (pores) and bacteria, ruling out the factors that cause over production of sebum is very important.  

Treatment will help your body to negotiate or even eliminate the hormonal imbalance.

Oils produced by your skin's sebaceous glands are necessary to keep your skin healthy and supple. We would all be scaly and more like alligators without these oils! But as often in life, too much of a good thing is not good either - like the over-production of sebum (skin oil), which may lead to acne. Additionally, being too shiny is also a beauty problem that affects the way we look and our confidence. And since we often use make-up to camoflage blemishes, having very oily skin can interfere with make-up application and coverage.

Dermatologists agree that the most effective way to manage oily skin is to cleanse your face both morning and night, and to use oil absorbing masks. You need to use a gentle cleanser since harsh soaps can trigger the skin's protective reaction, and can increase oil production further. For the same reason, stay away from rubbing and buffing your skin; use a pat and dry system to limit the possibility of stimulating more oil secretion.

Before you begin to enjoy a daily skin care routine designed to provide you with healthy skin, please note the following general guidelines. 

General Guidelines

• More is not always better.  Don't apply more than ONE mask daily.
• Always apply a mask to freshly cleansed skin
• Cleaning your face with products that suit YOU is a foundation of healthy skin 
• NEVER go to sleep with your makeup on
• After you exercise, clean your skin
• Exfoliation (peeling) should not be done more than once a week
• Use your sunscreen especially after using any exfoliating/peeling products
• Alternate the fruit and veggie DIY moisturizing masks; we provide you with many of them on our blog.
• The best way to use moisturizing and rejuvenating masks is every other day or every two days; especially before big events - not every day.
• Observe your skin; if you see that some ingredients don't agree with you (ex. make your skin red, sensitized, itchy), stop using the masks and just use the chamomile astringent only.  Even nature isn't always right!

It's hard enough to fight acne.  But what is a person to do if these breakouts leave long lasting marks and scars on the skin? Acne scars result from constant damage to the skin due to acne pustules and papules, pimples/zits, cysts etc. Each pimple is associated with an inflammatory reaction, which causes local tissue damage when combating bacteria trapped in the clogged pores of the skin. On top of this, if you squeeze or pop pimples, this damage may be even more substantial.

When you get a cut on your skin, a scab starts to form, which actually helps it to heal. Acne pimples that become inflamed are like little cuts that need to heal; with chronic acne, repeat pimples and inflammation don't give enough time for the skin to heal properly. Therefore, the FIRST thing that must been done to break the cycle of creating new scars and marks (acne marks are also acne scars but less deep) is to PREVENT acne. This will allow collagen production and new tissue to rebuild your skin (at least partially) and as a result, make scars less visible, and marks vanish. So, PREVENTING NEW ACNE FROM FORMING IS THE FIRST CRUCIAL STEP TO GETTING RID OF ACNE SCARS AND MARKS.

Natural medicine has been used by people of all cultures for centuries. In some regions (cultures) such as China, India or Japan where natural medicine actually thrived for thousands of years, it has become a well-documented experiential body of knowledge. As different types of grapes have been grown and used on various continents to make different types and different quality of wine, a rich variety of different species of plants and herbs have been used around the world to treat similar ailments.

Modern natural medicine uses natural herbs and plants together with other natural ingredients based on principles and discipline of modern science, using testing, research, analysis, innovation and sophisticated equipment. But a "smart" modern natural medicine does not forget or deny the centuries of experiential knowledge of its grandfather - instead it learns from it, and then confirms it or rejects it based on the scientific data.

Ever think about why the most popular acne treatments became so widely used?

Many doctors prescribe broad-spectrum antibiotics like Septra, Minocycline, Tetracycline, Doxycycline, Erythromycin and Clindamycin to treat acne. The rationale being that the antibiotic will decrease the growth of bacteria in pores clogged with sebum. This process is designed to control and even decrease the symptoms of acne. And since effects are visible, it easily becomes a product of choice.  The problem is that those results will not last (even the period of improvement is different for each person); and to keep the results going will require long term use of antibiotics that carry different types of short term and long term health concerns and adverse effects.  Additionally, antibiotics really do not treat acne; they do not stop factors influencing the over-production of sebum.  Instead, they only moderate inflammation that would not occur in the first place, without overstimulation of the sebaceous glands.  So again, treating acne (meaning "getting rid of" for longer term) is a whole different matter.

Cucumber has 96% water content that is more nutritious than regular water, which helps in keeping the body hydrated and body temperature regulated. It also helps in flushing out the toxins from the body.

Cucumber also contains vitamins A, B and C and minerals like magnesium, potassium, and silica - all are very beneficial for your skin. Facial masks containing cucumber juice can be used for skin tightening. Additionally, the ascorbic acid and caffeic acid present in cucumbers can bring down the water retention rate, which in turn diminishes the puffiness and swelling under the eyes and works as a mild exfoliating agent.

Our cucumber mask is a great natural helper for acne prone skin as it works both as an astringent and moisturizer, especially for oily skin. The honey and oats also included in the mask will nourish and revitalize your skin, and will help with dark spots. But since cucumber works as an exfoliator, DO NOT USE THIS MASK BEFORE SUN EXPOSURE!   It is best to use it in the evening before going to bed.

It's Friday night. Summer is in a full bloom, and your friend just called about this great beach party tomorrow. Instead of being excited, you get that sinking feeling...and the only think you can think about is how you're going to handle taking your shirt off with all of those pimples on your body.  

Body acne is similar to facial acne in both symptoms and general treatment rules, but it may be more difficult to control and get rid of, and therefore will require some special attention. Body acne is most commonly found on the back (and is also sometimes called "bacne"), chest and neck but blemishes can appear anywhere with exception of the feet and palms. Back and body acne affects both men and women, teens and adults, but body acne is much more common, and often more severe, in males. 

What do you do when your pre-teen child is unhappy and defiant, feeling depressed or alienated because she or he has PIMPLES? And they are only 9 or 10 years old!  The situation obviously cannot be ignored, so how do you treat children with PRE-TEEN acne safely?

Most people associate acne with the teenage years and accept acne as a normal part of growing up. More recently, pre-teen or pre-adolescent acne is gaining more attention from pediatricians, dermatologists and of course pre-teens along with their parents. In fact, in May 2013 the American Acne and Rosacea Society (AARS) published guidelines for the "Diagnosis and Treatment of Pediatric Acne" which was subsequently endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics. In part, this increased attention to pre-teen acne (ages 8-12) results from observations that this younger age group is now experiencing acne.

A study published by Lucky et al revealed acne lesions in 78% of 365 girls ages 9 to 10.

After a holiday weekend of indulging in carbs, sugars, alcohol and sun exposure, are you worried that zits and flareups will come fast and furiously?

Try this healing drink.  It will reduce inflammation, provide a healthy dose of antioxidants and help your skin, and body, to regain a healthy balance. Its anti-inflammatory properties are thanks to the enzyme bromelain in fresh pineapple (only fresh or frozen will do - canned pineapple has no enzymes left) and the gingerols in ginger. Extensive research shows that the compounds in ginger may be more potent than many anti-inflammatory drugs. Raspberries are known to be a great source of Vitamin C, and also have a number of antioxidants as well as fiber that absorbs toxins. 

Is this one of the most unbelievable things you've ever heard? Well my friends. Believe it.

The answer may surprise you, but YES - a healthy sex life has many health benefits including improving your skin and actually helping in some instances to fight acne.

Acne is a manifestation of an internal imbalance that most often is routed in a hormonal imbalance, specifically in the imbalance of sex hormones (androgens/testosterone, estrogen and progesterone).

Summer is a time for the beach, parties, weddings, graduations and barbecues...and with the summer, our acne gets aggravated by sweat, sunscreens, sunless tanning, diet and a number of other factors. So here's how to use the bounty offered by the summer to do something good for your skin.   Summer foods can actually protect your skin from the inside out.

Most of us are led to believe that if we lather on sunscreen in the morning and then stay out on the beach all day long, our skin is protected. Unfortunately, this is incorrect. Learning about proper sun protection and sunscreens will not only keep you and your skin safe, but it will also keep you from getting flare-ups.

Acne is a part of many teen lives - unfortunately. And they will do anything to get rid of it - who wouldn't!? HOWEVER, there are some important safety alerts both smart teens and their mothers need to know before choosing an acne treatment.  Reason being that MANY of the most commonly prescribed regimens do have side effects you need to know about. Weigh the benefits and potential dangers - after all, an educated consumer is a safe consumer.  

 

Here are some of the potential treatments you need to be alerted to.

The Truth About Teen Acne

 

Most teenagers will experience acne at some point during their adolescent years. A number of factors contribute to teenagers having the highest incidence of acne. Many parents attribute acne to poor diet or lack of attention to proper skin cleansing and moisturizing. However, the real cause of acne is a hormonal imbalance related to adolescence that over stimulates the sebaceous glands.  

 

A hallmark of teenage skin aside from the pimples is "greasy or oily skin". 

The appearance of oily skin goes hand in hand with the increased appearance of acne. The oily skin is due to an over secretion of sebum (skin oil) by the sebaceous glands. This over production of sebum not only manifests itself as oily skin but can also lead to clogged pores that are seen as "white heads" and "black heads." Once the pores of the skin are clogged with sebum, they accumulate dead skin cells and provide a perfect breading ground for the growth of bacteria. This combination of clogged pores and growth of bacteria is responsible for acne.

*FREE BOTTLE!	Free bottle with orders placed on AcnEase.com for $79 or more by Friday, June 14 by 12 midnight PST. Offer only applies to orders placed from 6/13-6/14/13. Cannot be combined with other offers.  US orders only.  No coupon code necessary. No limit on number of orders placed - you will get a free bottle with each separate order.
Offer Expires: Friday, June 14, 2013, 12 midnight PST

Special thanks to Dr. Gilligan, Chief Scientific Officer at AcnEase, for collaborating with me today.     

I would like to thank Dr. Gilligan, Chief Scientific Officer at AcnEase, for collaborating with me today.    

 

In our quest to spread awareness about safe and effective acne treatments this June for acne awareness month, we're focusing on the ladies today!  So ladies (and moms of teens!), listen up - not only will this information help you, but also your children or the men and women that you know with acne.