Acne is the one skin condition that everyone can relate to. We’ve all dealt with at some point in our life. It’s definitely annoying and sometimes painful. Even in my 40s I still get acne and a lot of times it has to do with a few bad habits. In fact there are common skin care habits that can make acne worse.
What are they? The American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) is a great resource for skin care and they have a bunch of common habits that that make acne worse. Here are five of them:
1. Pimple Popping
Oh, I know we’ve all done this. It’s so tempting to do but popping or squeezing out pimples is a no-no. When we pop or squeeze our breakouts it can cause some of what’s inside them – bacteria, pus, and/or dead skin – to penetrate deeper into the skin. This can increase inflammation, which can lead to more noticeable acne and even worse pain or scarring. So resist the urge!
2. Over-Washing
Keeping our skin clean is the basis for any good skin care routine and helps to prevent acne. But overdoing it can irritate the skin and lead to more breakouts.
While you should wash your face at least once a day, doing it too often throughout the day or harshly scrubbing too much can cause more acne. In general it’s a good thing to be clean but gentle with our skin.
3. Drying Out Our Skin
We tend to associate acne with oily skin so we might think products that dry our skin help with acne. But dry skin is actually irritated skin. And according to the AAD anytime you irritate your skin the risk for more acne grows.
So try to avoid astringents or products that include short-chain alcohol ingredients (for more info on these ingredients check out our post “Ingredient Truths: Is Alcohol Good For Your Skin?”), both can dry out the skin.
4. Rubbing Sweat Away During Workouts
This is one that didn’t cross my mind initially. You know how I mentioned gentle up above – the same sentiment applies to when you’re working out. Well, at least in regards to your skin. You can kick butt at the gym but just lightly pat the sweat from your skin afterwards instead of rubbing or vigorously wiping it away.
Why? Well roughly rubbing the sweat off your skin can irritate it. And, like we learned above, skin irritation leads to breakouts.
5. Sleeping in Your Makeup
Even makeup marketed as non-comedogenic can cause acne if you wear it overnight. So remove your make-up before your go to bed.
I think this one is common sense but I’ve certainly forgotten to do it from time to time. Particularly when I was younger and coming home from a late night.
Healthy Skin Care
Acne isn’t fun and there’s no reason to make it worse but we often do simply because we are unaware of all the things that can cause it. So hopefully breaking these common habits will go a long way to preventing acne down the road.
In the end good skin care is really about a few key things – find out what they are in our Skin Care and Education blog series.
