10 False Beliefs about Acne Everyone Thinks are True

We have all asked ourselves at one point in our lives “why me?” while staring at a huge pimple in the mirror, and we all have those friends right there ready to give us advice about it. Make sure you aren’t falling for some bad advice and seek out a pro to help guide you on the best ways to care for your skin when you have a breakout.

My Top 10 Acne Myths:
  1. The sun makes it better. There is no scientific evidence that the sun helps acne. The sun dries up the surface of your skin making acne appear better when it is actually triggering your body to produce more oil.  If you feel that the sun improves your acne and you have blue eyes or blond hair, please keep in mind that the ultraviolet light increases your risk of skin cancer. Medications like tetracycline and some acne treatments may even increase your sensitivity to the sun.
  2. You get acne because you are dirty. Totally false.  Acne has nothing to do with dirty; it’s due to a reaction deep in the pore caused by a pileup of dead cells, NOT DIRT.  In fact, most acne clients I see are over washing their skin. Over-washing stimulates the pores to create more oil, increasing the odds that the dead skin cells won’t be able to exit the pores properly.
  3. The more often you scrub, the less you will break out. Just like the over-washing habit, and maybe even worse, scrubbing can break up whiteheads and cause the bacteria to spread around your face.  Also, most tend to push the scrub into the skin and not roll the beads around, leading to over-sensitized skin due to little cuts. Sensitized skin takes longer to heal, so your acne will be with you longer than if you treated your skin more gently.
  4. If I layer acne products, my blemish will go away faster.  Sorry, unless you are on a professionally monitored acne regimen, you might be doing more harm than good.  Acne products are designed to dry out your skin just enough to get down in the pore and start eating away at the cause of your blemish.  If you layer too much on you magnify the effects causing your skin to become overly sensitized and potentially creating dark spots or other pigment issues that you will have to deal with later.
  5. I ate that plate of french fries, and now I’m all broken out. Now there are probably 1000 reasons why a plate of french fries isn’t making great choices, but the fries don’t cause your acne. There have been some pretty convincing studies that are pointing the finger at iodine, which might be in the salt, but that’s a cumulative effect over many meals. So relax, enjoy, the jury is still out on this one, but know a pimple starts 30 days before you could detect it.
  6. All I need is to dry this pimple out. Over the counter products entice you to buy with putting lots of active ingredients in them because it sounds better for you. They promise to dry out your spot, but what it does is cause a chemical burn.  This approach is wrong for several reasons, but the two biggest is that your skin needs hydration too, so NEVER skip the moisturizer, and you are far better using a lower dosage to prevent your breakout than using chemical warfare after you have a zit.
  7. Don’t use makeup; it will make acne worse. Now it’s true that some makeup can make breakouts way worse, but some makeup can help make your skin better. Make sure your makeup is non-comedogenic, and look for ingredients that are known to help combat acne like zinc oxide and titanium dioxide (both also commonly found in sunscreens).
  8. Sunscreen makes me break out. Well if you read what I said about makeup and acne, you are already set to slather on the SPF, but be sure to get a physical blocker (zinc oxide and titanium dioxide) and not a chemical blocker, because some of the chemical sunscreens can irritate and cause breakouts.
  9. Put toothpaste on it. Oh please no! There are a bunch of things in toothpaste that can dry a pimple out, but the extras that make toothpaste good for your teeth and gums can cause terrible irritation on the skin and sometimes even be the cause of breakouts and darkening around the corners of the mouth.
  10. Acne is only a teenager problem. Don’t we wish. 50% of acne in women starts after age 20.  It all has to do with hormones that cause an increase in oil production, and as we age our skin regenerates slower causing old cells to slowly pile up inside the pore resulting in bacteria and inflammation.

I could keep on writing forever on acne myths, but I will leave a few for you to shout out in the comments (*cough* Chlorine pools make acne better. *cough*). Can’t wait to see what you come up with.

xoxo,

Katt