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10 Tips on Controlling Teen Acne
As if there wasn't enough to worry about during high school, your teenage years are when most people are most prone to breakouts. Your hormones are all over the place when you're going through puberty. And these hormonal changes can stimulate your skin's oil glands, creating the perfect environment for pimples to flourish.
Because teenage acne is often less about skincare or hygiene and more often about simple biology, stopping it altogether is an almost impossible task. But with some adjustments to your skincare routine, there are ways to help minimize blemishes and improve the look of your breakouts so that you can get your skin and self-esteem — back on track in time for the big football game on Friday night.
1. Use the Right Cleanser
Let's start with the basics! Finding the perfect cleanser for your skin type can be a challenge, but it's all-important to ensure your skincare regimen is doing the most. For rough texture or combination skin, look no further than our Combination Skin Cleansing Bar.
In our formula, ingredients like Resorcinol and Coconut Oil help hydrate your skin while Salicylic Acid works to exfoliate and cleanse.
Our Combination Skin Cleansing Bar can help improve the appearance of texture and uneven skin tone for a clear and glowing complexion.
2. Add Skincare Acids to Your Routine
One of the most effective types of ingredients to add to your skincare routine are acids, like Alpha Hydroxy Acids and Beta Hydroxy Acids. These over-the-counter ingredients are great for breakouts, particularly if you struggle with cystic acne because they can help clear your pores or follicles to fight blemishes at the source.
AHAs and BHAs do this through chemical exfoliation, which is also helpful for skin conditions related to blemishes. If you have severe acne or cysts and find yourself battling acne scars long after the original breakout has healed, certain chemical exfoliants may help resurface and revitalize your skin for smoother-looking skin. Over time, this can reduce the appearance of dark spots or scars associated with breakouts.
Our Clear & Even Tone Clarifying Glycolic Pads use the AHA Glycolic Acid to help exfoliate and brighten your complexion in one simple step. Glycolic Acid is gentle on the skin, too, despite its exfoliating properties, so if you've struggled with intense acne products like isotretinoin in the past, gentle AHAs may be a great alternative.
3. Apply a Spot Treatment
The tried and true method of clearing up problem spots on your face? Spot treatments. Our Clear Complexion Acne Serum + Spot Treatment is the perfect fast-acting acne treatment if you just struggle with the occasional pimple or blackhead. It uses Benzoyl Peroxide to help reduce any current blemishes and prevent future ones, and it's the perfect addition to any acne treatment plan because you can just use it on the affected areas.
4. Protect Your Skin — Without Clogging Pores
We sometimes see the myth going around that sun exposure can cure acne — and this simply isn't true! While exposing your skin to sunlight and hot, dry air may dry out your skin and mitigate excess oil, it's important not to leave your skin unprotected.
At the same time, if oil production is a concern for you, we get the reluctance to add one more lotion or topical treatment to your skincare lineup. That's why we combine your daily sunscreen with a daily moisturizer into easy, non-comedogenic products.
Our ShineBlock™ Oil Control Moisturizer SPF 30 is a mattifying moisturizer that offers mineral sun protection, perfectly formulated for oily or breakout-prone skin. Since overproduction of oil is one of the main causes of breakouts, this is a crucial product for your lineup.
5. Get Your Whole Skincare Regimen on Your Side
Putting all these little steps together is only part of the bigger picture — if teen acne is your number one concern, it's so important to make sure your skincare routine is working in harmony to get you glowing. But when there are so many creams, serums and salves, paired with additional treatment options like oral antibiotics, designing the perfect skincare routine can feel like studying for midterms.
So we'll make it easy for you. Our Acne and Dark Spot Control Package has everything you need to keep your skin smooth, including the previously mentioned products.. It includes every step of your skincare routine, from cleanser, to serum, to moisturizer and SPF. It even has an Acne and Blemish Control Mask to combat all types of acne, and our Retinol Rapid Repair & Dark Spot Treatment which includes Retinol (obviously), the super-effective ingredient for .
6. Be Consistent With Your Routine
Consistency is key when it comes to fighting teenage acne. Often, especially if you're a woman, hormonal acne like the kind you tend to get as a teen will come and go as part of your cycle — so being consistent with your skincare regimen is so important. You'll want to be sure your skin has everything it needs to help clear up breakouts, even when they're inevitable.
7. Don't Pick at Your Skin
Especially if breakouts and blemishes make you feel self-conscious, it can be difficult to resist picking at your acne. There's also a lot of misinformation about whether popping pimples or digging into white and blackheads is helpful.
When carried out by a trained dermatologist or even aesthetician, extractions can help to clear your pores and your complexion — but there are many risks when you do it on your own.
All the many germs and impurities lurking on at-home tools or fingernails can settle into your pores or any scratches you might create trying to pop a zit yourself.
In short: don't pick at your skin! It's more likely to create bigger problems long term, including scarring, and isn't worth the temporary satisfaction you might get from removing a stubborn blackhead.
8. Shower After Exercise
While the acne you experience as a teenager is generally due to hormones rather than hygiene, these hormonal changes also impact things like how much you sweat! Especially if you live an active lifestyle or play a sport, it's important to shower immediately after so that sweat, oil, dirt and bacteria don't get trapped between your clothing and affect your skin.
If you struggle with body acne, it can also help to stop wearing tight, restrictive clothing like leggings which can cause additional friction, exacerbate breakouts and cause redness and inflammation.
9. Go Easy on Makeup
We get it — if your skin is freaking out, the easiest way to step out of your house feeling your absolute best is to hide it underneath layers of makeup. But while this may be effective in the short term, overall, it's likely to make things worse. Heavy makeup can clog your pores and irritate your skin, making breakouts last longer and potentially causing your next breakout.
Using makeup to cover up teen acne can create a vicious cycle. You use heavy makeup to hide your blemishes, but heavy makeup causes more blemishes, so you need to keep using it to feel confident in your skin.
While we're not going to tell you that you have to go into the world bare-faced, sticking with a light skin tint, BB or CC cream as opposed to a full coverage foundation, can give your skin some much-needed room to breathe. If you want to improve the look of your breakouts rather than just covering them up, keeping your makeup light and your skincare routine consistent may help reduce instances of breakouts and allow them to leave sooner.
10. Practice Self-Care To Manage Stress
As we've said, teen breakouts usually are down to hormones. But puberty and all those coming-of-age physical changes are only one way acne-causing hormonal shifts can occur. Stress can also cause your body's production of certain hormones to fluctuate, leading to breakouts.
And while adult life is no cakewalk, we think we can all agree that your teen years are both fun and full of incredibly stressful situations.
Finding tactics to deal with stress in your teen years is important! Whether that means joining a sport or athletic activity to help sweat it out and find your center, be sure you're finding ways to allow your body to relax and unwind.
Even if your weekdays are packed between school, friends and extracurriculars, committing to taking your mornings on the weekend slow can work wonders if your breakouts are stress-related. It also will be a great skill to have as you move into different stages of your life — learning how to handle stress effectively now isn't just good for your skin. It's good for every facet of your life!
In Conclusion
While developing the perfect skincare routine may be the least of your worries as you navigate your teen years, it's so important when it comes to the breakouts most teenagers experience. Breakouts probably don't define your day, but they can take a toll on your self-esteem, affecting every other part of your life.
If you struggle with hormonal breakouts, making sure your skincare routine is working as hard as possible for you can make a huge difference. With extra care taken to manage your stress levels and not engage in behaviors or habits that can trouble your skin, you'll be on your way to clear, even, glowing skin that will give you the confidence you need to take on everything teenager-hood can throw at you.
Engagement Manager
