Have you ever wondered why you suffer from acne and other people walk around with flawless, crystal clear skin? Sure you do, admit it. Don’t worry because 60 million other people suffer and wonder the same thing you do.
After doing some research, this is what I found to be the most common causes of acne:
- Hormones: When you reach the age to go through puberty, you produce sex hormones known as androgen. This is one of the main reasons that acne is mostly seen on the faces of adolescents and teens. Hormones are also responsible for the acne breakouts during menstruation and pregnancy.
- Extra Sebum: The sebaceous glands in your skin get stimulated by androgens, it produces extra sebum. The sebum then goes up your hair follicle toward the surface and mixes itself with bacteria and other dead skin cells that’s been shed from the lining of that follicle. This promotes clogging and causes what you would see on your face as acne.
- Stress: can also cause the rise in the production of hormones, such as cortisol, which is known to aggravate acne. Stress brings upon different hormone levels. With these hormone changes the body prompts the oil glands in the skin to enlarge, thus secreting more oil. This can result in the appearance of white heads, black heads and pimples.
- Oily and/or Heavy Make-Up: This is a no-brainer. Heavy make-up is sure to clog your pores. If you already have oily skin then using oily make-up will make your situation worse. Cosmetics, especially certain moisturizers, foundations and pomades contain lanolin, petrolatum, vegetable oils, butyl stearate, lauryl alcohol and oleic acid.
- Diets: Some people are very sensitive to what they eat and certain foods can cause them to breakout.
- Over abrasive cleansing: Scrubbing your face too hard and too much can do more harm than good to your skin. Harsh exfoliators can cause damage to your skin and also spread infections.
- Picking and squeezing: People do this all the time without understanding that they are actually making the situation worse. Picking and squeezing acne blemishes and pimples can actually send the infection deeper into the skin and can cause scarring.
- Genetics: Acne is something that can be passed down from your parents. Inherited and severe cases known as cystic acne usually come from heredity.