Acne is synonymous with the teenage years, with both girls and boys witnessing a surge in hormones it is almost an inevitable side-effect of growing up. But what you might not realise is that acne can affect anyone at any stage in their life. Whether you’re male or female at 50 years old or 36 – we all suffer from acne at some point.
Although it can affect men and women, acne is more common in women. In fact, the NHS state that out of all acne cases, an overwhelming 80% of these occur in women.
The reason acne affects more women than men is simply down to the different hormonal stages or changes women can go through in their lives. These changes can be brought on by both periods and pregnancy.
Having acne can have an awful impact on self-confidence particularly when it’s on your face. It can be hard to hide your face when you’re self-conscientious.
There are only so many times you can avoid eye contact at work after all!
There are some very effective treatments in the UK, such as our Roaccutane acne treatment. When your skin starts to clear, there’s almost always an improvement in confidence.
Unless your acne has left behind deep scarring on the skin, making it difficult to disguise under makeup and other skin care products. The good news is that this can also be fixed with various treatments, such as laser acne scar treatment
But this post is all about managing and fixing acne-prone skin, hopefully before it gets to the stage where you’ll need scar treatment.
How to Get Clear Skin – Our Top 10 Tips
We’ve gathered 10 of our top tips to clear skin for you to help soothe and diminish your acne.
But before we begin, sometimes your acne will be a hormonal issue, in which case the issue must be addressed from the inside out, rather than externally as these tips show. If this is the case, you should book a consultation at our London Skin Clinic below:
Don’t forget, if you feel like you’ve exhausted your options for acne treatment, we offer an acne consultation. Book your consultation online easily here.
Clean Your Face Regularly
It doesn’t matter if you actually have acne or not, you need to have the good, healthy habit of washing your face twice a day. This helps to remove excess oils, dead skin cells and impurities from the surface of your skin.
Specifically, in regard to acne, washing twice daily can help kill bacteria off and reduce inflammation. It also helps to just keep your pores clogged and blocked up with dirt and makeup.
Stay away from makeup preservatives
Parabens are preservatives present in many makeup products. These preservatives can cause irritation and further inflame your acne-prone skin.
Stay away from these products and products that contain excess oil. Using products like these are only further clogging your pores. You need to take preventative steps to help control your acne.
Get rid of dead skin cells
Use a gentle skin exfoliator to help rid your skin of dead cells. Gently exfoliating can also help reduce hyperpigmentation in the skin leaving your skin fresh and clear.
If dead skin cells aren’t removed regularly, they can clog your pores leading to an increase in acne.
You can also get rid of dead skin cells by indulging in a facial peel. A facial peel can be a great way to remove dead skin cells whilst naturally improving the appearance of your acne scars.
The peel penetrates deep into the skin to remove impurities and rejuvenate your complexion.
Don’t Forget to Moisturise
Maybe a tip you’d be surprised to see when searching how to get rid of pimples but it is common for acne products to contain ingredients that while they help fight against acne, also dry out your skin.
Therefore, it is vital that you moisturise daily to reduce skin peeling and dryness.
When choosing a moisturiser, check for the term ‘non-comedogenic’ on its label, which doesn’t cause acne.
You can find moisturisers available formulated to work with skin that is dry, oily or a combination.
Be Careful What you Use in Your Hair
It is best you avoid using products like gels, pomades, oils and fragrances. When these products get onto your face, they can clog up your pores and irritate the skin.
Obviously, use shampoo and conditioner, but make sure you use gentle formulas.
If your hair is naturally very oily, this can to the oils present on your face, so you may need to wash your hair more often, particularly when you are breaking out.
With long hair, you need to keep it out of the way of your face.
Eat a Healthier Diet
Despite what many people may say or think, there is no real scientific evidence that eating a lot of greasy food and chocolate makes acne worse, it has been suggested in the Journal of American Academy of Dermatology that notes you may have fewer breakouts of acne if you eat fewer carbohydrates and sugars.
If this is something you have a problem with, you could consider keeping a food diary, to work out if there are certain foods that trigger acne breakouts. In general, eating a healthy diet is always a good idea, but can also help to ensure your skin is clearer.
Keep Your Hands Away From Your Face
This is something you’ve undoubtedly heard a lot of recently, with the current health crisis, but when it comes to keeping acne in check, it is recommended that you keep your hands away from your face and don’t try to prop up your chin or cheeks with your hands.
As well as stopping the spread of bacteria, you can also prevent causing facial skin irritation that has already been inflamed.
You also need to avoid using your fingers to pop and pick at pimples, as tempting as it may be, as this can cause infections to develop and lead to scarring.
Change Your Bed Linen at Least Once a Week
When there is oil and dirt on your bed linen, it can rub onto your skin while you are sleeping. This is particularly important to remember when it comes to your pillowcase, as that’s where your face rests while you sleep.
Exercise Every Day
Your body in general, including your skin, benefits when you exercise every day. When you do work out or exercise, make sure you wear clothing and use equipment that does not rub against your skin as this can cause irritation.
Always take a bath or shower immediately afterwards to get rid of the sweat that could contain acne-causing bacteria.
Shrink the blood vessels through laser treatment
Lasers can be the most effective acne and scar treatment, especially for stubborn scarring.
While no acne scar treatment will ever remove the scarring completely, laser treatment can help improve the appearance of your skin during and after acne.
This treatment is most suited for mild/moderate acne and scarring.
You have the choice between two types of laser treatment; ablative and non-ablative.
In the non-ablative laser treatment, the skin is lasered in order to promote the new growth of collagen. This both improves the appearance of skin and can remove any damage to the skin.
The ablative laser treatment can help improve acne scars by removing small areas of skin around the scars in order to produce a new and healthier area of skin.
The most common type of acne scars include:
- Ice pick scars – when the scar is bumpy in texture
- Atrophic scars – when the scar is flat to the surface of the skin but is visible
- Hypertrophic or keloid scar – when the scar is thick and lumpy and raised on the skin
Summary
Acne can be difficult to get to the root cause of. If these top 10 tips don’t work for reducing your acne, then let one of our qualified expert dermatologists get to the bottom of it with a consultation.
How to get rid of acne? Try the 10 tips in this post but if you’re still struggling with your acne scarring, book your acne consultation online today and take the first steps towards achieving beautiful skin.
