Acne Magazine : Skin Care, Tips, Treatment Reviews

When it comes to OTC acne fighting ingredients that are commonly found in the best products for fighting acne, whether adult acne or teenage acne, there are a few ingredients that really are better at fighting acne while also not drying or irritating the skin too much.  The best one between benzoyl peroxide and salicylic acid is, in my opinion, salicylic acid. 

I especially think it’s the best choice for women in their twenties, thirties and forties and higher who are battling both aging skin and dryness, and may also be battling the occasional breakout.  I know, so unfair that we have to battle both aging signs like crow’s feet and fine lines AND acne, but it seems to be the way of the world these days with more and more adult women, and men, getting acne later in life. 

Salicylic acid is a highly recommended ingredient in topical acne treatment products for adults because it not only gets into the pores and unclogs them, but it’s ideal for aging skin because it does not have the drying and irritating properties of many of it’s counterparts, and it also has an added benefit for aging skin that many don’t know about.

Salicylic acid is an excellent natural exfoliant, meaning it sloughs off those dead layers of skin cells that crop up every single day, very easily, leaving a refreshed, glowing layer of skin and accelerating the turnover of the skin cells so that wrinkles look less deep and noticeable and the skin takes on the fresh look that tend to go fade with age as our skin has less tone as well as less ability to turn over because our cells do not renew themselves as quickly as they did when we were younger.

Salicylic acid is even found in many acid peels, and is an excellent peel for those that are treating acne and acne scarring because it is gentle enough, but also gets the job done of getting those dead skin cells to turn over and “forcing” our skin to make new ones. 

Well, it’s on the verge of becoming a new reality, well, a new and improved reality since the first try was a flop due to too  many side effects, including inducing male acne in the men who took them, presumable due to hormone shock and imbalance, but a newer and better male birth control pill is supposedly on the near term horizon as an option in couple’s birth control endeavors.  Many women now take the pill, some for reasons other than birth control alone, but most for reasons that include birth control. 

As we’ve talked about before, many women use the birth control pill in part to help clear their face of acne, and some have had great success in clearing either adult or teen acne by taking specific types of birth control pills that allow the woman’s hormones to be a more controlled level at all times rather than go up and down constantly as they do in nature. 

One of the major complaints with the first male birth control pill was that the men who were taking them broke out a lot, and some got very severe acne, presumably a hormonal side effect of the pill.  The newer male contraceptive pill would be available in several different options, like the female birth control pill, including a daily pill, a gel that would be administered to the skin and utilized transdermally, and a patch.  Still, many men are leary of taking a pill and messing with their hormones, much like women understandably are.  In fact, many recommend women do not stay on the pill for more than ten years.

The reason that acne may have resulted in that the balance of the testosterone and the progestin released in to the man’s blood stream to help turn off sperm production was a little off kilter, and this in turn threw off their oil production, and resulted in hormonally induced acne, but men who have tried the newer versions have seen little side effect, aside from maybe a little bit of weight gain. 

On CNN, I watched a piece of their “Health Minute”, which focused on adult acne, specifically on a 51 year old African American woman’s sudden onset of adult acne which happened to be fairly severe.  The woman featured in their segment actually ended up opting to go on the serious acne medication accutane to get her beautiful skin back, but often times adult onset acne can be treated through topical means or even by herbal acne supplements, which you know is what we endorse here. 

The dermatologist featured on the segment said that adult acne can be caused by hormonal changes, sun damage, or even bacteria on the surface of the skin.  She said they often will do bacteria tests on the surface of the skin to rule out that possibility and to focus more on the other potential causes of adult acne so they can more accurately and effectively treat it. 

She also confirmed what we talk about here on AcneMagazine quite a bit, and that is the fact that adult acne must be treated differently from teen acne.  Why?  Because and adult’s skin contain much less natural oil and moisture than a teen’s skin, and often must be treated with more gentle and nondrying topical acne treatments so that the skin does not become excessively irritated, dry and red, which may actually end up looking worse than the acne itself if the acne treatment is inappropriate for the skin type and age of the patient. 

It was also mentioned that adult acne may very well be a phase that disappears by itself, since the hormones may regulate, but after a few months if it has not gone away it may be a persistent problem that they would want to treat via self treatment or going to a dermatologist for recommendations. 

Well, a study has confirmed what many have suspected and much inconclusive data has supports, and that is that women have more adult acne than men do.  Yeah- lucky us! 

The age group for women that were included in this obervational data were 20 years old and older, and this age group of women has substantially more indcidence of adult acne than men in this same age group.  People that fall into this category are having what’s considered post adolescent acne, and there are a couple of theories, many of which we’ve discussed in detail here on this blog, as to what the causes are for acne into adulthood.  Everything from stressors to diet and environment have been speculated on for the reason behind the increase in adult acne.

The purpose of the study, which was covered by a University, was to figure out how extensively acne, a very common skin condition, only to greatly varying degrees in its patients, occured in adults once they had passed that hormonally volatile stage of their teens.  The women surveyed with a much higher rate of acne incidence to the survey given to both men and women, so their research concluded that women were much more likely to suffer adult acne. 

They are also hoping to do further reasearch on the hormonal reasons for women having the higher incidence of adult acne, since it is obviously of some sort of hormonal significance, and that this study can then lead to new and different treatments for adult acne, using perhaps some sort of hormone therapy or drugs that modify the hormone activity in the body safely.

Another interesting note on this survey/study is that most people did report that although they still had acne, that their acne had significantly improved since their teen years. 

In studies on the ever increasing incidence of adult acne, something that unfortunately us adults also have to deal with now, most fingers are pointed at hormones as the culprit, not cosmetics or other environmental or external factors.  As far as I’m concerned, you all know that stress and anxiety most definitely affects my skin, and that has never changed for me, even into adulthood. 

I also find that certain caffeinated beverages and foods can trigger a breakout, but that is almost assuredly related to the fact that caffeine makes me overly nervous and anxious, which still in effect is what leads to the acne breakout.  Many herbal acne supplements are supposed to help curb this fluctuation, as well as medical acne treatments that inhibit androgens from over producing.   

Some people have been quick to place the blame on cosmetics and other skin care products, or other environmental factors, but the truth is, most breakouts I’ve experienced from cosmetics or other allergens that cause reactions are very different breakouts from a real “acne vulgaris” breakout where pimples originate deep within the skin and have a definitively different patter than just the minor “rash” types of breakouts.  At least this has been my personal experience, so I can’t speak for everyone on this point of course. 

The interesting fact is that significantly more women than men suffer from adult acne, and the thought is that this is because of hormones, because women continue to see hormonal fluctuations throughout their life while men only have them basically in their youth, or teen years, all thanks to a little thing called the menstrual cycle which dictates our hormones for us. 

Some may think I’m crazy for the way I harp on the fact that stimulants and my skin do not agree, and whenever I ingest an abundance of stimulants – we’re talking more than one half cup of strong coffee, my skin almost certainly will be paying the acne piper the next day.  Well, yet another story of how a stimulant made me break out today. 

This time the culprit is the now banned substance called ephedra, which is actually a naturally derived stimulant that was popular in diet and weightloss supplements, but was banned by the FDA after investigations and complaints on the herbally derived substance turned up the fact that ephedrine presented unreasonable danger to the health. 

It is still, however, legal to put into cold medicines and allergy medications.  This brings me to my story.  I was at work yesterday and started to feel sick, as in a cold sick.  I borrowed some Sudafed from a coworker who had some similar bug.  As the name implies, Sudafed is loaded with ephedra (ephedrine). 

I didn’t even think twice about taking it though, I’d do anything to feel better so I could get through my workday, so I took only a half pill, worried that a whole one might make me too shaky and speedy. 

Well, just a half pill, and I was shaky and speedy for the rest of the night.  I also experienced heart palpitations (why is this stuff still legal in cold medicines again?)  I woke up this morning, and lo and behold, I had two new big zits on my chin! 

There was not even a hint of a zit coming on yesterday – in fact, I had totally clean, healthy clear pores, and yet I had two new ones waiting for me in the morning.  I know my skin so well now, that this was definitely directly related to me taking that tablet of Sudafed.  Does anyone else have sensitivity to stimulants that has acne or is it just me?  Comments would be appreciated.  I really want to know if others out there experience the same thing.

Funny heading, I know, but my mom had a case of the “phew” when she recently went to see a dermatologist about a worrying hard, black bump that had appeared about a month ago on the bridge of her nose, where her glasses rested. She thought for a while that it might just be some sort of irritation bump or something, but was alarmed when it did not go away. 

She was thinking it might be the big “C” word, so she booked an appointment with a dermatologist.  My mother is in her fifties, so that last thing on her mind was acne or blackheads, she was more so concerned that her skin had rebelled against all the tanning she had done in her teens, even though her pale, 100% Irish skin could not take it and she frequently burned her facial skin to a crisp in the name of looking tan and gorgeous (yes, she deeply regrets doing this now). 

To make a long story short, she visited the dermatologist.  He took one look at the mysterious black bump on her nose and said “oh you just have a comedone”.  A comedone is just another fancy word for a “blackhead” zit.  Blackheads occur when dirt and/or bacteria clog a pore and it just stays there, open to the world unlike a whitehead, which seals itself off in a skin.

The dermatologist, in one swift move before my mom could even protest, removed the blackhead, extracting it fairly effortlessly with one of those neato extraction tools that dermatologist are so adept at using.  My mom no longer has to worry that she might have cancer - it was “just a comedone”!