Whatever type of acne you are dealing with, it can be quite a challenging experience to go through and if it is particularly severe, it can even rob you of your self-esteem and cause you to want to hide away. Whatever your experience with acne which is the most common skin condition suffered by people all over the world, here are some tips on how to get clear skin.
How to Get Clear Skin – 10 Tips
1. Use acne fighting ingredients
In the products you use when cleansing, toning, moisturizing, etc, try to use products that contain acne fighting ingredients such as salicylic acid, benzoyl peroxide, sulfur, etc. Many of these are available over the counter so unless you have severe acne that is unresponsive to products containing these acne fighting ingredients that do not require a prescription to get, these should suffice but do not go overboard when using them.
If you are using a moisturizer that contains salicylic acid or benzoyl peroxide, you may want to use a good cleanser that does not contain these active ingredients so as not to irritate or aggravate acne if you use too much of these ingredients at the same time. Salicylic acid in particular can be very drying which only leads to excessive oil production which is one of the factors to blame for acne development. Use these products once or twice daily and not more than these so that you do not irritate your skin.
For a natural alternative to salicylic acid or benzoyl peroxide, tea tree oil has been shown to be just as effective as these ingredients for acne treatment.
2. Easy does it
When cleansing your face, avoid scrubbing the face too hard or using hot water or using overly drying soaps thinking that this will eliminate acne. While a clean face is important for acne elimination, aggressively cleansing the face will only aggravate or irritate the skin and could lead to excessive oil production making acne worse.
Fight acne by being gentle with your face so that you do not irritate your skin or dry out your skin through aggressive washing to cleanse the face.
3. Washing properly
Keeping your face clean and free from excessive oil and dirt as well as bacteria is important but to do this, a mild soap while rubbing your face very lightly with your fingertips and using warm water is ideal. Leave rough wash cloths or scrubs alone. If you want to fully cleanse your pores when using your fingertips is inadequate, you may want to invest in a gentle cleansing brush which is effective for pore cleansing while being gentle enough for use on the most sensitive and acne prone skin.
4. Get rid of oily products
Another of the ways on how to get clear skin is to avoid oil based products in your skin care and hair care products. As a general rule for products you use, only use products that claim that they are oil free.
If you do use the oil cleansing method or use oils to moisturize your face, certain guidelines need to be followed for the oils you use to ensure that the oils do not worsen your acne but instead actually help you eliminate acne despite them being oils.
5. Makeup
Try to avoid makeup if you can but if you cannot, use as little as possible and also make sure that they are water based and not oil based. Loose powders and powder blushes are preferable. Lip products and eye makeup do not apply since acne does not usually affect these areas.
6. Hands off
Avoid touching your face with your hands to prevent the transfer of dirt, oil and bacteria from your hands to your face. Also make sure that you wipe your phone with an antibacterial wipe because dirty phones are one of the biggest culprits for acne along your jawline or sides of your face.
7. Exfoliation
Exfoliation is usually necessary in order to get rid of the dead skin cells on top of the skin that can cause the skin to look dull and can also clog pores. A good exfoliator gently sloughs away this layer to reveal smooth soft skin. However, using a rough wash cloth, harsh scrubs, etc, can actually irritate acne prone skin which can worsen the condition so avoid exfoliating with these rough wash cloths, scrubs that feature exfoliants with rough edges, rough sponges or brushes especially if you are acne prone.
Using a peel such as a glycolic acid peel, salicylic acid peel, etc, may be the best way to exfoliate acne prone skin to help you eliminate these dead skin cells without irritating the skin. Some peels can be very irritating though especially if the active ingredients are at full strength so this is something to consider. What to remember though is to choose a gentle exfoliant that gets the job done without making the problem worse.
8. Do not pick, press, or rub
Avoid picking at the breakouts as you may spread the acne causing bacteria and infection. In addition, picking, pressing and rubbing at the blemishes usually increases the chance of acne scars so leave blemishes alone to heal. While you may feel some satisfaction from popping a pimple, you do not know what is going on underneath the surface where the sebum, bacteria and dead skin cells clogging the pores reside.
9. Pass on facials
Everyone wants to be pampered at a spa once in a while but you may want to skip out on getting a facial because many of those administering the facial may not know how to properly deal with acne prone skin and many actually make the situation worse.
10. Stress
Hormone imbalance is one of the causes of acne and if you want to eliminate acne, you need to learn how to ensure that your hormones remain balanced for the most part. One of the ways that leads to hormone imbalance is stress especially chronic stress. Stress is a normal part of life but when it is not resolved after a while and turns into chronic stress, it can negatively impact your health and wellbeing.
You may have noticed that when you are particularly stressed, your skin starts to act funny including an increase in breakouts. So if you are stressed out frequently to the point of it being chronic (long standing) you need to learn how to properly manage your stress levels so that you do not pay for it in your skin as well as your overall health and wellbeing.
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