Whether you are a sufferer of acne or not, you will have heard at least one or two myths bandied about concerning acne in some shape or form. Thus, in this article, I plan to blame and shame the myth and get the truth out there.
- The more you wash your face, the less likely you are to have
spots : sadly although washing your face does allow you to get rid of any dirt, bacteria, dead skin and oil away from your face, it will not help deter a breakout on your face. If anything washing it too much will make it sore and dry will cause irritation and further inflammation, making it even more prone to breakouts. - Don’t wear makeup if you want clear skin: believe me, I am not an advocate for slapping layers upon layers of makeup on your face, however, wearing makeup will not make you more prone to breakouts. In fact, a lot of makeup now are oil-free and contain active ingredients to help combat spots such as blackheads, cystic pimples and so forth.
- If you keep getting more and more breakouts to keep slapping on the acne medicine and treatments: many medications that are used in acne treatments contain drying agents within them, therefore putting too much on will dry your skin making it dry, irritable, inflamed and breaking out.
- Sunbathing and getting a tan is good for acne: although a tan may make you feel good in summer and it may conceal your acne while it is there, the sun exposure can actually hurt your skin in the long run, drying it out and making it more irritated and inflamed.
- Adults don’t get acne: quite simply this is not true, surveys have found that many adults are getting acne into their twenties and older dome are even getting in their forties and above.
- Poor hygiene causes acne: a very prevalent myth is that people that have acne have dirty skin, its up there with the people who have headlice have dirty hair myth. In actual fact it is just bad luck and genetics, somebody could have no personal cleanliness at all and be a pimple free, whereas the cleanest person in the world could have acne. There is no correlation. So do not over wash your skin. You’re not dirty.
- Squeezing the pimple is the best course of action: DO NOT SQUEEZE A PIMPLE, there are a lot of people who cannot resist the urge to squeeze when a pimple comes along. However, keep your hands off and leave them alone. It can be especially tempting if the spot feels irritable or painful however by touching it and squeezing it you are only aggravating it more, plus you added more bacteria to the surface area and if it pops the bacteria from that pimple will also be on the surface area and be contaminating and potentially infecting other pimples.
- Junk food causes acne: there is no hard evidence that correlates greasy food with acne as of yet, but, it is inevitable that if you are eating a big juicy burger or a nice greasy pizza that some of that will end up on your chin and therefore this added grease could increase the oil on your skin if you already suffer from an oily complexion. Thus your skin absorbs more grease and it, therefore, breaks out into acne pimples.
- Acne goes away on its own: this myth is very wrong, you should not have to suffer in silence with the pain and emotional stress that acne brings. Do not leave a pimple until it so big and uncomfortable. At the first sight of a pimple use an over the counter product to try and help. If this doesn’t work seek medical advice and stronger prescription medication will be prescribed. It needs treating it won’t just go away and you will not just grow out of it.
- Masturbation causes acne: Some people believe that masturbating can lead to pimple outbreaks but it is far away from the truth. There isn’t really much to say about this except no, it really doesn’t.
These are just of my favourite handpicked myths, there are many out there and I think the best advice anyone could give you is don’t listen to myths, do what is right for you.
