Breakouts can feel vulnerable. Unless you’re a wizard with makeup, your insecurities are out in the world for anyone to see and usually the first thing someone can notice. Dealing with these breakouts can really strip down your confidence and make you desperate and obsessed with getting rid of your acne.
When you become desperate or obsessed it can almost backfire. I wrote about how your mindset can impact your journey with acne in my blog post, “Acne & Manifesting”, but obsessing over getting rid of your breakouts can lead you to forget certain steps you should take to prevent other breakouts and also make you go overboard on treatments.
I’ve spoken about this before, but for years I was not accustomed to dealing with severe breakouts. Maybe the occasional pimple from hormones or something else random, but I didn’t have any products geared towards acne because I didn’t really need them. So as an esthetician, when I started breaking out consistently I started collecting ALL the acne products and attacking the breakouts head on.
I was using at least 3 different face cleansers that I was cycling through and 2 or 3 moisturizers because I couldn’t figure out what was making my skin better or worse. I had a chemical peel I was using once a week but I was also using a physical exfoliator and an exfoliating toner. I was going completely overboard.
The products I got were good, my esthetician brain knew that. However, my desperate brain had me completely over-using them which led me to completely breaking down my moisture barrier. When you break down your moisture barrier your skin is more likely to get irritated and your moisture barrier also helps keep out bacteria. So by breaking down my moisture barrier I was actually having the opposite effect of what I wanted: I was making my acne worse.
It wasn’t until I slowed down and then stopped to breathe that I realized I needed to simplify how I was coming at my breakouts and preventing them more. This led me to making a checklist that I use whenever I have a breakout, it has helped me immensely and I hope it helps you too!
6 Things you need to do when you’re breaking out:
- Wash your pillow case! This goes for pillow cases, makeup brushes, your cellphone if you make a lot of phone calls, basically anything that could touch your face. If you’re breaking out you could be getting that acne-bacteria oil on your pillow case (and so on) and even though you’re diligently cleaning your face every night you could be spreading that bacteria back onto your skin just by sleeping against your pillow case. My best advice is to have multiple pillow cases clean and ready to go if you’re breaking out particularly bad that way you aren’t stressed about washing it everyday. As for makeup brushes, washing those can be a daunting task during a busy day so if you can get your hands on a gentle anti-bacterial spray brush cleanser that could be incredibly helpful.
- Wash your hands! This might be a no brainer, but if you’re anything like me your hands might just wander to where your face is breaking out throughout the day and it might be completely unconscious. If your hands are dirty and you’re touching your face a bunch you’re just putting bacteria on top of bacteria and it has the high possibility of making things worse, so wash your hands often throughout the day.
- Stay hydrated! When I say stay hydrated I mean inside and out. And when I say inside I mean not only drink your water, but also eat it. Eat any water rich foods that agree with you: cucumber, lettuce, watermelon, tomato’s, etc. And by the outside I mean keep applying that moisturizer. I know sometimes it can feel redundant especially if you’re already extra oily when you break out but there are a couple reasons why you need to keep yourself hydrated inside and out: 1. Keeping your skin hydrated helps repair and maintain your skins moisture barrier and your moisture barrier has a lot of functions but one of those functions is keeping bacteria out. 2. You want to stay hydrated inside and out because our body will produce oil to self hydrate your dry skin. So if you’re trying to avoid producing extra oil while dealing with your breakouts, keep applying that moisturizer and know that you’re doing yourself a service every time you do.
- Stop your in-bed snacking! This one has been particularly hard on me and I honestly don’t follow it 100% of the time, I personally love ending my day with a glass of wine, popcorn, and gummy bears in bed with either a book or show. But there’s a couple reasons why doing this could backfire. You could be getting crumbs or oil or whatever else on your freshly cleaned skin or pillowcase (hopefully your clean pillowcase like we went over in number 1). Also, if you’re eating before bed it could drastically slow your digestion which could cause issues with your gut and like you probably already know by now: gut issues can lead to acne and other skin issues.
- Take it easy on your skincare routine! Trust me, I know. When you’re breaking out you want to throw everything in your arsenal at it and GET. RID. OF. IT. But using too many products, especially strong acid based products, can irritate your skin further and breakdown your moisture barrier. My advice? Simplify your routine and use gentle products. If that scares you (which would be totally understandable) you could always do a really simple routine but still use some sort of spot treatment or acne sticker on the spots you’re breaking out. My routine when I’m breaking out is: an oil cleanser, a gel cleanser, an essence (kind of like a toner) and my moisturizer. My skin is so much happier with me since I’ve eased up on it. That being said, everyones skin and everyone’s acne is different. Do what feels best to you and what works best for your skin, this might take some adjusting to see what that is but you can do it!
- Breathe and try to de-stress. Easier said than done when your skin is irritated and you’re obsessing over what might have caused it or how you can get rid of it, but stressing over it isn’t going to help and in fact might make it worse. And honestly, stress itself can cause acne, so you REALLY aren’t doing yourself any favors when you stress about it. Try to breathe and take care of yourself in whatever way you can to feel good on the inside because in one way or another it will show on the outside.
I’m still very much on my acne journey and I’m imperfect and inconsistent. Life gets busy and sometimes I don’t remember to change that dirty pillow case or sometimes stress will sneak up on me or sometimes I steal my kids cheddar bunnies and eat them in bed with my glass of wine while watching suits. Don’t be too hard on yourself, give yourself grace. If you mess up on any of these or anything else that might be causing your acne, try not to dwell on the mess up. Instead, focus on what is the next right step for you. You’re beautiful, and you got this.
