Do you have acne on your breakout face that has just started to appear? Breathe deeply first. Second, let’s briefly go through the causes of acne: Hormones and excessive oil production lead to typical outbreaks. In essence, androgens, sometimes known as “sex” hormones, such as testosterone, cause your oil glands to overproduce sebum, which may clog your pores and encourage the development of the C bacteria, which causes acne. P. acnes, formerly known as acnes. Your skin becomes inflamed due to the bacteria development, and this irritation ultimately gives rise to a whitehead, cystic zit, or blind pimple.
But before you schedule that consultation, let’s examine the leading causes of adult acne:
Although hormones significantly contribute to your breakouts, they are not the sole cause. According to five doctors and an aesthetician who treat breakouts daily, if you’re looking to understand better—and prevent—acne flares, you may want to look at your daily routine for possible zit triggers, including these 13 prevalent (and maybe unexpected) causes.
You Are Getting Acne From Your Cotton Face Mask
You most likely have mask acne, also known as maskne, if you’ve seen more breakouts on your chin, jawline, and cheeks after using your cloth face mask for prolonged lengths of time. Maskne is a skin condition brought on by a buildup of sweat, oil, germs, and humidity that is trapped behind your mask and causes pimples as well as dryness, itching, and blotchiness (due to friction between your front and your skin).
How To Correct It
Change to a breathable, lightweight cotton face mask to help cure mask acne and reduce sweat and excess oil production. To avoid putting old oil and germs back into your skin every time you put on a face mask, try to stock up on a few face masks if you can’t commit to cleaning your cover after each usage.
2. You Don’t Wash Your Face Before Going To Bed
Even if you hardly move off the sofa, grime, oil, and makeup naturally build up on the surface of your skin over the day. If you don’t wash your face before bed, all that filth will be transferred to your pillowcase and back to your face the following night. According to dermatologist Joshua Zeichner, MD, a few nights on a soiled pillowcase may not result in zits, but continuous exposure can lead to inflammation, irritation, and breakouts.
How To Correct It
To avoid breakouts, you must first cleanse your face every night. To help reduce some of the extra oil in your pores without making your skin dry or tight, try using a cleanser containing salicylic acid at 2 percent. Try using a 5 percent benzoyl peroxide wash twice weekly to help eliminate certain acne-causing bacteria if your acne hasn’t improved after three weeks. And if you wear makeup that sometimes lingers even after washing, consider double cleansing at night: first, wash your face as usual in the morning to avoid drying out your skin, then remove any remaining makeup with an oil-based makeup remover (such as cleansing oil or balm).
3. Breakouts Are Brought On By Stress And Sleep Deprivation
According to board-certified dermatologist Jeanine Downie, MD, stress acne can be a vicious cycle:
- Break out from stress.
- Feel more stressed because you’re breaking out.
- Then, break out some more.
Stress acne is caused by your body producing stress hormones, like cortisol, that can stimulate your oil glands to overproduce oil, resulting in clogged pores.
How To Correct It
The long-term solution is to get more sleep and consult a doctor or therapist for stress management techniques (like meditation, exercise, self-care, or medication). If your zits are painful and under the skin, try dabbing on a 1 percent hydrocortisone cream, which can help reduce some redness and inflammation.
4. Your Face Is Drying Out
If, for example, you tend to load up on spot treatments at the first sign of a bump, you may be drying out and irritating your skin, leading to a compromised and broken-out skin barrier, says licensed aesthetician Samantha Wright. Dry skin, in general, is a significant acne cause, whether the dryness comes from your genetics, outdoor habits, or skincare routine, like using too much—or too little—of certain products.
How To Correct It
Make sure you’re layering on an oil-free moisturizer every morning and night to help restore moisture to your skin barrier if your skin is exceptionally oily. If your skin is dry, you must increase your moisturizers and decrease the number of drying activities in your routine (like acids, retinoids, etc.).
5. Your Acne Is Becoming Worse Because Of Your Facial Cleanse
Because harsh scrubs cause micro tears and inflammation on the surface of your skin, messing with your skin’s protective barrier can lead to breakouts if you’re using a washcloth, a gritty acne face wash or face scrub, a loofah, or a cleansing brush to scrub your face every day, you may not only be exacerbating current breakouts but also causing more breakouts in the process.
How To Correct It
Start slow: two nights a week at first, working your way up to three nights a week maximum, and exfoliate your breakout face with a mild chemical exfoliant that contains AHAs or BHAs, like lactic, salicylic, and glycolic acids to help break down dead skin cells that can hang out in your pores and lead to breakouts.
6. Your Goods’ Components Are Creating Acne
According to Dr. Downie, mineral oil is a super-thick moisturizing agent in some breakout face moisturizers and creams that may be too heavy if you’re prone to black and whiteheads. Coconut oil is also well known for causing breakouts if you’re acne-prone. Fragrance (incredibly irritating for sensitive skin) and sulfates (an oil-stripping surfactant) can clog pores.
How To Correct It
Remember that while an ingredient might make my breakout face erupt in whiteheads, the same element could make yours glow and thrive. Collect all of your products and check the ingredient labels for a few red flags: Mineral oil, coconut oil, sulfates (especially sodium lauryl sulfate and sodium laureth sulfate), added fragrance, and essential oils.
7. Your Pores Are Becoming Clogged By Your Hair Products
Although oils and kinds of butter (such as jojoba oil, coconut oil, and plum oil) are great for softening and smoothing hair in hair products, they may cause breakouts when they land on your skin and scalp (true story: my persistent bacne throughout high school was brought on by a heavy conditioner washing down my back every time I showered). In addition, if you have sensitive skin, your sulfate-filled shampoos may irritate your skin, resulting in dry skin.
How To Correct It
If your breakouts tend to occur along your hairline, try massaging a salicylic acid scalp treatment along your scalp once a week before hopping in the shower. Finally, give your body one last rinse to help prevent acne on your body and breakout face before leaving the shower. Clip up your wet hair or wrap it in a towel at the end of your battery, then quickly rinse off your body.
8. The Body Acne You Get From Working Out In The Sweat
The longer you stay in the same sweaty, sticky clothes, the quicker your skin becomes a breeding ground for bacteria growth. It’s understandable if your skin is covered in grime and sweat after a workout. Still, if you don’t rinse that off immediately, you increase your chance of all that dirt, oil, bacteria, and makeup irritating your skin and potentially leading to clogged pores.
How To Correct It
After your workout, shower as soon as possible with a salicylic acid-based acne body wash (which can gently break down dirt and oil to keep pores clear). If you can’t shower right away, swipe your skin with a body wipe to help physically remove some of the grime and oil hanging out on the surface of your skin. Before exercising, remove your makeup with a cotton round soaked in micellar water (or use your favorite makeup remover).
9. Your Skin Is Being Irritated By Your Washing Detergent
If you recently switched to a new detergent and noticed a few breakouts afterward, you might have found one of your problems. According to Dr. Downie, certain chemicals and fragrances in laundry detergents can be too harsh for sensitive skin. Once you slip on your clothes or use your bath towels, your breakout face can react to the residue left on the fabric, resulting in breakouts on your face, back, butt, chest, etc.
How To Correct It
If you don’t see an improvement in your breakouts, your acne might not be caused by your laundry detergent, so talk to your dermatologist about other possible acne treatments. Choose a hypoallergenic detergent, meaning it’s free of fragrances and dyes (these will usually have “free and clear” on the label, so they are somewhat simple to find).
10. Your Favorite Meals Can Be The Source Of Your Breakouts
But it’s not just spicy foods that cause acne: Some skin reacts negatively to ingested dairy, gluten, and other foods, too. A recent change in your eating habits—like if you went vegan and are suddenly eating more carbs, or you stopped being vegan after eating plant-based for a while—could also be a cause.
How To Correct It
To find out if the food you’re eating is the cause of your acne or if something is going on in your gastrointestinal tract, consult your dermatologist or schedule an appointment with a gastroenterologist. They’ll likely ask you to keep a food intake journal and track what you eat and how your skin responds.
11. Your Smoking Habit Is Harming Your Face
Every time you light up a cigarette, you reduce the amount of oxygen that goes to the skin on your breakout face, says Dr. Downie, and since your skin is your largest organ, you’re essentially suffocating it. You already know that smoking is terrible for your health and those around you (the CDC estimates that one in five people die yearly from cigarette smoking—roughly 1,300 people a day).
How To Correct It
If you need support, speak with your primary care physician, who can help you develop a strategy (mainly if you’ve been smoking for a long time). It’s easier said than done, but a dermatologist (or any doctor) will first advise you to quit smoking.
12. When You Pick At Your Face, You Aggravate Your Acne
We know it’s tempting to pop your whiteheads and blackheads. Still, if you do, you risk pushing the bacteria deeper into your pore, aggravating the breakout by causing more inflammation and introducing bacteria into your open wound. Touching your skin with your fingers at all, let alone tinkering with active breakouts, can spread bacteria from your hands onto your breakout face, according to Dr. Downie, increasing the likelihood of pimples.
How To Correct It
Try applying an opaque pimple patch to create a physical barrier over your zit to help keep your hands off of it (and to stop more bacteria from getting to it) to help keep your hands off of your skin as much as possible, including resting your chin on your hand or starting an entire at-home extraction session.
13. Acne Isn’t A Problem You’re Having
Suppose your breakouts appear on your hairline, forehead, chest, or back and appear as small, itchy, red, or brown bumps roughly the same size. In that case, you may have folliculitis or fungal acne (also known as Malassezia folliculitis), an inflammation of the hair follicles that necessitates a very different approach than your standard treatments.
How To Correct It
If you suspect fungal acne, consult a dermatologist first to get a diagnosis. Your doctor may suggest using an over-the-counter dandruff shampoo containing zinc pyrithione or selenium sulfide, which can help kill the excess yeast on your skin, causing the breakouts. Rub the shampoo across your skin, wait three minutes, then hop in the shower and rinse. If your acne isn’t clearing up after six weeks, it might require a prescription dandruff shampoo or anti-fungal cream from your dermatologist.