Baby Bumps: Acne During Pregnancy
Dorothea, a girl I’ve known since I was five and she was eight, was always the object of much envy among the girls owing to her flawless skin and milk and roses complexion. And then she had a baby. For the first two months of her pregnancy, Dottie had such an acute acne attack that she looked as though someone had painted red pustules on her face at random. She was 23 then, and though the horrible pustules disappeared gradually, once she had her baby, the scars did not. In fact, they gave me nightmares for a long time! No ok, that was an exaggeration, but the point is that even someone who has never had acne before can get it during pregnancy.
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Escape From Hell: Available Acne Treatments
If the headline seems a little dramatic, people with acne will know what I mean. We all know what causes acne – you know, blocked glands, clogged pores, excessive sebum secretion, overactive hormones, and improper skincare – but the trick is to find out which of the available acne treatments works for you.
Essentially, all acne treatments focus on dealing with the causes of acne. Obviously, what medication your dermatologist prescribes will depend on how severe your acne is, but it will also depend on its cause.
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DOWN & DIRTY: Does Dirt Cause Acne?
“You know why Alex has acne? ‘Cos she only bathes once a month.” That and similar pearls of wisdom were generously distributed around my high school corridors, targeting a poor girl who truly had a horrific case of acne. That fact that she was rude to everyone in sight had, of course, nothing to do with it, and it is only now that I realise how terribly insecure she must have been to be so badly behaved.
The point is that dirt does not cause acne, but might aggravate it. As is so often the case with us, we miss the wood for the trees when we say dirt causes acne. You think dirt clogs the pores of the skin and gives rise to blackheads. You’re dead wrong. Blackheads are not caused by dirt, but by the melanin present in sebum that turns black in contact with open air.
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If You Have Acne-Prone Skin…Look After It
When I was younger, finding a skincare regimen that worked seemed about as possible as describing the sound that purple makes (ok, I filched that from Terry Pratchett). With time, I have found that with a little trial and error and lots of patience, you can actually control acne with your skincare routine. But you need to know that just as every individual is unique, so no two people with acne-prone skin can be assured that their skincare regimen will be the same.
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Birds & Bees: Sexual Myths And Acne
Ahem…no sniggering at the back there. This is a serious topic and will be dealt with as such. Whatever else we know or do not know about acne, one thing we are sure of is that masturbation causes acne. 100 percent. No, wait a minute: you’ve got it wrong, acne only happens if you don’t have sex for, like, three years at a stretch or something. Wrong, wrong, wrong. When I was 15 or so, and struggling to come to terms with pimples so large they could only be called warts, well-intentioned adults who should have known better drilled the above into my head.
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