Children taking splashy, bubbly daily baths are thinking more of fun than cleanliness. As these children mature into adulthood, they must begin to master new personal hygiene cleaning habits and learn to follow them religiously. Doctors generally recommend washing oily complexions twice daily. Regardless of the severity of the condition, washing should always be quite gentle. Surprisingly, it is possible to be too compulsive about the breakouts on the face, washing one’s face too often or scrubbing excessively roughly. Rather than facilitating healing, this can literally make the problem worse.

Many over-the-counter products at supermarkets or pharmacies can help broken-out body surfaces to mend. Salicylic acid, benzoil peroxide, and even sulfur are ingredients that are capable of killing bacteria that grow in obstructed, oily pores. Different companies incorporate differing percentages of active ingredients in their products. For facial skin care cleaning the minimum formulation that is effective is the one to choose.

Adolescent girls often start to use cosmetics during puberty. It is very important only to use products that have been specified non-comedogenic. This designation means that the ingredients will not clog or block pores. This helps prevent new pimples or blackheads from forming on the body surface. Complexion cleanliness is about prevention as much as it is about management.

Although acne is a physical change, it can adversely affect a young person’s emotional outlook. Teens should be able to take part in school and other activities without the embarrassment of oily complexion and spots. If medicines and cleansers acquired from the local drugstore are ineffective, a physician or dermatologist should be consulted for treatment that is more comprehensive.

Teaching about proper skin cleansing is one way parents and teachers can provide empathy and guidance to teenagers when they obsess about their acne. Appropriate cleaning of the body surface practices will help turn a crisis into a temporary problem. Teens need direction as well as reassurance that facial skin care can be kept under control or even healed with proper washing, effective medication, and most of all, time.

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If over-the-counter products have been ineffective however, it is time for you to make an appointment with your family physician or dermatologist. Your doctor can prescribe topical treatments that are stronger and more effective than the ones available without a prescription.

Your specialist may begin with simple external applications such as benzoil peroxide. Formulations containing benzoil peroxide work by killing bacteria that are trapped in your pores by excess oil. Unfortunately, superficial skin medications do not address deep infections that cannot be reached from the skin’s surface.

Deeper body surface infections may respond to management with an antibiotic. Two of the most common antibiotics used for curing body surface infections are tetracycline and erythromycin. These medications eliminate the bacteria causing infection in the deepest layers of the skin.

Your physician may prescribe a chemical peel as well as medication. A chemical such as glycolic acid is used to cause the uppermost layer of your skin to peel off. Other, less extreme ways of removing the top layer of your skin comprise scrubbing your face with slightly abrasive pads or employing skin washes that contain beads or microscopic particles.

It has long been recognized that exposure to sunshine can be used as a body surface treatment. Special lighting is now available that can reduce the number of inflamed skin lesions by about 70% or so within about a month. One advantage of this technique is that it has no known side effects, although it is not as efficacious if the infection is severe.

Birth control pills are sometimes prescribed to manage body surface breakout, but the pill has arguably serious side effects. The Diane-35, which was specifically developed to treat severe cases of zits (and not for birth control), has been linked to a small but elevated risk of blood clots compared to other birth control pills. You should also know that if you are taking tetracycline, it negates the contraceptive effectiveness of the pill.

Finding a cure for the breakout is the objective, but the approach should be chosen based on the severity of your skin breakout and the risks linked with potential treatments. Whether the treatments you choose are topical or internal, your doctor can explain what you need to take into consideration prior to making a decision. Body surface medications may be more effective than topical treatments, but they have potentially more serious side effects. You need professional advice and realistic expectations for any method of curing acne you try.

However, is it true the more expensive department store brands are better than the products sold in drugstores, often at three times less than their makeup counter siblings?

Students could consult all the parties in question to find the answer. Stacy Adams at the University Mall’s Dillard’s was on the side of the products sold in her department.

“Their products were much better, definitely,” Adams said.

Kasi Freeman, a freshman in human development and family studies, uses Clinique and was certain the price was more than fair when compared with the prescription brand she used before, and for her, it actually seemed to have a better effect. Freeman also said the drugstore brands did nothing for her.
Kelly Knox, P.A., physician’s assistant for Auburn Dermatology, said Freeman’s case was not the normal reaction.

“The department store brands are not always best,” Knox said. “In fact, most drugstore brands are comparable to anything produced by the cosmetic companies sold in department stores.”

They also talked about the popular acne solution Proactiv. Knox said Proactiv is not prescription strength and doesn’t do anything in the long run for acne treatment.

“You need something that is going to take care of the reason for the acne, not something that will just treat the acute breakout itself,” Knox said.

She also issued a warning regarding both department and drugstore brands: if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

“Most over-the-counter products, unlike prescriptive ones, are not tested by the Food and Drug Administration and often do not live up to their promises,” Knox said.

• Being the curious consumers, students ran their own tests with a few products. For an on-the-spot acne problem, two different products were tested: Clean and Clear’s Acne Spot Remover and Proactiv’s product.
• For makeup removal, students tested Neutrogena’s Makeup Removal Wipes against Lancôme’s Ablutia Fraicheur Purifying Foaming Cleanser. For the last test, students used Neutrogena’s brand of moisturizer with sunscreen against Lancôme Bienviat Multi-Vital SPF 30 cream.

The acne test was a clear win for the drugstore brands, with Clean and Clear working much better.

The second test, the moisturizers, gave points for the other side, with the Lancôme moisturizer working better and not being as greasy.

The deciding vote came with the makeup removal test.

The Neutrogena wipes actually worked better than the Lancôme cleanser, and it is already in a convenient wipe form. Skin care is something everyone needs, but one doesn’t have to break his or her bank account to do so. The drugstore brands hold their own, in most cases, to the expensive department store cousins.

Clinique last fall launched its Acne Solutions line, a three-step system similar to its classic skin-care sets, but containing anti-acne ingredients.

“In talking to our own consultants at the (retail) counter, mature customers complain of acne … and that led us to one of our major endeavors of the last five years,” says Tom Mammone, executive director of research and development at Clinique, who says several studies backed the concept that more adults say they have acne.

Peter Scocimara, CEO of Therative, the company that makes the ThermaClear heat-based, anti-acne device, says he initially thought the product would be marketed primarily to teenage boys, but that adult women have turned out to be the primary consumer. “The teen market is huge but the more sensitive market to the individual pimple is the adult woman.”

Adult acne is more common on the jawline, neck, chest and back, while teen acne tends to cluster on the forehead and cheeks, says Dr. Katie Rodan, one of the two dermatologists behind the skin-care brand Rodan + Fields.

“Pimples move south with age,” Rodan says. “They’ll be fewer in number but bigger in size.”

Teen acne is typically blamed on hormonal changes, while stress can be a more likely factor for adults, she says.

But bacteria can be the real culprit, and adults can allow heated bacteria to fester on their skin anytime they do an activity such as bikram yoga or 30 minutes on the stationary bike at the gym and enjoy their smoothie before showering.

“You stew in your own sweat,” Rodan says. “That heat you generate helps the bacteria and adults tend to do more heavy, sweaty, gym-intense exercise.”

“Showering after exercise is the easy part of curbing adult acne; living stress-free is much harder,” she adds.

Dr. Mary Lupo, clinical professor of dermatology at Tulane University, who also consults for beauty brand Philosophy, says occasional acne can be treated with over-the-counter products that include benzoyl peroxide to kill bacteria or salicylic acid to unclog pores.

But for anything consistent, she recommends prescriptive treatments that will treat an existing outbreak and could help prevent future ones.

The estrogen and progestin in the Yaz birth control pill – an option only for women – and the anti-androgen action of the hormone-therapy drug Spironolactone, which suppresses oil output, are effective, says Lupo, as is Accutane. All of those, however, should be taken while under a doctor’s care because there are potential side effects.

Laser treatments also can help active acne and acne scarring by stimulating collagen – a bonus is that they also can help with fine lines and wrinkles, she adds. But treatments average $250-$500 and patients typically need three.

The best treatment might be to accept that adult acne happens – and to know you’re not alone, says self-esteem adviser and blogger Jess Weiner, who is featured in Seventeen magazine among other media outlets.

She is no stranger to an outbreak, she says, and she used to do her best to cover it up with topical treatments and makeup.

“The blemish becomes magnified, at least in your own mind,” Weiner says. “It impedes you from feeling sexy, or fresh, or clean. … Just like when you were in junior high, a bad case of acne can completely level your confidence for the day.”

Recently she decided to change her approach and she has seen an improvement. She goes out without concealer – and no one else seemed to notice, Weiner reports.

“I also figured out how to dress around my zits. I wear hats! Hats became the great distractor. I also wear my glasses a lot, scarves or cleavage-baring shirts because then people weren’t looking at my face.”