Teenage Acne

The teenage years can be a difficult time for your skin and your self confidence. Just when you want to dress to impress the new hot talent in your class, your skin erupts into blemishes and a red ugly boil develops at the end of your nose. What can you do other than hide away ?

Parents, exams and teenage acne

First of all, I'll tell you why it happens. Hormones and genetics are to blame! There is little we can do about either. However we can understand what happens and then work with it. During the teen years your hormones are all over the place, your moods are up and down, sometimes you are full of energy and sometimes you just want to sleep. On top of all this there are yukky things like parents and exams which never go together without the word STRESS.

Doctors, chocolate and teenage acne

Although drugs prescribed for acne nowadays are very efficient, doctors often don't explain what causes acne and how they can help their condition. "Stay away from chocolate and burgers," they say! We now know staying away from chocolate and burgers, unless you have an allergy to some of the ingredients, isn't going to make any difference to your acne. However, it has been proved that drinking fizzy drinks especially coke will give you spots.

Hormones, sebum and teenage acne

If you are unlucky and have inherited an oily skin gene, your hormones are all over the place and you are stressed, then the result can often mean acne. If you are producing more sebum (oil) than can be dealt with by the skin then often your pores become clogged, red and angry and infected. To help prevent this happening you should exfoliate using a very gentle product.

Gentle Exfoliation

Mix some porridge oats to a paste with warm water or rosewater and gently massage over your skin. Do this once a week. Never use an exfoliate that may over-stimulate your skin, producing even more sebum.

Natural Products to use : Try using only water on your face instead of harsh chemicals and soaps which change your ph and leave your face unnaturally dry and open to infection. Rinse your face three or four times throughout the day.

Aloe vera Gel - Apply a little onto your face as a part of your daily routine. This will help the healing process of your skin.

Emergency First Aid - If your skin has some red angry looking blemishes try dabbing a little lavender onto the redness : this will calm and soothe taking away that angry look very quickly.

Facial for oil skin

• 1 egg white - beat until fluffy
• 1tsp of tangerine juice
• ½ tsp of runny honey
• Fullers earth
• Rosewater

Mix the above ingredients to a paste adding more fullers earth for a stickier facial and extra rosewater to make it runnier.

Apply to your face taking care to keep the mixture away from your eyes. Now take the chance to relax for 15-20 minutes.

Jennifer from http://www.beauty-soap-and-bubbles.com