Acne solution - Choosing Cleansing Product Tips

As part of acne solution to treat the acne, what do you have to look when choosing the cleansing product? In general what you should look is cleanser that is mild soap free, pH balance, contain no alcohol and free of abrasives.

What you should avoid would be cleanser that has highly moisturizer like the one that have high levels of highly fragrant 'natural' oils, paraffin or mineral.

For Oily Skin

With the oily skin, Look for liquid cleanse that is highly rinsable, have moisturizer just to keep the skin away from damages and irritation. Examples of this cleanser would be Cetaphil Oily Skin Cleanser or Neutrogena Oil Free Acne Wash.

For Dry Sensitive Skin

With dry skin, look for liquid cleanser that has added moisturizing and gentle oil-free.

Liquid cleansers that have added moisturizers like cetyl alcohol or glycerine can protect the skin from irritation and dry and can speed up skin repair and recovery. Examples of this cleanser would be Cetaphil Gentle Skin Cleanser, Dermaveen soap free wash, Lancôme Milk Cleanser, Neutrogena Extra Gentle Cleanser, QV gentle wash, Sebamed Liquid Face & Body Wash.

Cleansers that contain Salicylic Acid

Salicylic acid can dissolve the keratin plug and prevent the new one to form. It works by getting deep into the sebum and unblock the clogged skin pores. This progress can speed up clearing the skin of pimples.

Examples of these Cleansing products that contain salicylic acid include L'Oreal Pure Zone, Garnier Pure and Neutrogena's Rapid Clear.

Acne Solution - Choosing the Right Product for Acne Treatment

There are a lot of skin care range and product available for the acne in the market today. Choosing the best product that will suit you skin is definitely a confusing solution.

Therefore the best acne solution to start is to get the advice from the people who you can trust and who are trained in this area. You can start by your local doctor and your local pharmacist or even dermatologist; those people are the best people you can speak to for advice in choosing the right skin care products to treat your acne.

It is very important to have a good advice when choosing the right skin care products, as using the right product will make a big difference in your solution to acne problem, keep the skin healthy and keep your skin looking fresh and young.

Unless your professional acne expertise (pharmacist, local doctor and dermatologist) say otherwise, choosing the right acne solution product can be based on these three simple steps:

• Cleaning product
• Treating product
• Protecting product

Acne Solution for the Four Types of Severe Acne

Before we can discuss the acne solution for severe acne, it is better that we know first the four types of severe acne. Those four types of severe acne are:

1. Acne Conglobata

2. Acne fulminans

3. Gram Negative Folliculitis

4. Nodulocystic Acne

Acne conglobata is the most chronic and the most severe form of acne. Mostly occur to male age 18 to 30.

Acne Conglobata can be characterized by interconnected of numerous large lesions, along with the widespread of blackheads (open comedos). It could cause irrevocable, severe damage to the skin, and disfiguring scarring.

Acne conglobata may be resulted by untreated acne cysts, papules or pustules that rapidly deteriorate. It is often can be found on the thighs, face, chest, buttocks, back, and upper arms.

Acne Solution for Acne Conglobata

The usual acne solution for acne conglobata is isotretinoin, however some antibiotics may prescribed as well. Acne conglobata is sometimes resistant to treatment, so it may be necessary to have several courses of aggressive treatment over a period of years to control it.

Acne Fulminans is an abrupt onset of highly inflammatory acne. It normally occurs to a person who may have had failure treatment for acne conglobata.

Acne fulminans can be characterized by inflammation, severe symptoms and ulcerating acne, plus you can get fever and aching of the joints ussually at knees and hips.

Acne Solution for Acne Fulminans

Acne Fulminans is resistant to antibiotics therefore the normal acne solution for Acne fulminans would be Isotretinoin and some anti-inflammatory medications to reduce the inflammation.

Gram Negative Folliculitis is a rare condition where inflammation resulted by the follicles infected by a bacteria. It usually occurs to a person who may have had long-term antibiotic treatment for acne conglobata.

Acne Solution for Gram negative folliculitis

Just like acne fulminans, Gram Negative Folliculitis is resistant to antibiotics as well. Isotretinoin is the best acne solution for as it is often effective to treat Gram Negative Folliculitis.

Nodulocystic acne is the severe acne characterized by cysts. It can be so painful and can widespread over chest, shoulder, scalp, back, face and neck.

Acne solution for Nodulocystic acne.

Usual acne solution for nodulocystic acne would be to melt the cysts using intralesional corticosteroids. Another acne solution would be an aggressive treatment with isotretinoin and antibiotics. However if the follicular cysts are resistant to the medications the only acne solution would need surgical excision and drainage.

Acne Solution for Severe Acne - An Overview

Severe acne is rarely happened, however when it occurs to a person, it can greatly limit that person social life, self-confidence and self-esteem, that can lead to embarrassment and depression. Severe acne can be disfiguring and scarring and it can take years for the treatment. Therefore it is advisable that you see dermatologist as soon as possible as they know the best acne solution to treat each severe acne.

But how would you know if you got severe acne? They are four types of severe acne, each with their own characteristic. However in general, severe acne can be characterized by solid, deep, big painful lumps or cysts under the skin surface.

Severe Acne Solution Walkthrough

If all the acne solution provided by both you local doctor and pharmacist cannot overcome your acne, what you should do next:

Step 1
Go back to you local doctor and this time ask for a referral for dermatologist.

Step 2
Make an appointment and go visit the dermatologist as soon as possible. Ask for the best acne solution to treat your type of acne.

Step 3
Your dermatologist might prescribed isotretinoin (Accutane) and antibiotics for you. It is very important that you understand and follow the dermatologist’s instructions completely.

Step 4
Patience is very important here as it will take years of treatment to treat severe, disfiguring form of acne. One or more treatment failure might happen as well so your dermatologist needs to find another more aggressive solution to treat the severe acne. In this stage support from families and friends would be a great comfort.

Acne Solutions for Moderate Acne

How do you know if you suffer moderate acne? If you already try the over the counter products, and they are not working to clear your acne, there’s a chance that you suffer moderate acne.

Moderate acne are characterized by a lot of papules and pustules that covering approximately 1/4 to 3/4 of face.

What are Papules and pustules? Papules are an inflammatory acne lesion (comedo) that characterized with a small red bump on the skin surface. Pustules are an inflammatory acne lesion (comedo) that characterized with a whitehead surrounded by a ring of redness.

If you got moderate acne it is better that you go and see your local doctor to get a right advice to treat the acne as soon as possible cause moderate acne can leave a permanent scar on the skin if they are being leave untreated long enough.

There are two forms of acne scars, first as a bump or as skin tissue that raised, the second type is like a pit or depression.

Types of acne treatment for moderate acne

Actually the only treatment or prevention that is reliable for moderate acne is to treat the acne in its early course. Moderate acne could be treated with a physical methods like extracting the comedo or using combination of solutions and lotions, antibiotic and topical retinoid prescribed by your local doctor

There are two types of acne antibiotics, topical cream that can be applied to skin directly or oral medications in tablets form. Both types have a function of anti-inflammatory and to decrease the bacteria in the skin. Examples of oral antibiotics could be erythromycin, minocycline, tetracycline, and doxycycline or for female are anti-androgens and oestrogens.

Topical retinoid cream is a derivative of vitamin A that is effective in unblocking the clogged skin pores and preventing the new blockage to form. If your doctor prescript you with Topical retinoid cream for your acne treatment, you might experience some discomfort when you first use it, your skin can have some redness and peeling. In the first three weeks new acne can still appear but that's normal as they will soon disappear. After six weeks you can see that the amount of the acne will be decrease. In twelve weeks times your acne shouldn't be a problem to you anymore.

Moderate Acne Solutions Walkthrough

So what to do if you have moderate acne?

Step 1
Go and see your local doctor.

Step 2
Your doctor might prescribed you a topical or oral antibiotic.

Step 3
Apply the acne treatment for approximately twelve weeks.

Step 4
If after twelve weeks there no improvement, go back to you local doctor and ask for a referral to a dermatologist, there’s a chance that you got a severe acne.

Acne Treatment for Mild Acne

What is mild acne? Mild acne is the condition where the acne types are only limited to whiteheads and blackheads

Whiteheads are type of acne that formed due to the blockage of the skin pores by the excessive oil and dead skin cell.

Blackheads are type of acne that the formation is the same just like the whiteheads acne except it has the dark pigment of oil.

In most mild acne cases, an early treatment and a regular preventive skincare will help a lot in reducing the acne.

For mild acne, there are a lot of anti-acne treatment widely available over-the-counter which mean that you don't need a doctor's prescription to buy one and there a good chance that one of the treatments available will work for you.

For a long term control of your acne, it is advisable to use an acnegenic topical skincare kind of product that has ingredients such as benzoyl peroxide, salicylic acid and triclosan. Those products are widely available without prescription and very effective to cure mild acne.

Mild Acne Walkthrough

So what to do if you have mild acne?

1. Go see you local pharmacist and ask for a recommended for over-the-counter product that will suit your skin.

2. Read and follow the instructions carefully so it will clear your current acne and prevent a new one.

3. Do according to the acne treatments instructions regularly, reduce cosmetic usage, if you can, don't use the oil based cosmetic.

4. If after eight weeks your mild acne doesn't show any reduction, go and see a dermatologist.

Acne Prevention Tip

Despite of what most people's believe, Acne is not cause by dirt. Acne is cause by several factors combined all together. Unfortunately factors such as the changing of hormone balance is the kind of factors that we cannot control. However, there are couples of things that we can control to keep the acne in place. Follows these acne prevention tips to begin with:

Acne prevention tip - Don't wash your face too many times.

As has been discuss before that the cause of acne is not a dirt, therefore scrubbing or washing too many times will not make the acne go away. As the matter of fact it can make your skin dry and your acne feel irritated. If you have an oily skin it will stimulate the oil glands to produce more oil then will make things worse. Just wash your face like twice a day.

Acne Prevention Tip - Don't scrubs too harsh.

When you wash and scrubs your face try to do it gently don't harsh, as harsh can tear your skin and irritated and aggravated the acne.

Acne Prevention Tip - Avoid alcohol.

Don't use toner that have a high concentration of isopropyl alcohol or any common rubbing alcohol to your skin or acne. As alcohol can make your skin surface dry and causing the oil glands produce more oil.

Acne Prevention Tip - Absolutely no squeezing nor picking.

When you Squeeze or pick your acne whether it's with fingernails or with anything else, indirectly you push the acne bacteria deeper into the skin, which in result worsening the inflammation and infection. More to that you also damage the acne surrounding skin that can lead to leave a permanent acne scar.

Acne Prevention Tip - Don't touch your face too often

Well it's only touching my face.. What it got anything to do with acne?? Most people would thing that way. The problem is that each time you touch your face either rubbing or just resting your chin in your hand, you push the acne bacteria deeper into you skin.

Even though that this acne bacteria is actually a normal part of the skin however if it's getting trapped in the skin pores, it can lead to inflammation. Therefore you can still touch your face but just don't over do it.

Acne Prevention Tip - Shower after exercise

When we exercise, our body movements generate heat, our sweat touching the clothes create humidity. These heat and humidity are trapped against our skin and blocked the skin pores which can stimulate the acne bacteria to do it's dirty work. Therefore it is the sooner to have a shower after exercise is the better as it will reduce our chances to have acne.

What Are The Things That Can Aggravate Acne?

In general the causes of acne are mainly due to the effects of the acne bacteria, masculine hormone androgens and the oil glands inflammation being combined all together. The formations of acne go through such mechanism: over production of oil, blockage of the skin pores, and the inflammation.

Occlusive Factors: in acne, being occlusive means the skin pores are being blocked. Some factors that can cause the obstruction include hairspray, certain cosmetics, greases, and oils. A prolong contact with damp clothes, sweating and humidity as well as wearing helmets or hats, all can have contribution to the acne problems also.

Medications: Some medications that have an androgens hormone nature can aggravate acne by increasing the oil production and the blockage of the skin pore. The examples of these medications are lithium, some medications for anti-seizure, progestina (a component from birth control pill) and also anabolic steroids.

Inflammation: Most of the things that can aggravate the acne are: picking, squeezing or popping zits. Cleansing your skin too much, particularly using the abrasive facial scrubs can make the inflammation worse and even irritate your skin.

Picking or squeezing the acne spots can cause further disruption of the acne oil glands and worsen the inflammation. This disruption can lead the contents of the oil glands leak deeper into the skin, which can also worsen the inflammation.

What Causes Acne?

In what we know medically, there are four important steps that leading to the cause of acne. These steps responsible to associate blackhead, whitehead and pimple with acne. Those steps are: Overproduction of oil by oil’s gland, clogged skin pores, skin bacteria activities, inflammation of the skin.

The overproduction of oil by oil’s gland,

Oil’s Gland is the producer of the oil that located deep within the skin, and it has a very small channel that contains a hair called a follicle. The opening channel in the skin surface is called the skin pores.

The oil from the oil's gland flows to the skin's surface through these channels to lubricate the follicles of the hair and the surrounding skin.

Eventhough overproduction of oil is the first step of what causes acne, however the oil production itself is heavily stimulated by hormones, specifically the masculine hormones called androgens (Eventhough it's masculine hormones, women do have these hormones as well but much more less). These hormones are produced by the androgens glands which located in testes in men and in the ovaries in women.

When we are stress, the androgens glands produce more androgens hormone which will lead to overproductive of oil's glands.

During puberty, the hormonal changes lead to overactive of the oil's glands.

So the next time if some what you feel that your skin is so oily, just remember that it can cause acne.

clogged skin pores

The second step of what causes acne is the clogged skin pores. As the oil normally runs through the channel to the skin surface, along with it is the dead cells.

When the skin so oily, some of the oil cannot reach the skin surface and trapped within the skin pores along with the dead cells. Somehow this dead cells group together and make the skin pores clogged.

Some what it is this clogged that will cause the blackheads and the whiteheads types of acne.

Abnormal Skin Bacteria activity

Infection from bacteria got nothing to do with what so ever that causes acne. However, bacteria do play an important role to make things worse.

It is bacterium Propionibacterium acnes as a part of a normal skin surface. It's function is to keep the skin away from the harmful bacteria.

Bacterium Propionibacterium acnes grows in the clogged channel of the skin pores. It produce a chemical agent which reaction can change the oil composition, resulted an irritation and inflammation to the skin.

Skin Inflammation

The skin inflammation happens due to the body immune system is reacting to get rid of a foreign substance. It can be characterized by feeling warmth and discomfort, redness and swelling. What it got to do with the causes of acne? With acne this foreign substance can be the irritating compounds or the bacteria.

Some what it is this inflammation that will cause the pimples and the cysts types of acne.