One of our Princess’ turned 22 this week and amid concerns about eating far too much cake and finishing her degree some time in the next decade, one of the things she discussed looking forward to was more consistent skin. By your early twenties raging teenage hormones are well and truly in the rear view mirror, a good skin care regime has been developed and sugar consumption is (on most days…) quite low. However, Style Palace director Darlene Gianoli questioned these high dermal hopes. Gianoli deals with what 1 in 5 women over 25 experiences: adult acne. Talking about how she still gets break outs, we began to wonder if we were doomed to battle, cajole and cover-up our skin and started doing some research.
Adult acne begins with black heads. Contrary to popular opinion, blackheads are caused by oil and dead skills being trapped in your pores, not bacteria. The “black” occurs when the pore is exposed to air. If black heads are not removed they develop into the red or white-headed pimples that unfortunately are a symbol of teenage tribulation. As such adult acne is an easy phenomena to ignore or attribute to the wrong causes as we assume we have left that all behind but clearly many of us haven’t. “I get breakouts fairly regularly”, says Gianoli, “but the key is to not pick at the skin to keep it under control”. Her experience has led to some fantastic tips and solutions such as being vigilant about not touching your skin throughout the day to keep dirt off it and definitely do not touch or squeeze pimples. This leads to terrible scarring, which will fade less and less as you get older.
Gianoli recommends using an active cleanser. This is a cleanser that contains fruit acids, alpha-hydroxy acids and another active active ingredient (these vary). These are known as tri-active cleansers and the only challenge is finding the right one for your skin type and brand preference. Another fantastic tip is to cleanse two times a day, twice a day. This means using the tri-active cleanser twice in the morning, before applying moisturizer/makeup and twice in the evening after taking off your makeup, before bed. Other tips we found are to avoid moisturizers and cleansers that contain oil; exfoliate with salicylic acid treatments 1-3 times a week and facials from a trusted facialist work wonders.
If you’re concerned about your skin make sure to see a dermatologist! At this age you should be able to have your birthday cake and eat it too.
Darlene’s favourite products that really work …
Enzyme Cleaner - www.elixxir.com.au
Erakikate Acne Treatment - http://www.katesomerville.com/eradikate-acne-treatment/
