How to manage and treat acne and breakouts

Real quick - let’s touch on what just what can cause acne.

Acne is a skin condition that occurs when your hair follicles become plugged with oil and dead skin cells. Some types of skin bacteria may make pimples worse. Pimples can appear anywhere on the skin, but they most often occur on the face.

Four main factors cause acne:

• Excess oil production - usually caused by fluctuations in hormones, or genetics.
• Hair follicles clogged by oil and dead skin cells
• Bacteria
• Excess activity of a type of hormone (androgens)

Now, two of these causes are out of your hands - genetics and hormones, it can be difficult to avoid acne all together if you are prone to it. However, there are ways to help manage, treat and reduce the effects.



Proper cleansing

If you do ONE thing to help manage your acne, make it this. Proper cleansing! If you have excessively oily skin, your first reaction may be to reach for the oil-free cleanser, or the cleanser promising to dry up your oil. But without getting too sciency on you, your skin naturally has its own defensive barrier called the acid mantle, which is going to be the best protection against bacteria, dirt build up and environmental factors when it comes to acne, so we need to focus on repairing and maintaining your acid mantle, not stripping it away with over-cleansing or harsh cleansers. When you strip away the natural oils on your skin, your skin is going to try to rebalance itself and restore the acid mantle, which it does by, you guessed it, producing more oil (called sebum). 

So what can we do to help?

• Avoid harsh, drying chemicals.
• Do not over wash
• Aim for a pH balancing cleanser - your skin is naturally slightly acidic and performs best around this level
• Try an oil cleansing routine

Exfoliate

Now, we mentioned how acne is commonly caused by hair follicles getting all clogged up with a build up of dirt, dead skin cells and bacteria? This is where a regular exfoliation routine comes in. By using a gentle chemical and physical exfoliant 2-3 times a week, like Bright Skin Powder as part of our CLEAR Acne + Breakout Control Upgrade, you are able to dissolve and lift away that build up of dead skin cells and bacteria and keeping your pores clear. This exfoliation action will in turn promote the production of collagen in your fresh skin cells, which will help to heal any acne inflammation and scars.

Moisturise

You’re thinking, dehydrated skin is not a problem I have, with all this excess oil, right? But by providing your skin with proper hydration, in the form of a serum and facial oil after cleansing, your acid mantle will be able to repair and maintain itself, allowing it to do its job of protecting your skin, retaining deep level moisture and bringing back balance to your skin! 

Our Supercharged Trio is designed just for this type of routine, to provide a simple, 3-step routine that will help to manage oily skin and acne breakouts.

Treat

But we all know, with all our good intentions, these things still happen! Other factors, such as stress, or the aforementioned genetics and hormonal imbalances, play a role in acne. That’s why a critical part of the long term management of acne is treating breakouts as they occur to help the skin recover faster. Faster recovery means less likelihood of scarring, hyper-pigmentation and long-term skin damage.

This is where an anti-inflammatory spot treatment comes in - the focus is getting the inflammation down fast so the skin can heal. The Erase Spot Treatment Stick is perfect for this - it combines powerful anti-inflammatories with a selection of softening oils that are perfect to help aid skin recovery and minimize scarring.

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Check out our complete solution for managing breakouts, our Supercharged Trio plus a brand new Upgrade Pack - CLEAR: Acne and Breakout Control

Created for that extra level of management needed for pesky breakouts, and acne flareups.

Step 1. Bright Skin Powder is designed to exfoliate, with a focus on preventing breakouts, by lifting and removing build-up of dead skin cells and bacteria inside your pores.

This super fine mix combines raw plant bio-actives in a dry powder to preserve the full potency of the ingredients and remove the need for fillers & preservatives. Pineapple Enzyme (Bromelain) – a natural AHA to gently surface the skin. Australian Kaolin Clay to purify and detoxify, Organic Brown Rice Powder to gently physically exfoliate and Organic Oat Extract to soften and soothe.

Step 2. The Erase Spot Treatment Stick is designed to reduce already existing breakouts and allow them to heal fast.

It starts with two deeply anti-inflammatory ingredients – organic, wild-harvested fennel seed and organic calendula leaves. These raw botanicals are gently infused into a skin-friendly oil for over 6 weeks – extracting the maximum dose of bio-actives to soothe, draw redness & inflammation out of painful breakouts and help the skin heal. 

This unique duo stops acne in its tracks - helping to prevent the formation of breakouts and helping the skin recover faster from them as they form. Pairs perfectly with the Supercharged Trio!