Acne & breakouts

A breakout starts when a pore becomes blocked with dead skin and oil. Bacteria that live on everyone's skin then multiply in that closed environment, and the redness and swelling you see is your immune system responding to it. That is why squeezing rarely helps — it pushes the contents deeper and turns a spot that would have gone in three days into a mark that lasts three months.

Adult breakouts are frequently not the same thing as teenage acne. Hormonal fluctuation, stress, a compromised barrier from over-cleansing, and occasionally a product you have been told is good for you are all common drivers, and they need different responses.

The marks left behind are also two different things. Red or brown flat marks are post-inflammatory pigmentation and they do fade. Indented or raised marks are scarring, and they need a different conversation entirely.

• We start by working out whether your barrier needs repairing before anything active goes near it. Often it does, and that alone changes things.
• Deep cleansing facials to clear existing congestion, spaced closely at first and then further apart.
• Gentle resurfacing — chemical peels or microdermabrasion — once the skin is calm enough to tolerate it.
• LED light therapy, which is non-invasive and useful alongside other treatments.
• Honest home-care advice, usually involving fewer products than you are currently using.

Expect six to twelve weeks before you can fairly judge progress. Skin turns over roughly every four weeks, and anything that promises to clear acne in a fortnight is selling you a short-term surface change.

• Facials & Skin Treatments