Long-Term Acne Solutions That Get The Job Done

No idea why you’re getting an influx of acne right now? Many lifestyle habits can trigger your breakouts ­­­­­– and sometimes they’re found in the most unsuspecting places.

As you know, acne is caused by one thing and one thing alone: an excess of sebum that causes your pores to become blocked with oil, dead skin cells, bacteria and other impurities. Eating too much chocolate doesn’t give you pimples. Neither does moisturizer. Sure, they can trigger breakouts if you’re genetically susceptible to them, but acne isn’t caused by uncleanliness, a poor diet or crummy skincare routine. It’s caused by blocked pores. End of.

OK, so this begs the question: why bother trying to cure them if your breakouts are totally out of your control? Well, here’s the thing. You can’t change your genes, that’s for certain. However, what you can do is keep acne-triggering factors under control to help lessen the blow. Sleeping well, reducing emotional stress and eating a healthy, well-balanced diet; all these things are important for maintaining balanced sebum and therefore reducing the likelihood of you breaking out week after week.

But there are also some less obvious reasons why you face might be suffering with regular breakouts. So if you’ve already dispensed with things like smoking, poor cleansing and too much exfoliation, but you’re still getting pimples on the reg, it might be time to look at some of the more unexpected areas of your life.

On that note, read on for five slightly more unusual causes for your breakouts.

1. Your Pillowcase

Getting enough beauty sleep is crucial for the health of your skin, but if you’re sleeping on a dirty pillowcase for a solid eight hours every night dirt and bacteria is inevitably going to build up and irritate your pores. This is especially true if you sleep on a synthetic pillowcase because man-made fibers don’t absorb sweat as effectively as natural fibres like cotton or linen.

The answer? Go natural all the way, for starters. Also, cleanse and moisturize your skin before bed to reduce the amount of grime getting on your pillowcase. Tea Tree Super Cleanser+ is a great acne-fighting cleanser that balances and clarifies your pores. Follow this with Retinol Moisturizer to lightly hydrate and moisturize your skin while boosting cellular turnover to keep your pores free of dead skin cells.

Finally, wash your pillowcase every three or four days. And ditto, your face towel. Old, dirty towels that are used by the whole family for drying their hands and who-knows-what-else are another breeding ground for germs and bacteria. Do you really want to be swiping this all over your freshly cleansed skin? Thought not. So, invest in a couple of cotton face towels for you and you alone and wash them every other day.

2. Your Makeup & Hair Products

Your skincare routine might be spot on, but what about your makeup and hair products? Rich hair conditioners, for example, are notorious for containing heavy ingredients like cocoa butter and coconut oil which, granted, are incredible for moisturizing your precious locks, but are not so great for acne-prone skin. Of course, we know you’re not smothering your face with conditioner but still, it can settle on your face when you rinse your hair so always cleanse your skin after, never before conditioning.

Makeup can similarly clog up your pores, especially if you use formulations that contain oil. So don’t do that. Instead, look out for noncomedogenic products (this means they’re less likely to block pores) and use powder rather than liquid formulations whenever possible.

3. Your Workout Routine

Do you love to get a good sweat on when you’re working out? High fives to you. However, allow all that sweat and grime to sit on your skin and your pores are going to clog up quicker than your instructor can say ‘hit the floor for ten push-ups.’

Cleanse your skin thoroughly and swiftly after exercising (the longer you leave your skin doused in sweat and grimy workout gear, the more bacteria is likely to breed), and always use a mild but effective cleanser that helps to detoxify your skin without drying it out. Our Charcoal Clarifying Cleanser is a goodie as it harnesses the powers of coconut-derived activated charcoal which destroys skin-smothering impurities to offer a deep, gently purifying clean every time.

4. Your Winter Cover-Ups

Any fabric that rubs against your skin can lead to unwanted issues in the long-term. Remember how face masks were causing ‘maskne’ back in the pandemic? This was all due to friction from the mask combining with the obvious culprits of sweat, dirt, oil, bacteria and humidity which caused dryness, irritation and pimples.

Thankfully, for most of us, the days of having to wear a mask 24/7 are over. However, if you spend a lot of time outdoors in the winter and like to wrap yourself up in woollen hats and thick, heavy scarves, these can cause similar problems, trapping sweat and increasing friction around your chin, jaw, neck and forehead.

To help reduce breakouts caused by beanies, scarves (and even turtleneck sweaters), avoid synthetic fabrics and launder your winter cover-ups regularly. Weekly, at least.

5. Your Laundry Detergent

Speaking of laundry, your choice of detergent is also imperative. Just like your beauty routine, certain ingredients in your laundry detergent can be super irritating – especially if you have extremely sensitive or acne-prone skin. Fragrance, for example, can be a real Debbie Downer, as can harsh dyes, essentials oils, strong surfactants and preservatives.

To reduce the likelihood of your laundry detergent triggering those pesky breakouts, first up, choose liquid over powder detergents. Why? Because these leave behind less residue on your clothes and fabrics (who knew?!). Also, never use more detergent than is recommended on the label, avoid fabric softeners and try double rinsing your laundry after washing to remove as much residue as possible.

Do you feel like your already-supersized-pores are growing by the minute? They're not. But it might feel like they are...

Pores are the foundation of healthy skin. Of course, collagen makes your skin strong, supple and plump. And yes, elastin gives it that all-important bouncebackability. But without pores, your skin would be a dry, shrivelled up shadow of its former self. Not to mention the fact that your entire body would lose its ability to regulate its own body temperature.

As a quick reminder, pores are tiny, microscopic openings found at the surface of your skin right at the top of your hair follicles and sweat glands. They exist to allow important liquids (as well as other particles and gases) to pass through the surface of your skin. The human body has two types of pores: sweat pores which help regulate body temperature; and oil-producing pores that are found at the top of your hair follicles where they release sebum to moisturize and lubricate the surface of the skin. The good thing about sweat pores is that they’re so small you can’t see them making them of very little concern in the grand scheme of things.

Oil-producing pores, on the other hand, are just so annoyingly visible. So why?

What Determines The Size Of Your Pores?

Like your height, skin tone and color of your hair, the size of your pores is largely shaped by genetics. This means that yes, you can blame your parents, and yes, the size of your pores is pretty much fixed.

Of course, this is great news if you have almost invisible pores. Not so much if yours feel like they take over your entire face. But let’s get one thing straight: no matter how enlarged you believe your pores are when you study them in the mirror, they’re rarely as bad as you think. Because the truth is, nobody else scrutinizes your skin on the same level as do you.

Do Pores Get Bigger Over Time?

Yes and no. The size of your pores never really changes on a physiological level. So yes, all those half-truths about being able to ‘shrink’ your pores with alcohol-heavy toners or freezing cold water is a bit of a con. But there’s a little bit of truth in there because while the actual size of your pores doesn’t alter, their walls can stretch and expand, making them appear more pronounced.

Penny drops.

What Causes Pores To Stretch With Age?

Many things happen to your skin throughout your life that can cause the walls of your pores to become damaged and loose. Of course, regular aging plays the most obvious role as your collagen levels naturally decrease over time. Sadly, there’s not a huge amount you can do about your biological clock (there’s those genes doing their worst again!) but there are many other factors of which you can control that contribute to the rate at which your pores become slack. 

Sun Damage

Gosh, the sun gets blamed for a lot of skin issues. But we don’t apologize for that because it really is one of the worst things for the condition of your skin. UV radiation breaks down important proteins like collagen and elastin thanks to a build-up of free radicals. This weakens the collagen fibers that give your skin its structure, thus allowing the walls of your pores to become slack, weak and kind of baggy-looking. AKA more visible!

Picking Your Skin

If you have a tendency to pick or squeeze your skin, this not only irritates your skin as a whole, but it can seriously mess with the collagen and elastin fibers that keep your skin firm and supple. Scarring is the most obvious possibility from picking your skin, but you pores will also suffer as a consequence.

Excess Sebum

After puberty sebum production usually levels out to a somewhat more ‘normal’ rate. However, things can get messy again during significant hormonal changes in your life. Menstruation, pregnancy, the menopause, all of these periods in your life cause your hormones to become unbalanced and your sebum levels to fluctuate. And when sebum production increases it fills up your pores causing them to expand, stretch and appear bigger.

Slow Cell Turnover

When you’re in your 20s each skin cell has a life cycle of around 28 days in which time it is formed at the lower levels, moves up to the surface and then sheds. As with most biological functions, however, cell turnover slows down as you mature, causing dead cells to hang around longer than necessary at the surface of your skin. Like excess sebum, these dead cells have nowhere else to go but to clog up your pores. And clogged pores = saggy, enlarged-looking pores.

Bad Makeup Choices

Certain foundations and face cosmetics that contain heavy oils and thick butters can also block your pores, causing them to expand and become more noticeable. Make sure you scan the labels of your favorite makeup formulations to ensure they’re non-comedogenic. Non-comedogenic means they’re way less likely to block your pores (comedone is the fancy term for pore, if you didn’t know).

The Best Ways To Keep Your Pores Tight

After reading the above you can probably guess what you need to do to avoid your pores becoming damaged and saggy. But we’ll lay it out for you anyway, just to drive the point home!

1. First up, wear sunscreen. This is the best thing you can do to conserve the collagen you’ve already got while ensuring you’re still making quality fresh stuff. Apply SPF 30 Mineral Sunscreen with Vitamin C every morning as par for the course, and do your skin even more of a solid by doubling up your protection with an antioxidant serum underneath sunscreen. Niacinamide is a very good ingredient for smoother, more resilient skin so try our Niacinamide (B3) Facial Serum.

2. Don’t pick your skin. Pimples or no pimples. Nothing good can come of this.

3. Balance sebum by gently cleansing and lightly moisturizing your skin come what may. It’s super important to keep your skin clean morning and night so that oils don’t build up at the surface. We love Tea Tree Super Cleanser+ which harnesses the power of tea tree oil to clarify the skin without leaving it feeling parched. Just remember, it’s equally as vital to follow with moisturizer so your skin doesn’t think it’s dry and overcompensate with more oil than you started with!

4. Exfoliate to boost cellular turnover. But don’t overdo it. Listen to your skin and exfoliate just once or twice a week if that’s all it needs. Our Vitamin C Gentle Face Scrub (which just won an industry award may we add!) is a fantastic way to keep your skin bright, clean and dead skin cell-free. Plus, it’s kind to your skin. Which is super important, at any age.

5. Finally, don't underestimate the powers of retinol. Retinol is an incredible way to boost collagen AND encourage healthy cellular turnover. That's great news for your pores. And for controlling acne. And for reducing the appearance of wrinkles. And... well, you get the picture. Try our classic Retinol Facial Serum once or twice a week to begin with, building up to nightly as your skin acclimates.

Salicylic acid is right up there with glycolic acid for exfoliating your skin. But it also has an extra string in its bow. Listen up, oily skin folks, this one’s for you…

Salicylic acid is one of those ingredients that truly delivers. Forget your snail mucus and 24k gold flakes because they simply don’t live up to the hype. Along with skincare greats like retinol and vitamin C, however, salicylic acid does exactly what it sets out to do. And frankly, that’s all you can ask from a skincare ingredient, is it not?

If you’re not sure what salicylic acid is all about, not a problem, that’s what we’re here for. 

So, read on for everything we know about salicylic acid: glycolic acid’s equally as effective, but really quite different cousin…

What Is Salicylic Acid, Exactly?

You’ve heard of AHAs and BHAs, right? Well, salicylic acid sits in the BHA camp. In fact, it’s really the only BHA you need to know about being the single most common BHA used in skincare and cosmetics.

BHAs, or beta-hydroxy acids are fat-soluble chemical exfoliants that break down the bonds between your skin cells to encourage them to slough away more efficiently. Physical scrubs have the same effect, but they use physical pressure alongside grains or textured surfaces to exfoliate your skin. Chemical exfoliants just harness the powers of acids like salicylic to do the same job, improving cellular turnover as a major part of the deal.

Salicylic acid, in particular, is extracted from the bark of willow trees and has amazing exfoliating benefits. But there’s more. It also has anti-inflammatory and antibacterial qualities (take that, pimples!) and, because it’s fat-soluble, it has an uncanny knack of penetrating into your pores and getting to work on your sebaceous glands. And that’s a big plus if you have super oily skin you find hard to control…

The Benefits Of Salicylic Acid In Skincare

Exfoliants are a crucial part of a healthy skincare routine. Not only do they boost cell turnover to help give you a smoother, softer and brighter complexion, but they also work hard to improve collagen synthesis. And as you mature, that’s really important since collagen degradation becomes a huge deal as you hit your 30s and beyond.

As we mentioned, however, salicylic acid differs to other water-soluble chemical exfoliants like glycolic, citric and lactic acids. And that’s because it’s fat-soluble which allows it to go deeper below the skin’s surface, penetrating through the lipid layers to really get into the pores. We mean no disrespect to the AHAs of the world, of course, because they’re incredible at what they do – which is to exfoliate at a more surface level. But, if you have oily skin or have trouble with breakouts, blackheads or blocked pores, salicylic acid can offer so much more.

Salicylic acid is almost unbeatable at preventing your pores from becoming clogged with dead skin cells and excess sebum, AND it gently exfoliates your skin by loosening the bonds that hold together those tough, outer layers of dead skin cells. This not only improves the tone and texture of your complexion almost immediately, but it stimulates collagen production helping to stave off premature lines and wrinkles as time goes by.

To summarize, the key benefits of salicylic acid are…

5 Ways To Make Salicylic Acid Work For You

Like most active ingredients, salicylic acid must be given the respect it deserves. Here’s how to use it wisely and effectively...

1. Always Patch Test Salicylic Acid First

Most salicylic acid treatments are well-tolerated by all skin types and safe for daily use. However, there’s always a chance your skin could freak out by this potent, active ingredient, so patch test any new product before applying it regularly. And yes, we know patch testing sounds like a bit of a headache, but it’s really easy and will only delay your product use by a day or so... but it can save your skin a whole lotta pain.

To patch test your product, apply a small amount to a discreet area of your skin (we like to do it behind an ear). Then leave it for 24-48 hours to check for any negative reactions. Most likely, your skin will be fine other than mild redness or tingling which is to be expected with any active product. However, if you experience anything like burning, discomfort, swelling or itching, stop use immediately – this product is not a good fit for you. 

2. Listen To Your Skin To Get Your Routine Right

Once you know you’re safe to use your salicylic acid formulation without any negative reactions, introduce it slowly into your routine. Your skin might be strong enough to take it every day… then again, it might not. Start with once a week and then build on that after a couple of weeks as your skin acclimates. And remember to always read the labels of your products as not all serums are built to be used daily, anyway!

Our Vitamin C Super Serum+, for example, is packed with potent ingredients and combines salicylic acid with other skin superheroes like retinol and vitamin C. Because of this we recommend you apply it just two or three times a week for the best results.

3. Get The Most From Salicylic Acid By Using A Leave-On Treatment

Salicylic acid can be used in pretty much any skincare formulation, from cleansers and toners, through to exfoliants, serums and moisturizers. To really maximize its benefits, however, we believe that leave-on products offer far superior results to anything you’re going to wash down the plughole. It’s common sense, right?

On that note, try our 6% AHA, BHA + PHA Liquid Exfoliant which is everything for brighter, clearer, smoother-looking skin. Apply it to clean skin, before your serum and moisturizer.

4. Combine It With Tea Tree Oil

Our Tea Tree Super Serum+ blends salicylic acid with tea tree oil to really hit breakouts from all angles.

Tea tree oil is extracted from the leaves of the Australian tea tree and it has awesome anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial benefits making it a shoo-in for helping to calm facial redness at a surface level. Meanwhile, salicylic acid goes deeper to improve cell turnover and help remove excess oil and dirt that can block your pores in the first place. Together they’re truly dynamite. What’s more, our serum has been crafted to be as gentle as possible while still providing all the benefits you could ever want.

As we said, dynamite.

5. Use Sunscreen Every Morning

All experts agree (us, dermatologists, the FDA, need we go on?) that salicylic acid must be used in conjunction with a broad-spectrum sunscreen in order to help protect the skin and avoid sensitivities to UV radiation. It’s basically non-negotiable, so make sure sunscreen is as much a part of your morning routine as cleaning your teeth and brushing your hair.

We like to keep our SPF30 Mineral Sunscreen with Vitamin C right there on the shelf next to our serums and eye cream. That way, we never forget.

No idea why you’re getting an influx of acne right now? Many lifestyle habits can trigger your breakouts ­­­­­– and sometimes they’re found in the most unsuspecting places.

As you know, acne is caused by one thing and one thing alone: an excess of sebum that causes your pores to become blocked with oil, dead skin cells, bacteria and other impurities. Eating too much chocolate doesn’t give you pimples. Neither does moisturizer. Sure, they can trigger breakouts if you’re genetically susceptible to them, but acne isn’t caused by uncleanliness, a poor diet or crummy skincare routine. It’s caused by blocked pores. End of.

OK, so this begs the question: why bother trying to cure them if your breakouts are totally out of your control? Well, here’s the thing. You can’t change your genes, that’s for certain. However, what you can do is keep acne-triggering factors under control to help lessen the blow. Sleeping well, reducing emotional stress and eating a healthy, well-balanced diet; all these things are important for maintaining balanced sebum and therefore reducing the likelihood of you breaking out week after week.

But there are also some less obvious reasons why you face might be suffering with regular breakouts. So if you’ve already dispensed with things like smoking, poor cleansing and too much exfoliation, but you’re still getting pimples on the reg, it might be time to look at some of the more unexpected areas of your life.

On that note, read on for five slightly more unusual causes for your breakouts.

1. Your Pillowcase

Getting enough beauty sleep is crucial for the health of your skin, but if you’re sleeping on a dirty pillowcase for a solid eight hours every night dirt and bacteria is inevitably going to build up and irritate your pores. This is especially true if you sleep on a synthetic pillowcase because man-made fibers don’t absorb sweat as effectively as natural fibres like cotton or linen.

The answer? Go natural all the way, for starters. Also, cleanse and moisturize your skin before bed to reduce the amount of grime getting on your pillowcase. Tea Tree Super Cleanser+ is a great acne-fighting cleanser that balances and clarifies your pores. Follow this with Retinol Moisturizer to lightly hydrate and moisturize your skin while boosting cellular turnover to keep your pores free of dead skin cells.

Finally, wash your pillowcase every three or four days. And ditto, your face towel. Old, dirty towels that are used by the whole family for drying their hands and who-knows-what-else are another breeding ground for germs and bacteria. Do you really want to be swiping this all over your freshly cleansed skin? Thought not. So, invest in a couple of cotton face towels for you and you alone and wash them every other day.

2. Your Makeup & Hair Products

Your skincare routine might be spot on, but what about your makeup and hair products? Rich hair conditioners, for example, are notorious for containing heavy ingredients like cocoa butter and coconut oil which, granted, are incredible for moisturizing your precious locks, but are not so great for acne-prone skin. Of course, we know you’re not smothering your face with conditioner but still, it can settle on your face when you rinse your hair so always cleanse your skin after, never before conditioning.

Makeup can similarly clog up your pores, especially if you use formulations that contain oil. So don’t do that. Instead, look out for noncomedogenic products (this means they’re less likely to block pores) and use powder rather than liquid formulations whenever possible.

3. Your Workout Routine

Do you love to get a good sweat on when you’re working out? High fives to you. However, allow all that sweat and grime to sit on your skin and your pores are going to clog up quicker than your instructor can say ‘hit the floor for ten push-ups.’

Cleanse your skin thoroughly and swiftly after exercising (the longer you leave your skin doused in sweat and grimy workout gear, the more bacteria is likely to breed), and always use a mild but effective cleanser that helps to detoxify your skin without drying it out. Our Charcoal Clarifying Cleanser is a goodie as it harnesses the powers of coconut-derived activated charcoal which destroys skin-smothering impurities to offer a deep, gently purifying clean every time.

4. Your Winter Cover-Ups

Any fabric that rubs against your skin can lead to unwanted issues in the long-term. Remember how face masks were causing ‘maskne’ back in the pandemic? This was all due to friction from the mask combining with the obvious culprits of sweat, dirt, oil, bacteria and humidity which caused dryness, irritation and pimples.

Thankfully, for most of us, the days of having to wear a mask 24/7 are over. However, if you spend a lot of time outdoors in the winter and like to wrap yourself up in woollen hats and thick, heavy scarves, these can cause similar problems, trapping sweat and increasing friction around your chin, jaw, neck and forehead.

To help reduce breakouts caused by beanies, scarves (and even turtleneck sweaters), avoid synthetic fabrics and launder your winter cover-ups regularly. Weekly, at least.

5. Your Laundry Detergent

Speaking of laundry, your choice of detergent is also imperative. Just like your beauty routine, certain ingredients in your laundry detergent can be super irritating – especially if you have extremely sensitive or acne-prone skin. Fragrance, for example, can be a real Debbie Downer, as can harsh dyes, essentials oils, strong surfactants and preservatives.

To reduce the likelihood of your laundry detergent triggering those pesky breakouts, first up, choose liquid over powder detergents. Why? Because these leave behind less residue on your clothes and fabrics (who knew?!). Also, never use more detergent than is recommended on the label, avoid fabric softeners and try double rinsing your laundry after washing to remove as much residue as possible.