Acne: Your Guide To Clear Skin

The Acne Breakdown: Your Guide To Acne-Free Skin

It all started with a breakout…

Samantha started suffering from acne in her late 20s. As an esthetician who knew how to treat skin, Samantha was unsuccessful—nothing she did helped clear her skin. With every pregnancy, her skin was clear, so she assumed her breakouts were hormonal and would eventually clear after her pregnancies. This journey taught Samantha that our gut health and acne are linked together. She is passionate about her mission to heal her gut and help clients uncover their root causes so they can tackle this and feel confident in their skin.

So let’s dive into acne: its causes, why it can be tough to treat, and how Skin Deep Esthetics can help you clear your skin!

What Is Acne: Understanding the Basics

🔍 Acne is a chronic inflammatory skin condition that results in red bumps on the face, neck, and body. Here’s what happens: your pores become clogged with dirt, oil, and dead skin cells. Once clogged, bacteria grow in the pores and inflammation occurs.

Acne types include:

Blackheads: Open pores, clogged with dirt and oil that oxidize and turn dark
Whiteheads: Closed pores that a layer of skin builds up and forms white bumps, also known as Milia
Papules: Small, red bumps that don’t contain pus
Pustules: Pus-filled pimples, surrounded by redness

The Science of Breakouts

🔬 Think of your pores as open doorways – that is how our skin detoxes, through our pores. These doorways must stay open so our skin can properly detox, however, when these doorways get blocked by dirt, oil, or dead skin cells, bacteria begin to grow. This bacteria is called P.Acne bacteria (propionibacterium)

Over time, bacteria buildup means the pore can no longer get oxygen. This creates inflammation, leading to pimples. If the pore remains open, you get blackheads, if the pore is closed, you get whiteheads, also known as Milia. Some types of breakouts are painful, such as hormonal acne, resulting in deep cysts under the skin. Some types of breakouts are caused by the foods we eat, creating an imbalance in the body.

The 4 Types Of Acne

Not all acne is created equal. Here we break down the 4 main types:

✔️ Blackheads and Whiteheads

Clogged pores are common and can be treated with facials, skincare products, and gentle exfoliation
Milia (whiteheads) are tiny white bumps and must be extracted by a trained esthetician

✔️ Traditional Acne

Resulting in papules and pustules
Caused by clogged pores filled with dirt, oil, and dead skin cells
Affecting teenagers during puberty, due to increased oil production

Most teenagers wait until they break out to start taking care of their skin. This is too late because acne is more difficult to treat once it starts. If teenagers start caring for their skin before puberty, they are less likely to suffer.

✔️ Hormonal Acne

Triggered by a shift in hormones during puberty, pregnancy, or menopause
Usually shows up on the chin, jawline, and around the mouth and is painful to the touch
Breakouts are deep in the skin (cystic or nodules) making it difficult to extract and treat

Hormonal acne causes scarring – do NOT pick! When estheticians do extractions, we extract from the pore, however, with hormonal acne, we typically avoid extractions because we don’t want to leave our clients with scarring!

✔️ Internal Acne

This type is not categorized, however, it is becoming the most common form
Often caused by gut health issues or inflammatory foods like gluten, dairy, and sugar
Concentrated on the cheeks and around the mouth

When clients come in with internal acne, the skin is not typically full of blackheads or whiteheads. We don’t associate acne with our gut health, however, making small shifts in our diet and eliminating inflammatory foods improves your skin.

Heal Your Gut, Heal Your Skin

💚 After going off birth control to start a family, Samantha was struck with acne. At first, she tried all the right treatments and started using skincare – yet nothing worked! After her 3rd baby, Samantha’s skin was really bad, plus she had a lot of weight to lose. She decided to try a 14-day gut cleanse that eliminated inflammatory foods to heal her gut and lose the baby weight. Not only did she drop the weight, but shockingly, her skin completely cleared up! When she started to eat inflammatory foods again, the breakouts came back. Now Samantha knows the truth: clear skin starts within! Samantha has become passionate about helping her clients get to the root cause of acne by healing their guts.

Gut Health And Acne: Tying It All Together

🌟 Our gut and skin are closely connected. Studies show that certain foods, such as gluten, dairy, and sugar upset our gut microbiome, leading to breakouts, The more we eat, the more inflammation we create. Our skin is a detox organ, if there is inflammation in our gut, our skin shows it. After doing some research, we found a study on acne and the microbiome, “Acne also has close connections with the gastrointestinal tract, and many argue that the gut microbiota could be involved in the pathogenic process of acne.” When you eat inflammatory food, it upsets the microbiome in your gut which causes inflammation, resulting in acne. Healing your gut is getting to the root cause. Restoring your gut microbiome makes a difference in your health and skin. At Skin Deep Esthetics, we guide you through this journey and if we can’t help you, we have a great place to refer you.

Acne and Hormones: What You Must Know

🌟 Hormones play a big role, especially during puberty, pregnancy, and menopause. These hormonal shifts in the body produce more oil or alter the hormonal balance, causing the skin to breakout. Acne happens because our skin is a detox organ and any hormonal shift in the body creates stress and inflammation. Hormonal acne tends to affect women more than men due to frequent hormonal fluctuations and stress levels. In a study on adult female acne, “Other authors have confirmed that adult females are more affected than men in all age groups and that acne can persist even after 50 years of age.”

We suggest getting your hormones tested and seeking out your current doctor. If that doesn’t seem to give you the answers you need, we recommend a naturopathic doctor to help run blood tests and look at your hormones differently than a traditional MD would. Naturopathic doctors are MDs who have taken their education further to study holistic health. Click here to check out our recommendation if you’re looking for a new doctor.

Why Acne Is Difficult To Treat

😩 Most medicines and topicals prescribed by dermatologists don’t fix the root cause of the problem – they put a bandaid on the problem. This is why acne may clear up when beginning new medications but come back. The truth is most treatments often fail because:

Dermatologists only treat traditional acne – not hormonal or internal acne
Using skincare products that strip the skin, causing it to become dry and leading to excess oil production

Drying out the skin doesn’t fix acne. This is how we used to think! We need to balance the skin and stop stripping it so the skin can heal itself. Remember, our skin is an organ and our organs know how to heal. Our focus at Skin Deep Esthetics is to help your skin heal by targeting the root cause.

What Skincare Products Should You Use?

🧴 When it comes to skincare, we focus on hydration and rebalancing the skin’s barrier. By the time a client comes to us, their skin is dry, flaking, and inflamed, and clients are frustrated because nothing seems to be working. They are also hesitant to trust us and try something else new because nothing has helped them up to this point.

Here are our recommended products:

Use a light gel cleanser twice a day
Exfoliate 1-2 times a week to prevent clogged pores and minimize blackheads
Hydrate and heal the skin barrier
Spot treat with our facial oil, which controls acne bacteria and inflammation – perfect for our hockey, football, and lacrosse players who wear helmets – you spot treat under your helmet to prevent bacteria growth
A light moisturizer to keep the skin hydrated without clogging the pores
SPF is also important to prevent acne scarring, however, your sunscreen should ONLY contain zinc oxide – chemical sunscreens can irritate the skin and worsen acne.

We created a skincare line, called Zozo Skincare, specific for acne and young skin. Check out our Zozo Skincare Line by clicking here

Our Treatment Process

💆🏻‍♀️ When it comes to acne, less is more!

Monthly facials focus on deep cleaning the pores and calming the skin
Blue LED treatments can be added to your facial or done as a standalone treatment.
BioRePeel calms inflammation, promotes clear skin, and prevents scarring

We like to warn clients that our peels CAN stimulate breakouts. Some clients can experience some breakouts during their series. Our BioRePeel works in a series of 4-6 treatments done weekly. This stimulates the skin cells to turnover and a slight peeling effect can happen.

Post Acne Treatments
After your skin is clear, we recommend doing a series of microchanneling treatments to stimulate collagen and reduce scarring.

Your Clear Skin Journey Starts Here!

💖 If you’re struggling with acne, you are not alone. We see you, hear you, and understand how scary it is to try one more thing. You’re skeptical of anything at this point because nothing has worked.

If you’re willing to work on healing your gut and doing hormonal testing, we are here to guide and support your skin every step of the way. At Skin Deep Esthetics, our mission is to help you find the root cause of your acne and create a personalized plan to help you clear your skin for good. This boosts your confidence so you never have to hide behind your hair or makeup again!

Ready for a skin transformation?

👉 Click here to book your Acne Facial

We hope today’s blog was helpful and answered your acne questions. We also hope you understand how we can help clear your skin.
Book your Acne Facial

If you have questions, we would love to answer them. If there is something we didn’t cover, please drop that in the comment section below and we will get you the information you need.