What Causes Adult Acne in Females

In the past ten or fifteen years there’s been a significant increase in the incidence of acne in adult women. I’m talking about women in their 20’s, 30’s and even into their early 40’s. That’s not to say that there’s been any decrease in teenage acne but there does seem to be a significant increase. So we want to know, what’s different, what’s changed, that enables or causes acne to stretch out into the 40’s? We think there are three factors responsible. The first is air pollution and there are a lot of different types but I’m talking about little particles of air pollution, the type that cause you to see haze in the sky. Those little particles come from exhaust from automobiles and trucks, they come from soot, they come from things that are burning and they come from factory chimneys. Those little particles when they touch your skin, your facial skin which has oil on it, they just absorb right onto the oil. That helps to clog pores. Then if you rub or wipe your skin that drives them in even deeper and that’s a really important cause of clogged pores. The second cause has to do with make-up and skin care products, everyday products. It even has its own name, this type of acne, we call it acne cosmetica and it simply comes from using products that are too heavy for your oil and water skin type. It’s very important to know what yours is and to know what products aren’t too heavy because if they are they’re going to cause clogging and really unnecessary acne. The third cause has to do with stress and it’s probably the most important one. We’re talking about more and more women being in the workplace and it seems like the stresses of the workplace are different from the traditional stresses of child rearing. In addition to that a lot of these women are working and raising families so that’s double stress. These stresses which seem to be different just have a different effect on skin and they seem to be more important in causing acne. The good news is this type of acne responds to regular acne treatments and it’s very easy to control.