Caring for your skin is a much better way to prevent and treat acne. The most common type of acne is called acne vulgaris. This very common skin condition affects 70 to 87 percent of teenagers and up to 50 million Americans. It can cause acne your entire life.
Acne vulgaris manifests as various types of skin blemishes, including whiteheads, blackheads, papules, and pustules. Whiteheads occur when skin cells, oil, and bacteria combine to create a white tip of oil-skin mixture. A whitehead looks like a small pimple, but the area around it will not be inflamed and red. Blackheads are also not inflamed. They form when the plug that clogs the pore sits at the top surface of the skin. Blackheads are not dirt stuck in your pores. A pimple is a clogged pore that has become infected.
The infection makes a white pus-filled tip on top of the affected pore. The area around the infected pore can become inflamed, red, and sensitive. Your skin is covered in millions of tiny little wells, or pores, that sit at your hair follicles. Pores connect the surface of your skin to an underlying gland called the sebaceous gland. This gland produces an oily substance called sebum.
Sebum is released continually, in small amounts, into the hair follicles and skin. Dead skin cells are also carried up with the sebum so they can be washed away. Occasionally, the sebaceous gland produces too much sebum. The overflow of oil can clog the pore. The excess oil and dead skin cells form a plug in the gland.
This pore becomes clogged with sebum, oil, and possibly bacteria. The bacteria can multiply. These bacteria can lead to an infection, swelling, and inflammation around the clogged pore. A white tip of pus will sometimes form at the top of the clogged pore.
This creates a pimple. Sometimes clogged pores become so inflamed and infected that they burst through their walls. This causes the infection to spread, which leads to a bigger pimple. These pimples are called pustules and papules. Papules are hard to the touch. They make the skin feel very rough and ragged.
Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. How does acne form? All acne is a disorder of the pilosebaceous unit , which is made of a hair follicle, sebaceous glands, and a hair. These units are found everywhere on the body except on the palms of the hands, the soles of the feet, the top of the feet, and the lower lip. The number of pilosebaceous units is greatest on the face, upper neck, and chest.
Sebaceous glands produce a substance called sebum, which is responsible for keeping the skin and hair moisturized. During adolescence, sebaceous glands enlarge and produce more sebum under the influence of hormones called androgens. After about age 20, sebum production begins to decrease.
Sebum produced by the sebaceous gland combines with cells being sloughed off within the hair follicle and fills up the hair follicle. When the follicle is full, the sebum spreads over the skin surface, giving it an oily appearance. When this process works correctly, the skin is moisturized and remains healthy. When this process does not work correctly, the skin can become either overly dry or overly oily, the latter of which raises the risk for acne.
This series of illustrations shows how different types of acne develop and how to treat each specific kind. This first illustration depicts a normal pore so you can compare the other pictures of acne against it. Several factors contribute to the start of an acne lesion:. During this stage, the pore looks normal on the outside, but there are distinct changes in the cells surrounding the pore. As the material in the pore builds up, it creates a bottleneck that prevents sloughing.
The bacterium Propionibacterium acnes , often shortened to P. It uses sebum as a nutrient for growth. As sebum production increases, the number of P. In the microcomedone stage, the bacteria do not cause infection because they are in only the material inside the pore, not infecting the skin.
These are some medications that may help at this stage. After the dead cells of the scab dissolve, a red or purple scar may be left behind. The bad news is that time is the best ingredient to fade this pigment. You can be proactive about prevention with SPF. If your breakout is still a papule a red spot with no obvious head , don't use drying spot treatments meant for pustules.
You run the risk of drying out the skin, potentially keeping the infection trapped underneath even longer. There's a limit to at-home treatment's power; if your breakouts persist despite your best efforts, when exactly should you consider a visit to your dermatologist's office? Not every pimple takes the exact same course of life. Some red papules never turn into whiteheads.
Cystic breakouts could take literal weeks to come to the surface of the skin. Identifying the type of pimple plaguing you, and knowing roughly where it is in its life cycle, will give you the confidence to either treat it correctly or consult your dermatologist for intervention. Thank you [email] for signing up. Please enter a valid email address. Your Privacy Rights. To change or withdraw your consent choices for Byrdie.
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Byrdie's Editorial Guidelines. Reviewed by Morgan Rabach, MD. Fact checked by Cherisse Harris.
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