Acne Myths

Having acne means you're dirty and don’t wash  

“Blackheads” get their colour from excess skin pigment - it is not dirt in the pores 

Washing your face a lot will help get rid of acne 

ACNE IS NOT CAUSED BY POOR HYGIENE! Despite popular belief, acne is not caused by dirt; don’t believe television commercials when they tell you that “pores can get blocked by impurities”. Washing your face too much will actually do the opposite of what you intended, by irritating skin and cause them to become clogged up. 

Acne is contagious  

There is no way you can catch acne off someone, it is not contagious at all! 

Having sex and masturbation will cause acne 

Old wives tale, it was to discourage the young from participating in these activities, not a bit of truth in them, you’ll be happy to hear! 

Acne linked to diet 

Many extensive and highly-funded research programmes have looked into this myth, and the same conclusion has come from them all; acne is not related to diet. That means; 

• Chocolate 
• French fries 
• Pizza 
• Milk 

None of these can be linked to causing acne, but still excess amounts of these foods will make you have a bad diet, so best to cut back on them anyway. 

Acne caused by stress 

The normal day-to-day stress of life is not a major contributing factor to acne, but increased stressed times, could cause your glands to produce more oil, but it is not normally enough to cause acne.  

Tanning with get rid of acne 

Sure, tanning with darken your skin and therefore acne will be become less noticeable, but that doesn’t mean its gone! 

But spending too much time in the sun will cause your skin to become irritated and burnt, which can worsen the effects of acne and also, more importantly, it will increase your chance of getting skin cancer. 

Make-up causes acne 

If you want to wear make-up, make sure that your wipe it all off at the end of the day, and if the make-up you buy should be either; 

• Noncomedogenic  
• Nonacnegenic  

Which means that they won’t clog pores and cause acne.  

Popping pimples/zits is the most effective way to get rid of them 

Popping pimples is not going to help them heal faster, sometimes it can even have the opposite effect because the germs are forced further into the skin and sometimes infection can be caused. Also, popping pimples could lead to scarring, which will be with you for all your life, not a good idea! (But if you must pop your pimples, read this guide;  How to pop a spot)