Acne is a devastating disease affecting millions of teenagers and adults. It looks awful, it feels even worse and it hurts. You don't want it, you didn't ask for it and you try your hardest to get rid of it. So why do you still have it? Read on and find out!

There are many ideas and old wives tales on how you should treat acne but the truth is you simply need to know the facts about your skin and how it works.

How your skin works
- Your skin is made up of millions of little skin cells
- These skin cells die and flake off as they age
- The dying skin cells are continuously replaced by new ones
- Your skin has small pores all over it
- Your skin produces oil which continually flows up through your pores and onto the surface of your skin
- This oil keeps your skin moisturised and protected

A common myth is that excess oil causes acne. To put it simply, it doesn't. Oil is absolutely and completely essential to the health of your skin. Without it, your skin would age quickly and dramatically and would fall prey to all sorts of infections from the bacteria you come into contact with every day.

Acne is only created when your pores are blocked somehow. No one sends a memo to your skin telling it there is a blockage so it thinks everything is normal and keeps making oil and shooting it up into the pore.

Since the oil can't get out, it starts building up inside your pore. Once your pore is full, it expands sideways until it's all puffed up full of oil like a water balloon. Now that you've got a nice pool of oil built up in your pore it is a magnet for bacteria. Bacteria then swarm around and feed off the oil, creating pus and infection. Voila - now you have a lovely big pimple!

So what causes blockages?

1. A sudden increase in oil production
When your skin suddenly produces more oil than normal, your pores cannot release it fast enough. This creates a build up of oil in your pore, attracting bacteria and blocking the pore.
2. A decrease in the speed at which your skin cells fall off
When your skin cells reach the end of their life cycle and die but do not fall off quickly enough they block your pores, trapping oil and bacteria inside.

The thing to note is that so long as your skin is functioning normally neither of these situations should occur. But common issues like puberty, severe stress, pregnancy, hormones, poor diet and menopause can affect your skin health and make the above two situations more likely.

If you have acne, it will be caused by something (like fluctuating hormones) which is affecting your skin health. It will certainly help reduce future breakouts to tackle whatever the issue is but to deal with the acne you already have, you need a plan.

The best plan is to (a) kill the bacteria that are already inside your skin and (b) avoid future blockages. From a skincare perspective this means you need to:
- Kill the bacteria that is multiplying and living in your pores
- Dissolve the blockages already inside your pores
- Reguarly cleanse and remove excess dead skin cells
- Regulate your oil flows
- Get your skin healthy so the pores are well supported

Understanding your skin is the first step to eliminating acne. From there, proper care and the correct products will complete your plan and give you clear, blemish-free skin.