Are you the center of attention (the bad, self-esteem damaging type) because of your pimple breakouts and acne? You've probably been called "pizza face" once, twice, or quite several times. That hurts, that really hurts. That leaves lesions in your face, and scars in your heart.

Are you fighting a losing battle with pimple breakouts and acne? You've probably tried several treatments, medicines, dermatologists, and what have you, just to realize that your pimples are getting worse and worse and you're just wasting and wasting money. You wasted your money, your time, and your hope dwindles slowly and slowly.

Have you ever considered that the environment, climate, your ethnicity, part of the globe you live in, etc. are also factors to consider when it comes to skin care and is also an important consideration in the prevention of pimples? For example, people in tropical countries (warm parts of the globe) tend to have oilier skin than most. If you live in a tropical country and use products designed from a dry-climate country, you'd be in trouble. No one product is designed to work for everyone.

Now, you have to understand this basic principle, the key to battling pimple breakouts and acne is not a product or a dermatological procedure - yeah, it's really not. The way to really get rid of a pimple is to stop the underlying causes of it. You eliminate the cause, you eliminate the effect and prevent it from ever occurring again. Pretty elementary isn't it? But who have told you that until now?

How does a pimple develop?

Starting with the basics, let's take a look at our face. You would notice tiny dots with thin hair growing out of them. These are called pores. Inside each pores, there is a gland (sebaceous gland) that continually secretes oil (sebum). This oil functions to lubricate and protect our skin.

Now, up until this point we don't see any problem. The glands secrete oil that goes out through the tiny dots and into our skin to lubricate and protect our skin. That's one mechanism. Now let's add another one.

Our skin continuously renews itself which leaves an outer layer of dead skin cells (we usually remove them by using exfoliants and facial scrubs, but that's another story). So no problems there either.

The problem occurs when these two mechanisms act together (as they normally do), more specifically when the oil and the dead skin cells combine and plug the pore. The oil, since it's continually secreted by the gland, can't go out of the plugged pore. This plugged pore is the first sign of pimple formation.

Now, at this point we have a plugged pore (due to a blockage formed by the combination of dead skin cells and oil) and oil that is continually produced but can't get out because of said plug. We're actually still ok at this point, from the surface it wouldn't be that noticeable at all. Here is where the serious problem comes in. Bacteria thrive and feed on dead skin cells. The plug composed of oil and dead skin cells serve as a great breeding ground for bacteria. The bacteria then cause inflammation, swelling, and generally worsening the whole situation. This is when the pimple appears as an ugly, big, irritating, reddish spot on your face.

There you go, knowing the underlying causes of pimple breakouts and acne is half the battle. For specific tips and practical information on how to control these factors, do visit my blog: http://nopimples.wordpress.com