Most people with acne think oil is the bad guy. They don't understand that our skin needs oil for protection and moisture. They don't understand it is trapped oil that creates acne. They wrongly believe it is the oil they can see and touch on the surface of their skin that is causing their acne.

So what happens? They think that if they can get rid of their oil, they will get rid of their acne.

Some not so great skincare product companies know this and then produce products which strip the skin of oil and promote them as 'acne cures'. Sure they make money but they don't help your skin.

Your skin is very intelligent. It knows it needs oil to live.

If you apply a product that strips your skin of oil, your sebum glands will go into shock and do one of two things;

1. Stop producing oil completely
2. Produce a splurge of oil

The first means there is nothing protecting your skin. All those dead skin cells can get inside your pores. As soon as your glands start producing again the oil will combine with the dead skin cells to make that lovely paste.

The second means there is a massive amount of stuff trying to get out a very small hole. Your gland will produce more oil than your pore can excrete and your pore will block.

Both result in more acne.

The most common ingredients in skincare products that strip the skin of oil are those that;

- Create lather
- Are based on alcohol
- Contain certain emulsifiers

Traditional foaming cleansers and bar soaps create a lovely lather when you rub your hands together. The ingredient that is creating the lather is normally some sort of detergent such as sodium lauryl sulfate and laureth sulfate.

These ingredients are cheap to manufacture and make a product seem nice to the consumer so they continue to be used. Whether a product is expensive or cheap, if it foams well, it probably contains a skin stripping detergent.

Another big baddie is alcohol based products. Alcohol is commonly used in products to dilute them, prevent the growth of bacteria or fungi in the bottle or to make your skin feel tight. Think toners that make your skin feel fresh and youthful. All that has happened here is the alcohol has stripped away all the oil and moisture and left your skin covered in dried up, dead skin cells.

As for emulsifiers, well sometimes they are necessary to bind the oil and water together in a product so that it does not separate in the bottle. However, and it's a big however, when applied to your skin, some emulsifiers try and bind together the oil on your skin to the water you are using to wash the product off. So when you wash the product off, all the oil on your skin goes with it.

The bad emulsifiers that are most common in skincare products are;
- Triethanolamine
- Oleth
- Peg ester (commonly called peg 20, peg 40)
- Castor oil
- Sterates

Stripping your skin of oil will only make your acne worse. If you own a product that does this, throw it out. If you are using regular soap on your acne, stop.