Acne isn’t all about your face, it can happen on other parts of your body too. Read on for 7 tips to help get a handle on bacne.
Acne isn’t all about your face, it can happen on other parts of your body too. Your neck, back, chest, upper arms, and butt can all have acne at some point, and up to 60% of people that get acne on their face experience body acne.
While body acne may be a little easier to hide than a breakout on your face, it can still be persistent, painful, and embarrassing.
Luckily, just like facial acne, there are steps that you can take to help clear body acne breakouts or prevent them from happening in the first place.
Read on for 7 tips to help get a handle on bacne (or any other place pimples pop up).
It happens to the best of us -- we spend lots of money on high-quality facial skincare lotions, potions, and cleansers, but when it comes to washing your body you just go with whatever is inexpensive or smells nice.
And, while that body wash may smell just like strawberries and feel silky, it may not be the best thing for your skin.
Choose a body wash made for sensitive skin and that says it is non-comedogenic (won’t clog pores).
If your body acne seems to always crop up on your back and happens to coincide with you using a certain hair product -- that could be the culprit.
Hair products can easily make their way to your neck and back (especially if you have long hair), sometimes causing irritation and acne.
Think about the timing of your breakouts, and keep your hair products to the bare minimum (or none) during a body acne breakout to see if it helps everything clear up.
If your body acne doesn’t seem to quit, take a look at your linen washing habits.
If you are reusing your towels multiple times, or don’t frequently wash your sheets and pillowcases -- you are subjecting the skin on your body to lots of built-up oils, bacteria, and dead skin cells.
Switch out towels often, and wash bedding every few days with a gentle sensitive-skin detergent to make sure your laundry habits aren’t wreaking havoc on your skin.
It can be challenging to muster the energy to shower off immediately after a tough workout.
But, when it comes to your skin, it can be very problematic having sweat hanging around for too long.
Sweat on your skin encourages the growth of the same bacteria that contributes to pimples, so the sooner you can rinse, the better.
Tight-fitting clothing, heavy backpack straps rubbing your shoulders, or sweating and clunky sports gear can aggravate your skin.
When pimples happen due to excess friction and tight-fitting clothing constantly rubbing, this is called acne mechanica.
Loosen up any tight-fitting clothing, switch to carrying your bags, or avoid sports that require scratchy gear to reduce irritation and the risk of acne mechanica.
A little exfoliation is good and can help slough off extra dead skin cells to make sure they don’t end up in your pores.
But, over-scrubbing until the skin is red and irritated won’t help with body acne, in fact, it will likely worsen things.
Choose a gentle chemical exfoliant inside of a body wash formulated for body acne.
These often contain gentle exfoliants like salicylic acid or benzoyl peroxide, to help clear pimples while sloughing off dead skin cells.
Your pores need to “breathe” and be in contact with gentle, non-irritating fabrics when body acne is a problem.
Stick with natural fibers like cotton to allow plenty of airflow to your skin during breakouts.
Synthetic fabrics can be particularly irritating and non-breathable, so steer clear of clothing made out of these when trying to reduce body acne breakouts.
Here at Strut Health, we want you to be acne-free -- everywhere.
You can have a free online visit with our U.S. licensed doctors to see if your acne issues are a good candidate for our prescription acne formula containing Tretinoin, Clindamycin, and other acne busting ingredients.
If your prescription is approved, your once-daily medicated cream can be shipped to your front door with our free shipping.