Beauty Articles from Matis Beauty

To Squeeze or Not To Squeeze

The alarm goes off, you roll out of bed and walk into the bathroom only to look in the mirror and see Mt St Helens staring back at you! It’s not the end of the world when this pimple rears its ugly head and yet it can put a dampener over the next few days as you try to fight it and cover it up and it all comes down to squeeze or not to squeeze. And the short answer is, of course, NOT TO SQUEEZE!

Pimples, spots, blemishes, pustules, white heads, whatever you want to call them, they all have a thin layer of skin covering them. And when you squeeze them, you feel, and sometimes hear them “pop”. That “popping” sound is the layer of skin tearing and it is this that causes the scarring. But the worst of our problems does not end there. If you imagine your spot like an iceberg, what we see on the surface is only the tip. The pore underneath the skin is enlarged and full with dead skin, oil, bacteria and puss. Once you squeeze, the bacteria can then spread to surrounding pores creating more breakouts. When in the battle of fighting breakouts in your skin care routine, you first need to discard a few myths about how to treat them;

Myth 1 – Breakouts are caused by dirty skin The result of this myth is that people over clean their skin with harsh cleansing beauty products. Some ingredients in soaps, washes and bar cleansers can actually clog pores and cause breakouts. Over cleaning the skin can cause irritation and surface dryness by striping all of the natural oil from the skin. This results in the skin producing extra oil which will clog the pores and thus you are in a cycle that is hard to break. Using a gentle cleansing skin care routine can clean the skin without causing irritation and dryness.

Myth 2 – You can scrub away a breakout Can you have too much of a good thing? When it comes to exfoliating the skin you can! Some companies tout that you can scrub your way to blemish free skin, encouraging you to over scrub the skin with 7 Day Scrubs, abrasive exfoliators and such like. This will not only irritate the skin making it more sensitive but the motion of continued harsh exfoliating can actually stimulate the oil gland. 2-3 times per week is sufficient enough without irritating the skin and the key word is “gentle”. When you exfoliate the skin, not only do you need to remove the dead skin from the surface, but also you need to exfoliate inside the pore to allow free flow of oil onto the surface of the skin. The tiny different beads used in all mechanical exfoliators are too big to get inside the pore and can also be too abrasive to the skin so make sure that the beads are perfectly rounded and also stay away from apricot, nut and salt exfoliators for the face as these are more likely to cause irritation. To exfoliate inside the pore you need to use enzymes. They have various names and can sometimes be referred to as AHA’s, which are a stronger form of enzyme. They work by engulfing the dead skin, similar to the Pac Man game, as it eats and dissolves the dead cells. This is a much more gentle way to exfoliate and more effective within your skin care routine.

Myth 3 – You can dry up a breakout Remember one thing – the only thing you can “dry up” is water and water has nothing to do with a breakout. What you actually do when trying to dry up a breakout, is dry up the water in the skin cells which distorts the shape of them making them irregular and more likely to clog the pore. What you need to do is use beauty products that absorb the excess oil. All skin should have a certain amount of oil as this helps protect against bacteria, but it is the extra oil produced that contributes to clogging the pores and it is this excess that we need to absorb. A breakout usually takes between 2 – 3 weeks to form and so trying to treat the breakout when it appears on the surface when you have done nothing to help prevent it is going to do nothing to stop any more from forming. And In the battle against breakouts, prevention is better than cure! This means that you need to take a look at what you are doing to your skin and what you are using in your skin care routine. In a lot of cases what you are using can actually make things worse.

The key points to remember in your skin care routine are:

Following these simple steps in your skin care routine will help you in your fight against breakouts.

Article contributed by: Nicola Hobbs
Assistant Salon Manager
Skin Specialist and Beauty Therapist