Acne Awareness Month – How to prevent and treat acne breakouts

June is acne awareness month which gives our specialist practitioners and dermatologists even more of an excuse to provide patients with lots of information about the best ways to treat their acne.
In this blog we are going to look at how best to prevent acne with a mixture of lifestyle tips and some of our favourite acne reducing treatments and products that we have available in our clinics.
A lot of the time, there is a not a huge amount you can do to prevent acne if you are prone to it but some common tips that we share with our patients are;

Keep things that touch your face clean

Wash your pillowcases, towels and make-up brushes regularly. Anything that is touching your face on a regular basis should be as clean as possible. You wouldn’t want to wash your face with a dirty cloth so don’t use make-up brushes that have not been washed for a few weeks on your face. Doing this spreads bacteria and for example where you may have cleansed your face beautifully – then using a dirty towel to dry it will, to some extent – just reverse all of your hard work.
We recommend washing or changing your pillow cases every other day. Towels and wash cloths should ideally be washed every day and make-up brushes should be washed weekly. To help keep your make-up brushes feeling fresh you can get brush cleaners that can be sprayed onto the brush after each use to help keep the bacteria at bay.
One item that touches our face almost every day that people don’t think about is our mobile phone. Keep a pack of anti-bacterial wipes in your bag to give your phone a quick clean when you know you are going to be making some calls.

Eat Healthy

A healthy body comes from a healthy diet and this includes our skin too. Eating a balanced diet can work wonders to improving skin that is prone to breakouts. We recommend avoiding foods that are high in grease and fat and eating foods that are instead rich in Lecithin, Vitamins A and C, Zinc and Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs) as it is quite common for patients who have a vitamin deficiency to struggle be more vulnerable to a breakout.
Of course, we don’t like to say that you should avoid all chocolate and comfort foods for example as this can cause feelings of guilt or stress which we also want to be avoiding. As long as your diet sits on an 80% healthy and 20% comfort foods balance you should be fine.

Stay Stress Free

Stress is a huge part of our daily lives these days whether it be work, home life or just general daily struggles our stress levels are sitting on a much higher scale which is not really benefitting our skin. Where possible take some time to breathe, try going for a walk, doing some yoga or trying some mindfulness exercises to clear your mind and lower those stress levels. Your skin will thank you for it.

So alongside these positive healthy skin tips, we also have a range of skin treatments and products available at our clinics to help not only treat but prevent future acne breakouts.

Acne Treatments at The Private Clinic

N-Lite Laser Acne Treatment

N-Lite is our most popular and we feel most effective acne treatment. We like it because the downtime is minimal and you are not really in any discomfort or pain during the treatment either. It is almost like coming in for a relaxing facial!
The treatment uses a laser that works in 3 ways. It firstly kills the bacteria before then stimulating the new collagen and reducing any inflammation. The N-Lite is suitable for all skin types and can be used on the face, neck, back and chest.
We recommend having three N-Lite treatments initially and you should start to see results after your second treatment. It is then often advised that to maintain your results you should look at having one treatment every 9 to 12 months.
N-Lite treatment is available at our Birmingham, Leeds, London Harley Street, Manchester and Northampton clinics.

Chemical Peels

Chemical peels are a great way to help keep your skin clear of acne. There is a wide range of different types of skin peels and enzyme treatments and it is well worth having a consultation with an experienced skin practitioner who will be able to advise on the best one to suit you, your skin and your desired results.
A chemical peel works to improve acne by chemically exfoliating the top layers of skin. This exfoliation helps to reduce the appearance of acne and in some cases acne scarring too. Your skins pigmentation overall will improve making you skin smoother and look more refreshed and healthy.
Peels also contain some really helpful ingredients such as salicylic acid which gives your skin a deep cleans helping to clear any clogged pores/blackheads.
Chemical Peels are available at our Birmingham, Bristol, Buckinghamshire, Leeds, London Harley Street, Manchester and Northampton clinics

Skin Accumax Supplements

The Skin Accumax range sold in our clinics is a skin nutrient supplement that is designed to support skin health in general to help clear problem skin. It is suitable for all skin types and essentially treats your skin from the inside. It contains DIM (diinodolymlethane) which is a food-based compound that can help to improve acne prone skin. DIM is found in food like Brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli so by taking the supplements it is similar to have a large dose of greens each day – although we do not recommend substituting it completely over eating the real thing!
For maximum benefits we recommend taking four capsules a day with food for a minimum of 14 weeks but dosage amounts can be discussed with your skin practitioner to suit the severity of your skin.
Skin Accumax Supplements are available at our Birmingham, Bristol, Buckinghamshire, Leeds, London Harley Street, Manchester and Northampton.

Circadia Homecare
Circadia is one of our most popular and favourite skin care ranges that we have in our clinics. There is a product to help almost everyone and getting your skin care right is one of the biggest changes you can make to really improve your skins health and appearance.
For acne in particular we highly recommend having a good skin care regime in place and we can help to recommend a suitable cleanser for Circadia vast range and we also recommend using the Circadia day time and night time control lotions. These are light moisturising lotions that use a mix of ingredients to improve your skins natural defence mechanism and sebum production which is usually the cause of that oily t-zone.
Circadia products are available at our clinics in Birmingham, Bristol, Buckinghamshire, Leeds, London Harley Street, Manchester and Northampton.

To find out more about our acne treatments and to book in for a consultation with one of our skin specialists please call, 0333 920 2471 or use our acne treatment online contact form.