Where spots come from

Normally,the sebaceous glands in your skin makes stuff called sebum to keep it slightly oily. Sebum protects your skin and hair from drying out. Your sebaceous glands live all over your body near your hair follicles (the roots your hair grows out of).

When you’re in your teens, your body makes extra hormones called Androgens. These tend to make your sebaceous glands go bonkers and produce far too much sebum. Your skin gets greasy and the hair follicles get blocked up. At this stage it’s a whitehead or blackhead spot. If bacteria get inside the blocked follicle, it all gets infected and you get those nasty red or yellow spots. It is also a hideous law of nature that you will ALWAYS get a spot just before a big date.

How do I make it stop?

Acne usually (but not always) disappears anyway between the ages of 16 and 25. But you can help yourself long before that. Try various lotions and potions available from the chemist who should be able to advise you-but you don’t need to go for the most expensive –most have the same ingredients. If they don’t work after 2 months, go and see your doctor. He or she will know how horrible spots make you feel, and has a huge amount of anti-spot treatments to try. And if you’re still at school and under 18, it’s all FREE.

Things which can make spots better

• Sunshine – it makes you produce less sebum, fewer bacteria and dryer skin. Don’t fry yourself, though.
• Washing with special medicated soap once or twice a day.
• Changing to non-oily makeup – called ‘non-comedogenic’ on the packet
• Spot creams from the chemist
• Going to see the doctor.

Things which can make spots worse

• Squeezing them with dirty fingers
• Squeezing the red sort or the yellow sort
• Washing more than twice a day
• Heavy foundation cream.
• Some shampoo, especially the de-frizzing sort
• Greasy moisturisers
• Periods (girls)
• Stress (boys and girls)


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