Frankly, from my nearly thirty-year struggle with acne skin, this is where I think 90% of all women get their adult acne. My deduction come from the breakouts and their consistent predictability in a woman’s cycle.

The most serious and painful; kind of acne has as its source a glandular imbalance. There are two different kinds, which happen at different times of life. The first is adolescence. Of course, this is normal, occurs often, usually stabilizes, and the blemishes go away. The second kind is more serious and occurs in adults. To ascertain if you have hormonal adult acne, answer these questions.

 Is it hereditary?  That is, did your parents or siblings have acne?

 

Do topical applications have very little positive effect?

 

If female, are your periods painful and/or irregular?

 

Can you predict acne breakouts within your cycle?

 

Do you have acne that is large and painful?

 

Is your skin always oily?

 

If your answer to most of these is “yes,” then my considered guess is you probably have hormonal acne.

 

Among the many hormones secreted by the body, androgens, including testosterone, a male hormone (which naturally occurs in various amounts in women as well as men), activate the oil glands. These effects usually are balanced by estrogen and other female hormones, but if they are not, this can cause a problem. It is said that testosterone has a contracting and stimulating influence; it can cause fatty acids and other materials to collect in the bloodstream, then around the sebaceous glands where they become sebum and are discharged. Many believe the production of testosterone is speeded up by over-consumption of saturated fats.

Estrogen has the counter-balancing effect; it slows down the speed of fatty acids and other materials moving toward the sebaceous glands. This is why high-estrogen birth control pills are sometimes recommended to women with severe acne. This is also why wild yam root can be valuable.

Excerpted from “Beauty Health and Happiness–A way of life,” by Lily Morgan available on our website at www.lilyfarmfreshskincare.com