Helping Your Teen Battle Acne

Teens have a way about them. There’s this loveable, annoying way they teach you something new about the thing you thought you already knew everything about. You see, I’ve been a consultant with a skin care company for nearly twenty years now. One of my favorite things is to help teens learn how to take good care of their skin, develop a routine, and use makeup in a flattering way. I know my stuff about skin care. 

Enter, my middle child (of course, the middle child, right?). He has been struggling with acne for several months now. I kept handing him products, and nothing seemed to be working like I expected it to. Not a lot of improvement, frustration for him, frustration for me.

Along the way, I learned a few things that might help if your teen is struggling with acne, too:

1. No product works unless you put it on your face. Because I GAVE him a product, I assumed my kid was USING the product. Not necessarily so. Even though I said to wash his face every day, he only remembered to do it once or twice a week. He needed reminders. Lots of them. That can be tricky with a teen. I asked permission to remind him every day with the stipulation that if I started to annoy him, he could ask me to stop the reminders. Then, we could figure out another way to help him remember. So far, so good.
2. Look for two (or three) key ingredients. Benzoyl peroxide and salicylic acid are the two primary ingredients for fighting acne. Some kids need one or the other. For my oldest, a little acne gel with benzoyl peroxide, and he was good to go. Not for kid #2. He needs both daily. Note it is easy to overdo it with these so make sure to watch for chapped, dry skin or peeling. Use a good, oil-free, gel moisturizer for balance. The other ingredient we have found incredibly helpful is charcoal, in the form of a charcoal mask. 
3. Use a clean washcloth every day. Acne thrives on bacteria, which makes a clean cloth essential. To make everyone’s life easier, go buy a twelve pack and stash it under his sink so a clean one is always easy to find. Likewise, wash his pillowcase frequently. Twice a week is not too much.
4. Walk through the steps with your teen as many times as they need or want you to. In addition to reminders, we went through the steps of his skin care routine several times together so that he thoroughly understood the process. For boys especially, they might not have been sitting on the edge of the bathtub watching Mom put on her cosmetics for years. Some teens have no concept of when moisturizer goes on (after cleansing) or how much to use (a fingertip full, not a palm full) or how to apply a face mask (a thin layer, not too close to the eyes).
5. Offer plenty of encouragement and praise. A serious acne problem doesn’t go away overnight. With the right products and consistency in using them, you should see some improvement within a couple of weeks, but major outbreaks can still take six weeks or more to really turn around. We have been serious about his skincare routine for about four weeks now. While it’s not gone yet, we both see improvement. Overall, his blemishes are getting smaller, many are drying up, and there are far fewer new ones appearing. While the worst of it is definitely starting to heal, it is slower than he would like. Teens need encouragement to keep it up when the progress is slow. Tell them you’re proud of their effort, point out the improvement you see, and offer to put that face mask on for them sometimes. They will appreciate it.