Adult Acne & Teen Acne - Can You Share Products?

Surely acne is acne right and spots are spots? So if your teenager is struggling with breakouts and so are you, it makes sense that we can both just share face washes and skin treatments and all should be well right?!?! Well, not necessarily...

I understand it can be a bit of a minefield when we're looking into acne products. There are just so many options on the market, it can easily become quite overwhelming. So if your teen and you are both struggling with breakouts, the easiest thing would be to just share products because all acne creams to the same thing anyway.

I get why you might think this and for some people, yes maybe you could share. It's also good though to understand why teen acne and adult acne are actually quite different and sometimes need to be treated differently. Here's my take on it...

ADULT ACNE

• Tends to be larger spots and more 'cyst' like on the lower face

• Can be linked to all skin types including dry skins

• Spot and marks can linger because as we get older the skin turnover slows down, this means that we need something a little extra to get rid of those lasting, pesky marks

• Hormones and stress can come into play in a different way. For example, peri-menopause, cortisol etc

• Different stressors can impact the skin such which can be more 'adult' like such as lack of sleep due to peri-menopausal hormones, money problems, work issues etc. vs exam and friendship stress.

TEEN ACNE

• Tends to be breakouts from oily skin around the T-Zone due to a thicker sebum consistency produced around this area

• Mainly driven by puberty and hormones

• Pores tend to be more clogged up and need extracting. Think lots of black and white heads less than cysts.

• Can tend to settle down by the early twenties

• Tends to be linked more to oily skin types

• We also can't forget the amount of skincare influence teens are getting from social media platforms such as TikTok. This can lead to further problems as a lot of the accounts are not qualified skin specialists and are just recommending products they are being paid to promote. This can lead to using unsuitable products that can cause barrier damage.

Now of course I am generalising here and we all have stressors that can be triggered for different reasons, but for the majority of people struggling with acne, these tend to be the problems.

TREATING ACNE SKIN

With adults, it tends to be more about treating the skin from the inside out. Skin supplements designed to help balance hormones such as Skinade Clear can be a Godsend for a lot of my adult clients. Retinoids as well can help to increase the skin cell turnover along with peel pads. The SkinBetter Clearing Serum and the SkinBetter AlphaRet Peel Pads are also great for helping to make those pigmentation marks lighten that can be stubborn after a breakout.

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For teen skin it can be more about balancing and controlling the oil production to help keep the pores clear. Regular deep cleansing facials with steam and extraction can also help to keep on top of the black heads. The Nimue Y:Skin range is designed for teenagers along with the Nimue Problematic Range to regulate oil production and help to re-educate the skin to work for itself.

Both adult and teen acne skin types will benefit though from regular, gentle exfoliation to keep the pores clear and ensure the skin is nice and bright.

If you or your teen are struggling with acne, why not book an online consultation with me or fill out my skin check-in form which is completely free.

Thank you so much for reading,

Emmaline