When you are a teenager with oily/acne prone skin, you are bombarded with so many options for clearing your skin with facial washes, moisturizers, etc that it’s hard to choose one. Most people opt for whatever their parents buy for them, ending up with an over the counter, super drying, inexpensive product that sometimes “works” but most of the time doesn’t.

These products really don’t contain the ingredients that your skin needs to heal the breakouts properly but rather, contain ingredients that leave your skin super dry, flaky and dull.

As you get older, no one tells you how to graduate from your teenage acne products, so you continue to use them into your 20’s, 30’s and even sometimes into your 40’s which leads you to become discouraged when they “stop working”. Most people don’t know this, however, your skin changes every 7 years and what you may have used to clean your face at 14, is most likely not what you need to be cleaning your face with at 21, 28 or even 35. Here are a couple tips to educate you on what to use for your breakout prone skin in your 20’s and 30’s.

First off, adult acne is real. There are so many people that experience breakouts, pimples, blackheads and overall oily skin when they are adults. However, there are lots of different reasons they experience them. Adult acne can be caused by hormonal changes, diet, stress and other things you put on your skin like makeup or a dirty cell phone. Despite the reason for your acne or breakouts, it’s important to use a combination of ingredients that will not only clear your active breakouts, but also penetrate deeper into the skin to prevent them in the future.

If you are in your 20’s or 30’s, you might be in college or in the early stages in your career and you might not be able to afford much of a routine, but trust me when I say, you get what you pay for. At the very least, you need to good facial wash, toner and moisturizer. A gel based, foaming wash to use morning and night, followed by a toner that contains ingredients that will balance the PH of your skin but also includes active ingredients like salicylic or glycolic acid that will assist in treating your current breakouts, followed by a moisturizer that is light and will put the correct amount of moisture back into your skin for it to begin to heal/calm any redness or irritation. If you are truly dedicated to the treatment of your acne and have a little more to invest, you might consider adding products that contain retinol to prevent future breakouts or a tiny bit of benzoyl peroxide that can spot treat any large, super inflamed pimples.