Acne and Facial Hair

Ladies, before you click away, this episode isn’t just for guys!

I’ll start with the guys and then share some important points just for women.

So guys ask “can growing a beard be good for acne?”

Despite the obvious that facial hair helps to hide acne blemishes, facial hair in guys is always bad for acne.

First, it’s much harder to apply topicals to acne blemishes through a beard or even scruf, let alone even find all the blemishes!

Second, with facial hair, the skin is never cleansed as well as without the hair, even if you’re washing or shampooing twice a day.

Third, when you have facial hair, whether you know it or not, you wind up touching it and your face frequently. And touching acne blemishes makes them worse and touching your skin repeatedly where you don’t have them can cause them!

Fourth, the facial hair itself can irritate the skin, especially when it’s as short as scruff or when it’s just growing in. And that can cause more blemishes.

Bottom line for guys… Facial hair with acne may hide it, but it makes it much worse and very difficult to treat. Yes, acne can be treated internally, but unless you’re on accutane, you still need topical treatments for acne, so lose the facial hair!

OK ladies… Your facial hair is entirely different… Random, sparse and aggressively attacked at the earliest possible time. But if you also have acne, remember that any form of hair removal that involves plucking, like waxing, threading, tweezing, and so on, can make your blemishes worse or can even make you break out where you don’t have blemishes. So your hair control should be either surface removal… with chemical depilatories or shaving… I know you don't want to hear about shaving but it's real easy and effective and it doesn't make the hair thicker... or electrolysis, which is ok and when done properly should not cause breakouts… or of course, if you have access to laser hair removal, it’s the best option, especially because it’s permanent.

But remember, it only works on hair whose color or shade is darker than the skin it’s growing from.