How Retinoids Can Help Reduce Your Acne Breakouts
If you struggle with frequent and strong acne breakouts, you're probably seeking something that can help. While over the counter methods are sometimes helpful, stronger medications that are only available with the help of a dermatologist, like retinoids, can do far more for your breakouts. Read on to learn how retinoids could be the solution you're looking for and how they're able to reduce or stop acne.
Retinoids Speed Up Cell Turnover
Retinoids come in many formulations, like Retin-A and Tretinoin. Your dermatologist can help you to choose a formula that's right for your skin. However, regardless of the variety of retinoid, all retinoids essentially do the same thing; they speed up cell turnover.
Retinoids are similar to chemical exfoliants in that they help the body to generate cells more quickly and discard them faster, too. This leads to the skin looking fresher and younger in addition to reducing the development of acne.
Less Time Exposed to Hormones
When cells turnover more quickly, they spend less time being exposed to the hormones in your body. Whether you're a male and primarily produce testosterone or a female who produces estrogen, when these hormones are in excess, they can cause the skin to break out with pimples. The longer your skin cells take to be produced, the longer they're exposed to the hormones that can cause breakouts. By speeding up the cell turnover, your cells take less time to fully mature, so they're not exposed to the hormones for as long a period of time.
Fewer Clogged Pores
In addition, speeding up your cell turnover also reduces the amount of clogged pores you have. As you probably know, when pores become clogged with oil or sebum, it makes you more likely to develop acne. However, when your cells turnover more quickly, dead skin cells are shed more quickly and are less likely to contribute to clogging your pores.
In addition to reducing your risk of acne just by keeping your pores clear, having clear pores courtesy of retinoids will also help you to more easily treat your skin for existing acne. Medications like benzoyl peroxide are more effective if used on skin that already has clear pores. Otherwise, benzoyl peroxide has to first penetrate through and clean out the oil in the pores before it can begin to dry out and kill acne.
Strong retinoids are only available via a prescription from a dermatologist, so you should visit one if you're struggling with your acne. Simply adding a retinoid to your skin care regimen could greatly reduce your acne. Talk with your dermatologist about other acne treatments today.