Whether you are fashion girl basking in the southern summer sun or braving the northern winter winds, the allure of the sexy back is eternal, season after season, year after year. So does back acne (or bacne, in short) and its scarring aftermath – which can serve as one of those helpful reminders that the universe tends toward chaos and complications.
Acne is like the worst kind of house guest: It shows up uninvited at the least convenient time, overstays its welcome, and leaves a mess after it’s gone.
The breakouts on your chest and back tend to be a little different than the acne on your face. While some may see zits on their shoulders, chest and back just their facial acne, many cases of isolated bacne spots may be technically folliculitis, which is when the hair follicle becomes infected. However, it looks the same as facial pimples and is treated the same skincare ingredients and medications.
Bolt To The Shower After Your Workout
One of the first things a bacne sufferer can do (that many of us may be guilty of) is to shower as soon as possible when you get back from the gym.
You need to rinse off the sweat, oil, and even skincare like sunscreens and hair products that can otherwise build up around hair follicles on your back. Marinating your skin in occlusive or tight gear post-sweat-outs is recipe for a breakout.
Use An Acne Fighting System
Use a salicylic-based wash first, and treat your back with a formula that unclogs pores such as AHA/BHA gels. Next, use glycolic acid pads daily which gently exfoliate dead skin cells and stimulate cell renewal.
Keep Your Hair Stylers Away
Most people don’t realize this but hair styling products such as hair oils or sprays that come in contact with the back can cause back breakouts. Some of us happily rinse off our hair conditioners or hair treatments at the end of the shower, and these stick to the skin and clogs up pores on the back. To prevent this, wash and rinse your hair first, then soap your body to get rid of any unwanted residue. When applying hair products after a shower, put on your clothes first, or drape a towel over your back.
Watch Out For Acne Breeding Hotbeds
Along the same line on basic hygiene, don’t forget to change those bath towels daily to prevent the fabrics that you come into contact with from turning into acne hotbeds. If you have particularly sensitive skin plus a weird bout of bacne, you might also consider switching to laundry detergents meant for sensitive skin or fragrance-free fabric softener to prevent skin irritation from triggering spots.
Reconsider The Pimple Cream
While benzoyl peroxide is a great idea for the face to terminate pimple-causing bacteria and unplug clogged pores simultaneously, but it’s not the best for the body, since it can bleach your pretty clothes and ruin expensive bedsheets (unless you are into tie-dye sheets). And if you tend toward a body scrub, go light-handedly when the breakout is active to avoid aggravating the inflammation.
Folliculitis? Try Laser Hair Removal
Those troubled by dark hairs on the back plus recurrent, pesky bacne might do well with laser hair removal as a permanent solution to smooth their back view and prevent future breakouts.
Professional Bacials
Bacne often leaves discolourations or marks that can be persistent, as “skin healing tends to be poorer off the face. Book in for a professional bacial with microdermabrasion and skin-conditioning masks to erase those scarring memories of the breakout, along with rough, dull, pasty skin, in exchange for a flawless airbrushed finish with an invitingly beautiful sheen. From a peek-a-boo flash of virgin skin to a daring backless number.
Try Clear Blue Body, a body-cial designed for people who want to keep their blemishes away. A 2-step cleansing ritual with a pineapple enzyme scrub, followed by deep sonic cleansing dissolves unwanted debris and frees the pores of impurities. LED Blue light therapy is then applied for 20 minutes, followed by an acne collagen mask to calm purified skin.
In case you didn’t know, LED blue light therapy has been shown to be effective at killing acne-causing bacteria, so this body-cial is a hybrid of sorts – combining the comfort of a spa treatment with a medically supported treatment.
Acne Scars Removal
Bacne pigmentation scars will usually lighten over time, but they can take really, really long to do so. To speed this up, pigmentation scars can be treated with a pulse-dye laser such as VBeam or a pigment laser to even out the uneven skin tone of post acne backs. Deeper acne scars can be resurfaced with gentle resurfacing lasers such as the Fraxel Light treatment, which will smoothen and also texturise the skin for a nice glow.