You've started a new skin care routine and pimples appeared? Either your skin is cleansing, or you have a rash in response to a skincare routine or even an acne breakout. But how can you tell apart these three situations and avoid confusion? After this article, you will know more.
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How To Tell if Your Skin Is Cleansing, You Have an Acne Breakout, or if It Is an Allergic Reaction
Summary
- Skin Cleansing: What Does It Look Like?
- Skin Clearing vs. Rash or Allergy: How Can You Tell Them Apart?
Published February 29, 2024,
by
Stéphanie, Doctorate in Life and Health Sciences
—
4 min read
Skin Cleansing: What Does It Look Like?
The term "skin cleansing" or "rebound effect" refers to the appearance of skin lesions, similar to an acne breakout. Although this sudden and unexpected phenomenon can happen to anyone, it is more common among people prone to blemishes. When certain active ingredients are first incorporated into a skin care routine, they remove all the dead skin cells on the surface, thus revealing the blemishes by increasing the skin's cell renewal rate. These skin lesions would have appeared one after another at some point anyway. This phenomenon is only temporary and often foretells a cleaner complexion, free of impurities.
Skin Clearing vs. Rash or Allergy: How Can You Tell Them Apart?
Here's how to find out if you have an acne breakout or allergic rash, or if your skin is simply being cleansed.
Check the ingredients in your skincare.
Cleansing occurs when you have applied a skincare product focused on active ingredients that have exfoliating properties or activate the production of new skin cells (salicylic acid, retinoids, glycolic acid ...). When the top layer of dead skin cells is removed more quickly and cell renewal is accelerated, impurities may appear. In the opposite case, it is then a skin reaction caused by the use of a product unsuitable for your skin type.
The duration of the pimple outbreak
Cleansing is a temporary phenomenon that should disappear after a certain period of time. It usually takes between 4 and 8 weeks to fade away – the time it takes for the skin to go through a complete cycle of cell regeneration. However, if the acne pimples persist, it is an acne outbreak. It takes much longer for pimples to disappear.
Finding the pimples
Pimples caused by a cleanse will almost always appear in the places where you regularly have acne breakouts, while a pimple breakout due to an allergy will occur in places where you don't normally see pimples.
The type of pimple
Cleansing is manifested by the appearance of blackheads and/or whiteheads, whereas an allergic skin reaction is more likely to result in the appearance of red pimples. It is often accompanied by other symptoms suggestive of allergy, such as red patches, itching and skin dryness.
Diagnostic
Understand your skin
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