Breakouts explained: What exactly is breakout?

Breakout is like a traffic jam inside your hair follicle or pore. The follicle is like a passageway or tunnel. Oil (sebum) comes up through the follicle and out onto the surface of your skin, picking up dead cells along the way. When too much oil tries to get through at any given time, and/or there are too many dead cells sticking to the follicle wall, it starts a chain reaction resulting in a backup. For instance, when traffic starts to slow down on the highway (follicle), it causes a traffic jam (congestion) with an eventual backup (breakout) that can go on for miles.

Once this backup has started, the amount of oil within the follicle starts to increase. This buildup causes the follicle wall to expand and eventually break. Bacteria rush in, which in turn increases the infection. Now you have a hard, red, and sometimes large bump under your skin, commonly referred to as a pimple, zit, or blemish. Technically it is a pustule (if it has a white or yellow pus-filled head), or a cyst or papule (a bump lurking under the skin that contains infection but has no visible head).

To understand what to do if you have breakouts along with what may be causing your skin problems, please read the following along with other articles contained throughout this blog:

• Help for Breakouts
• What is causing your breakouts?
• YONKA Problem Skin Helpers + more
• Sugar & Skin Problems