Natural ways to banish teen skin breakouts

The only thing worse than a bad hair day is a bad skin day. We all know how it goes; your teen has a hangout planned with new friends or a link-up with a crush, and they wake up that morning with a glaring zit on their face. As parents, we are the ones trying to help them manage their despair and find solutions so that they can face the day with confidence.

While acne should be brought to a dermatologist’s attention, they are on their own when it comes to trying to keep garden-variety pimples under control.

Qualified pharmacist and aromatherapist, Dorcye Sher, the founder of Aromatic Apothecary developed the formula for her Zap-Zit range to help her children when they were in their teens. Her goal was to come up with a fast-acting natural product that would not dry out the skin or lead to scarring and more outbreaks.

Parents of teens, like myself, care about avoiding pimples, and it helps to have a proven strategy to deal with them.  We must be aware that many products that promise to get rid of pimples and achieve that proverbial advertising-perfect ‘clear and glowing skin’ can be harsh and drying. In the short term, this might well knock a pimple back, but there is a longer-term concern.

How can parents help their teens with their skincare?
There are healthy lifestyle factors that support clearer skin. Parents should encourage healthy eating and make healthy foods available including plenty of vegetables and healthy fats such as olive oil and nuts. Urge your teen to limit fast foods and snacks so that they reduce their intake of sugar, refined carbs, and fats. Drinking plenty of plain water every day helps to flush out toxins. Exercising is also important, and parents can help teens make a habit of washing their sweaty faces with warm water straight after physical activity. Sufficient sleep is important for every bodily system, including the skin. Give your child a Zap-Zit Mini Roll-on to keep at their bedside so it can be easily applied to clean skin before they go to bed.

Here’s Doryce’s recommended daily skin care routine for teens:

The hygiene factor
There are plenty of teens who are scrupulous about twice-daily face washing and still get pimples or even acne. Hormones are at play, and of course, an outbreak is not a sign of poor hygiene. That doesn’t mean they can slip up. Morning and evening, teens need to be consistent about washing their faces with a good cleanser.

Target the pimples, not the face
Dry and apply Zap-Zit Mini Roll-on directly on any blemishes. You can repeat this, three or four times a day. Do not use your fingers to apply the remedy.  The applicator is anti-infectious, and fingers are not. If you are dealing with a whitehead or swelling under the skin, use the tip of the applicator to gently massage the swelling.

Don’t forget to moisturise
Make sure the skin is nourished with a good moisturiser because deliberately drying out the skin only stimulates sebaceous glands and leads to more pimples. The skin should not feel tight after the skincare routine. The normal and balanced feel of the skin is soft and flexible, yet not oily.

Don’t touch your face
Help your teen be mindful of the connection between the face and hands. Often unconsciously, we touch our faces repeatedly during the day. This can be amplified when we have an annoying pimple or throbbing swelling under the skin.  Hands, though, don’t help, they just introduce more bacteria.  Don’t squeeze and don’t pick. The best they can do is to find relief in applying another round of Zap-Zit Mini Roll-on with its anti-infectious applicator.

Doryce says, “A quick-acting aromatherapy solution such as the Zap-Zit Mini Roll-on has the advantage of using carefully calibrated volumes of selected essential oils in a non-greasy alcohol base. It won’t dry out the skin which simply prompts another over-production of sebum and the next outbreak of pimples. Instead, it dries the pimple and deals directly with the immediate challenges of a pimple and helps to restore balance over the longer term. It’s more than just a quick fix; it’s a step towards restoring balance and nurturing the skin naturally over the longer term.”

Photo by Suad Kamardeen on Unsplash