Like many types of skin infections that pester most people acne also thrives in unclean places so if you are wondering why is my acne worse on one side, then the most likely answers would be you mobile phones may be dirty, or perhaps you’ve not changed your pillowcases or you are in the habit of touching your face with unclean hands. Sound familiar? Let’s have a closer look.
Acne’s favorite spot
For some people, the appearance of acne can be sudden and totally unnerving, while for others
its appearance is weirdly regular and sometimes it frequents certain spots such as the right or left side of your face.
When acne outbreaks regularly appear on one side of your face it’s reason enough for you to worry about the reason why it’s happening and try to work out an appropriate remedy for it. There are so many causes. It could be the cold winter, it maybe dirt on anything you are using.
A more specific cause of acne
More specifically, medical experts will tell you that the onslaught of acne usually start when you enter puberty.
And the reason for this belief is that at this stage of your life, your body develops plenty of androgens which are responsible for producing your deeper voice and in women, help develop their breasts but sadly it also contributes to the appearance of acne.
What are androgens?
Simply put, they are male hormones that help in developing the male sexual characteristics pertaining to the male species of Homo sapiens.
The hormone is found in both men and women, especially during their adolescent years and is responsible for producing more oil on the skin making it possible for acne to form and appear throughout the entire area of your skin.
Generally speaking, according to medical experts some people are more prone to getting acne outbreaks more than others, the reason given include their family history, the food they eat and their stress levels.
Acne on the face the most troubling
One of the most unique aspects of acne is its habit of choosing the face as its usually target for making an appearance. It can of course appear on other parts of your body but the face appears to be the main target.
Perhaps it’s because people regularly touch their face more often or because more oil is produced on the face or because by habit you tend to sleep on one side of your body rather than the other.
Wherever your acne appears, it’s normal that you’d rather it appeared somewhere else rather than your face. Nobody likes acne to appear on their faces!
Medical experts however hold that the location of the acne on the body can act as an indicator or a clue as to what may actually be causing acne to appear there. To them, apart from androgen, habit can also play an important role in the appearance of acne.
To prevent acne from appearing, experts believe that sufferers can improve their acne condition by changing their lifestyle.
They also offer different types of therapies for acne breakouts which are hormone triggered or caused by hair products and failure to exchange dirty pillowcases for clean ones.
Acne on different locations on the face
It’s very useful to know where acne usually appears on the face and why so here are the main places where acne normally appears on the face and the appropriate actions you can take against it:
Cheeks
The right and left side of the cheeks is a spot usually frequented by acne outbreaks and the main cause is from rubbing. Rubbing causes friction and hence the name given to an outbreak here as “frictional acne” so if you keep rubbing your cheeks it’s the reason why acne keeps appearing.
Acne outbreaks on the right or left side of your face can be caused by your habit of always sleeping on your right or left side. Acne will appear on the side of your face on which you always sleep.
The way you answer your phone is another inadvertent invitation for acne to appear. If you always answer your phone with your right or left ear, acne is sure to appear on those areas.
The frequent application of facial cosmetics on the cheeks can also be responsible for causing the appearance of acne so if you are in the habit of using cosmetics on your cheeks it’s no surprise that acne will also keep on appearing there.
Let’s now focus attention on the individual areas where acne appear most and why
Forehead
Our forehead and the area along the hairline is a haven for oil glands and all it takes to activate the formation of acne is to use a heavy hair conditioner on your hair.
Another way is for you to use a moisturizer or oil based hair care product to trigger an acne outbreak on the forehead. What the products do is they clog up the pores and allow “fragrant acne” to break out on the forehead.
Around the mouth
The culprits here for giving rise to an appearance of acne are lipstick or lip balm. They’re fine on the lips but once you smudge your surrounding skin with them, your skin won’t be able to breathe properly and while your skin becomes smothered, acne begins to for so it can make its appearance.
It’s also possible that acne breakouts around the area of the mouth may be caused by hormones. The reason here is that sufferers may possess an excessive amount of male hormones (androgens) in their skin. We now know that hormones give rise to more oil production in the body.
Nose, chin and jawline
As with acne on the forehead, acne around the jawline, chin and nose are caused by the production of excessive oil in these areas.
This area of the face also includes the horizontal middle part of forehead down the nose line and is called the “T-zone”
If you don’t want to worsen your acne breakout on this areas, you should avoid touching or picking the skin around this area.
Breaking the cycle
In the case of acne, the cycle to break is not so much the inner components of an acne or pimple but rather to break the habits that tend to induce or worsen an acne breakout.
Here are some very useful and effective ones:
- Avoid scrubbing an area where acne is present because scrubbing can worsen it.
- Drink lots of water
- Be gentle when applying skin products on your skin by using your fingertips.
- Use gentle, non-abrasive skin cleanser.
- Keep away from things that irritate the skin and never pick the skin
- When you apply skin care products don’t use a skin irritant item such as a washcloth.
In the event that no improvement is seen and your condition remains the same, be sure to visit your dermatologist.
Bottom Line
There’s no harm in asking, why is my acne worse on one side, after all it’s another way of wanting to learn more about a condition that most of us, if not all, would like to eliminate for good. However, since it’s clearly not possible for us to rid ourselves of the habits that exacerbate acne breakouts, we should at least pay to heed to how we should change our habits in order to prevent acne breakouts.
