To get the best acne treatments that work you need to understand the primary causes of acne.  There are two main causes.  Then your acne free treatment must tackle and address these causes.

Acne is firstly caused by sebum oil in the skin.  This oil is produced by the sebaceous gland which is at the base of the hair follicles in your skin pores.  The pores may be blocked by dead skin cells or dirt and the oil get trapped.  Or the sebaceous gland produces too much oil and the pores become clogged.

Secondly, bacteria inside the pores, which are sometimes called P acne, can become infected causing painful spots and inflammation.  Any effective body acne treatment should tackle both the sebum oil and the bacteria to clear or reduce your acne.

The blocked skin pores and bacteria can cause acne in many forms.  There are blackheads which are blocked skin pores which fill up of dirt and oil and pus.  These are coloured black not because of dirt or bad hygiene but because the sebum oil oxidises in air and then goes black.  Whiteheads are the same except for the pore is closed so the sebum does not contact air or oxidise to turn black.  Both blackheads and whiteheads can become infected, inflamed and get much bigger.  Cleaning the pores is very effective for reducing blackheads.

There are pimples which are small or large pus filled blisters on the surface of the skin.  Pimples can be caused by touch; your hands clog the pores or help infect them slightly.

Cysts are acne pockets deep inside the skin.  These are red lumps on the skin which can be quite painful and are filled with pus in underneath the skin surface; they can take some time to disappear.  They may reoccur in the same location weeks or months later.  Cysts can be hard to treat in the short term.  You need to take a long term view to curing cysts.

The next post will talk about the two essential steps to take for an acne free treatment.