TL;DR: Hormonal acne is driven by fluctuating hormones telling your skin to produce more oil than it needs, which clogs pores and feeds breakouts. Benzoyl peroxide offers an effective and dependable way to get things under control.
If you’ve ever had to cope with hormonal acne, you’ll know it tends to show up in the same places each time – the jawline, the chin and the lower cheeks. It’s a stubborn type because it’s driven by oil and bacteria under the skin, not something sitting on the surface, which is why the best face wash for hormonal acne tends to contain benzoyl peroxide.
Most people end up working through a list of “best” products without really knowing why one works and another doesn’t, some calm redness, some exfoliate, but very few actually get into the pore to deal with the bacteria and oil causing the breakout in the first place.
In this blog, we take a look at what it is about benzoyl peroxide that makes the biggest difference for hormonal acne, to help you understand if it’s for you or not.
Why The Best Face Wash for Hormonal Acne Is Needed
As your hormones change during different parts of your menstrual cycle, you can get spikes of both testosterone and progesterone. The reason why finding the best face wash for hormonal acne is so important is that these fluctuations often lead to more oil being produced – which can end up appearing faster than your skin can clear it away. This leads to clogging and zits in those common places.
It’s also why hormonal acne can be so frustrating compared to the odd spot you get from sweat, makeup or forgetting to wash your face – it can seem to come out of nowhere and have no cause. The truth is that the real trigger is inside the body. So while a face wash cannot stop your hormones from fluctuating, the right one can help manage what those changes do to your skin.
Other causes of hormonal acne include:
- A buildup of bacteria – Those clogged pores offer the perfect place for acne-causing bacteria to grow – which is essentially what turns a blocked pore into an inflamed and painful zit.
- Stress in your life – If you’ve got the kind of busy lifestyle that leaves you worked up and bothered, cortisol gets produced in the body. This can make your breakouts worse, even if they’re not the original trigger.
- Some medications – If you’ve just started some new pills, be they for general health or contraception, you might find that it directly affects the hormones that are associated with more sebum being created.
- Family genetics – If you’ve got brothers or sisters with hormonal acne, that might not be a coincidence, as it can run in the family.
While it’s nice to know why hormonal acne happens, it’s not necessarily info that’s going to help you turn the tide back in your favor. That’s where benzoyl peroxide face wash comes into play.
Why Benzoyl Peroxide Works So Well for Hormonal Breakouts
So, what is it that makes benzoyl peroxide (BP) wash so good at helping people deal with hormonal acne? It’s because benzoyl peroxide targets one of the main things that turns clogged pores into angry zits: bacteria. When your hormones change and more oil comes along, it can mix with dead skin, dirt and general debris – creating the ideal place for breakouts to grow.
By reducing acne-causing bacteria inside the pores, benzoyl peroxide helps make those breakouts less likely to become red, inflamed and painful. That’s why BP washes can be such a useful option for hormonal acne, even though they don’t stop the hormonal changes behind it.
When used in a foaming wash, benzoyl peroxide can help to eliminate excess oil from your complexion, so that you’re less prone to new zits showing up. While it might feel like the right time to reach for harsh scrubs and exfoliants, BP washes tend to be the best fit for the job.
Use The Best Face Wash for Hormonal Acne & Get Back Control of Your Skin
Looking at yourself in the mirror each day, it really can feel like hormonal acne is working against your efforts to combat it – especially when it can be so unpredictable. However, with a good benzoyl peroxide wash in your armory, there’s no reason why you can’t get back control of your skin.
Hormones are powerful things and they have a big impact on the human body, as anyone with hormonal acne will attest to. That’s why you need the power of one of the most popular and effective acne-fighting ingredients around – benzoyl peroxide.
Just remember to follow the instructions on the bottle and listen to what your skin is telling you – as you need to keep a close eye on things in the first few weeks. You might get a touch of dryness and it’s not going to magically make your zits stop appearing overnight.
That said, once you know how well your skin tolerates your BP wash, you can work out exactly what concentration of product you should be using. Once you know that, it’s just about sticking to your routine and watching the improvements gradually come.
