It’s best to consult your dermatologist first, but certain forms of oral birth control may help regulate your hormones throughout the month and prevent the dip associated with breakouts. For more in-depth info, check out our article on period acne where we go into detail on everything you need to know about its causes and how to treat it.

Want to learn more about how your period and cycle influence your acne? Check out our app to get personalized insights into your skin health through our cycle tracking system.

2) You’re going through puberty

If you’re in your teenage years (or even your early 20’s), then you’ve probably noticed that your body is going through all sorts of changes.

During puberty, androgen (the growth hormone) is flaring in your body. While this helps with all of the natural processes of growing into your adult body, it also has that awkward side effect of causing lots of unwanted blemishes. (3)

In fact, around 80% of teenagers and young adults deal with acne at some point, so it’s pretty much a near-universal experience.

How you can deal with acne in the teen years:

As always, a combination of approaches is best when dealing with acne, particularly when it comes to the somewhat unavoidable acne during puberty.

While topical treatments may be a good first step, if your acne keeps persisting it might be time to try oral hormonal therapies. (4)

3) Your pimples appear around specific parts of your face

If you’ve ever noticed your breakouts only really appearing on certain parts of your face and body, this can actually be a sign of hormonal acne.

Crazy right? But the science backs it up. Specifically, if you notice more blemishes concentrated around your lower jawline (4) and chin as this tends to be the area where many of your sebaceous glands are concentrated.

Face mapping is a useful technique that can help you to understand how exactly to diagnose and manage your breakouts based on their placement on your face. For example, more breakouts on the cheek areas can indicate a more bacterial cause, such as from rubbing against a pillowcase. (5)

Want to track your skin journey? Check out our face scanner to compare and contrast your skin’s condition and track your progress.

How to deal with acne on your jawline:

The usual combination of topical and oral treatments will be the best method to alleviate your symptoms of jawline acne.

While other forms of facial acne might have more simple fixes, like washing a pillowcase or swapping out hair products, hormonal acne unfortunately needs a bit more elbow grease to treat your symptoms effectively.

4) You’ve been dealing with stress

If you’ve been dealing with a lot of stress from work or school (or whatever life has been throwing at you) and you’ve noticed that your acne has been getting worse, then it’s a good chance that your hormones are affecting your skin.

Specifically, cortisol (the hormone responsible for stress) can influence your skin (6) enough to cause breakouts. In addition, your body is more likely to produce androgens (7) during stressful periods, which further contributes to increased skin irritation.

Seriously, when it rains it pours.

Read more about the effects of stress on acne.

How you can deal with stress-related acne:

If your breakouts are occurring because of stress, then it makes sense that lowering your stress levels would be the best way to manage your symptoms right? 

If you’re feeling overworked, or have other unavoidable factors in life that are stressing you out, it’s important to set aside some time to engage in de-stressing activities. One thing to remember is that there is no right way to de-stress!

Whether you prefer meditation and bubble baths, or metal music and concerts, any activity that helps you to relax and take a load off will effectively lower your levels of cortisol and return a healthy balance to your body and skin.

5) Your breakouts are painful

It turns out that the types of blemishes that occur as a result of hormonal acne can actually be a bit different than your regular breakouts. Hormonal acne tends to form a bit deeper in the skin in the form of cysts (8), rather than more surface blackheads or whiteheads.

How to deal with painful breakouts:

When it comes to deeper, more painful cystic acne, simple topical treatments will most likely not be strong enough to have a significant impact on your cysts and clear up your symptoms. In this case, prescribed oral treatments will be your best bet to get to the root of the underlying issue.

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