WELL+GOOD posted "The Many (MANY!) Complicated Reasons You Break Out, According To A Dermatologist" featuring Dr. Purvisha Patel and Visha Skincare .
The article includes Dr. Patel's expert commentary on the causes of breakouts and why they happen.
I’m familiar with a lot of things about my body. For instance: Certain foods (especially of the processed variety) make me bloated. Not washing my hair for precisely three days makes it look really good. And approximately one zillion things I do can lead to a breakout.
So, yeah—you could say that when it comes to pimples, things can get really complicated. I’ve been dealing with them for roughly two decades, and it’s still hard to determine the underlying culprits behind my zits and how to get rid of them on the fly. After over three years as a beauty journalist, however, I’ve learned one thing for certain: Breakouts happen for so, so many reasons. And that’s exactly why acne affects upwards of 50 million people every year.
The main thing to know is that acne is an extremely complex thing—even dermatologists acknowledge that it’s a tough situation to deal with. That said, there are some very real reasons why you breakout, which are helpful to know about so that you can keep pimples at bay.
Why am I breaking out? “There are four things that need to happen in order to breakout: follicular occlusion (a clogged pore), microbe overgrowth in the follicle (bad bacteria in your pores), sebum production (AKA oil), and inflammation,” explains Purvisha Patel, MD, a board-certified dermatologist and founder of Visha Skincare.