People who have acne understand how affective it can be to the skin. It can be unattractive and both physically and emotionally painful. Acne can cause embarrassment and even humiliation and can make a normal teenager’s self esteem drop exponentially. You may feel helpless when it comes to your acne. However, you should not feel like you have no control over it. With mild to moderate acne, you can look at the acne control tips below.

Acne Control: Change Your Shampoo

Shampoo is one of the main reasons why teenage girls have acne on their hairline. Many teenage girls do not realize that they have sensitive skin or that they are even allergic to their shampoo. If you are allergic to your shampoo, you will see acne forming right along your hairline and on the back of your neck. If this is the case, a simple acne control tip is to just switch your shampoo. Try the new shampoo for two weeks and if you do not see any improvement, switch to another shampoo and try it for two weeks. For acne control, try doing this until you find a shampoo that works the best for you.

Acne Control: Change Your Hairstyle

In addition to changing your shampoo, changing your hairstyle is another acne control tip. Even if you are not allergic to your shampoo, you might be allergic to the product you put in your hair. If this is the case, you will most likely have acne where your hair touches your skin—right around your ears, on your forehead, and on your neck and upper back. In addition, your skin might just be sensitive to the natural greases that are in your hair. If this is true and you have bangs, chances are you have acne problems underneath where your bangs are. An acne control tip for this is to grow out your bangs by clipping them up until they are long enough to stay away from your forehead unassisted.

Acne Control: Keep Clean

Another acne control tip is to keep your skin clean. Everyone’s faces have natural oils and greases that build up after several days of not washing. The best thing for your face is to wash it daily. Make sure that you are keeping your skin clean and healthy and you might see a reduction in acne control problems. Cleaning your face daily is one of the best acne control tips for your skin.

There are, fortunately, some skin care routines that actually have been proved to be quite effective by clinical studies. As with almost anything medicinal, the results vary dependent on the particular person, but the majority of treatments that have some kind of clinical basis actually advocate less expensive methods of acne prevention and cure.

One of the best recognised treatments is just a simple three-step method, which involves cleansing, the application of a chemical product and then good moisturising. All of these products can be found cheaply, and what’s more, they have a good level of efficiency on most acne cases. Using such a skin care regime is also useful for acne sufferers who are unwilling, or at least doubtful, about using antibiotic drugs to fight acne. It is far preferable to avoid antibiotics for non life-threatening conditions, so a skin care regime that has a similar level of efficacy as antibiotics should ideally be considered by all.

The first suggestion on this three-step regime is to use a light, gentle cleanser on all skin that is prone to acne (even if there is no acne in the area at present). The purpose of this cleanser should be to remove surface oils and nothing more; don’t select a product that claims to have acne-fighting properties for itself, that stage is dealt with on the next level.

The primary treatment is in the second stage, and involves the application of the chemical benzoyl peroxide at a strength of 2.5%. Benzoyl peroxide oxygenates skin, and acne cannot form on skin treated with this method. A cream or lotion containing 2.5% of the active ingredient, benzoyl peroxide, can be bought at most pharmacies – simply check labels.

The third step is a finishing process, and should involve use of a good quality moisturiser which is applied when the benzoyl peroxide has been absorbed. This helps lessen the effects of a chemical irritation on the skin. Benzoyl peroxide is known to make skin flaky and dry in some cases, and the use of a good moisturiser will counter this effect.

Just these three tested steps, used together for a reasonable concentrated period of time, have a reasonably good chance of succeeding in ridding you of your acne once and for all for great looking skin.