Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and moreStay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Every morning, I wake up, head to the bathroom and assess the damage. What fresh hell has broken out on my face overnight? Did the latest wonder serum work? Or is the angry constellation of blemishes still multiplying? Acne is a skin condition synonymous with adolescence: it’s Clearasil adverts and the pungent smell of tea tree and countless movie scenes where the young heroine gets a massive spot before the school prom. But it’s not simply a matter of “growing out of it” when you leave your teens behind. For some, acne can continue – or rear its ugly head for the first time – well into adulthood. According to the NHS, around 5 per cent of women and 1 per cent of men experience it over the age of 25, and I’m among them (acne is thought to be more common in women because of hormonal fluctuations). In my teens and early twenties, my skin could best be described as passable: a few spots cropped up here and there, but nothing I couldn’t manage. But around the time I turned 26, a magazine colleague asked me to test out and review an intricate skincare routine from an upmarket American brand. It was on the verge of launching in the UK, and the brand’s resident expert had picked out all the products that I needed for an all-round transformation. But the sheer array of active ingredients in this cocktail – sulphur! Acids! Collagen “boosters”! – sent my skin haywire. The resulting “before” and “after” pictures were laughable (or they would have been, had it not actually hurt to laugh). A stressful job change a few months later only compounded the problem. That job involved interviewing extremely famous, extremely beautiful people – a chastening experience at the best of times, but more so when half of your face is on fire. I put off a visit to the GP for the best part of a year. Why? I’d convinced myself that I’d have to turn up without makeup, a straightforward task that felt entirely impossible. Anyone who’s had acne will know that it’s a condition that doesn’t just wreak havoc on your skin: it can also tie your mind into knots. Whenever I read headlines from studies linking acne with depression and other mental health problems, I always want to respond: “No s***!” Eventually, though, I made an appointment and was prescribed a topical cream that helped calm things down. It took a few months, but finally I looked (and, crucially, felt) halfway “normal” again. But fast-forward six years to the present day, and I am back in the same position again. Only this time, it’s worse. Over the past few months, it has felt like my skin has decided to declare all-out war. Just when I think I’ve managed to clear up a breakout, another one arrives, worse than the first, ready to obliterate a new section of my face. There have been weeks when I’ve barely dared to make eye contact with others. There have been times when talking has seemed to cause pain, so I’ve shrunk into silence while meeting friends (the added bonus of staying quiet? I don’t have to feel their gaze lingering on me while I chat).open image in gallery‘Predicting whether a product will help you out, do precisely nothing or make everything worse is near impossible’ (Getty/iStock)And as previously reliable treatments have failed me, I’ve embarked on an odyssey of researching, shopping for and testing out new ones. Aiding and abetting me in this task is my social media algorithm, which has inevitably picked up on my problem and responded with a bombardment of putative miracle cures. I’ve ordered plenty of them, only to be left underwhelmed by the results; they never quite seem to tally up with the staggering “before” and “after” shots on the brand’s Instagram account. Who could have possibly foreseen it? Now that I’ve exhausted so many skincare options, I’m being targeted with ads for increasingly outlandish (and expensive) tools. Should I spend £300 on an LED mask that promises to blast away acne with blue light, while also allowing me to temporarily resemble C-3PO? Last week, in a late-night burst of despondency, I ended up ordering a “high frequency wand” on Amazon, lured in by an influencer’s impressive pre- and post-usage photos. It was not my proudest moment (I’m still not entirely sure what it actually does, but it involves argon gas). My friends are talking about mortgages; I seem to be wasting my disposable income on salicylic acid and microdart pimple patchesFalling for a new product every week makes me feel like a dupe, but that’s not enough to stop me from clicking “add to basket”, while imagining the clear-skinned future that said product might bring. My usual scepticism about the beauty industry appears to be missing in action; it’s hard to be rational and self-aware when you’re desperate for solutions. Last year, one study estimated that acne sufferers in the UK are each spending up to £738 annually on managing the condition. What’s particularly frustrating is the fact that, put simply, I am now six years older than I was at the time of my last flare-up. If it was embarrassing to walk around with the skin of a teenager in my mid-twenties, it is more mortifying now. My friends are talking about mortgages; I seem to be wasting my disposable income on salicylic acid and microdart “pimple patches”. During my first skirmish with acne, social media was already ubiquitous. It was the era of Facetune and filters; Instagram teemed with photos of uncannily smooth skin that didn’t exactly boost my self-confidence. But back then, the digital landscape was also, in many ways, simpler to navigate. There wasn’t such an array of self-proclaimed “experts” offering up seductively simple but often wildly contradictory advice on how to clear your skin. There weren’t as many AI-generated ads designed to promote dubious products, or such a vast quantity of aspirational but out of reach “progress” videos for me to fixate over. Navigating the influx of antithetical information on offer is practically my (second) full-time job. Every spare moment gets reassigned to sense-checking supplements and serums on Reddit, and absorbing endless infographics about “the one hidden issue that’s sabotaging your skin”. Could it be… my pillowcase? My diet? Perhaps it’s all down to cortisol levels, the internet’s new favourite answer to every healthcare question. Can topical lotions and potions ever make much of a difference when it might just all be down to my hormones? Predicting whether a product will help you out, do precisely nothing, or make everything worse is near impossible; you start to feel a little like a cartoonish mad scientist with a hyper-fixation, experimenting with strange new combinations of chemicals and hoping for the best. I’ve taken a few sneaky breaks from writing this to research whether azelaic acid, a skincare ingredient raved about by the few influencers that I’ve grown to vaguely trust, is compatible with the benzoyl peroxide in my prescription cream, or whether it’ll turn my face red and raw. I’ve been burned, quite literally, before by overzealous use of actives.It’s hard not to sound all “woe is me” when talking about adult acne. You start to second guess yourself, worrying that your concerns are trivial, superficial, stupid; you tell yourself that there are plenty of other people out there dealing with far worse. You become frustrated with yourself for allowing it to take up so much mental space: how many books could I have finished in the time I’ve spent reading reviews for skincare subscriptions? I’m hopeful that this is just a relapse and that, like before, I’ll eventually find a solution that gets me back on track. I’m not holding out for mark-free, Instagram-ready “glass skin” any time soon, but it’d be nice not to sigh every time I pass a reflective surface. I’m also trying to remind myself that clear skin isn’t an indicator of worth. But if someone in your life is facing a similar struggle, please don’t tell them that they’re just being vain or silly. For those of us in the thick of it, adult acne’s impact is much more than skin deep.
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I’m 33 and adult acne has taken over my life. I know I’m not alone
