How Often Should I Wash My Face?

Washing the face keeps it clean and oil free. This lessens the chances of having acne flares due to clogged pores and bacteria infection. For this reason, acne sufferers tend to wash their faces excessively to reduce the oiliness of their skin. However, there is no scientific data to show that the lack of face washing causes acne or frequent washing improves the acne condition.

However, over washing or scrubbing your face will not only make your skin irritated and redden but also worsen the inflammatory stage of acne.

Normal washing actually does not affect the reservoir of oil in the follicle which is the place where acne originates. Furthermore, antibacterial soaps that contains triclosan and chlorhexidine which can be irritating to your skin and do not kill P.acnes bacteria. However, a benzoyl peroxide wash does reduce and kill P. acnes bacteria even when used as a cleanser but even with a benzoyl peroxide wash, over washing still irritate the skin.

Sometimes, you may not get acne but an irritant dermatitis (a skin inflammation) that look likes acne. When you treat your face with acne medication, the rashes can get worse. So in these cases, what you should do is wash your face less; twice a day by using a gentle surfactant free cleanser followed by a moisturizer.

Generally, washing in the evening is more important than in the morning. However, if you have heavy exercise and sweat a lot during a particular day, you should get your face wash. Do you know that you should use different products according to the season. A gentle, moisturizing product is more suitable during the winter, with only occasional exfoliation. For the warmer and more humid summer, use a more drying, foaming cleansers and more frequent exfoliation.

Cleansers come in various forms. Some are foaming washes which are drying and irritating while others are nonlathering that is less irritating and foam. Microbeads cleansers exfoliate while they clean and some other types comes in cleansing cloth use with or without water which are great for travel use. Finally, medicated cleansers generally contain benzoyl peroxide, salicylic acid or AHA.

Put in mind that an exfoliating cleanser should be used only once or twice a week or less depending on the sensitivity of your skin. For some acne sufferer, cleanser is the only acne treatment that is needed.

For acne sufferers who are allergic to topical benzoyl peroxide based products, a benzoyl peroxide cleanser may be the ideal solution as their acne treatment. As the benzoyl peroxide is only left on the skin for a few minutes before being rinsed and then followed by a face moisturizer, the chances for getting a skin irritation is very low. However, benzoyl peroxide is still effective in killing the acne causing bacteria even with such short time of contact with the skin. Thus, a benzoyl peroxide cleanser is successful in treating acne with minimum irritation.