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How do I know if I have hormonal acne or bacterial?

Your acne appears around your chin and jawline. One of the telltale signs of a hormonal breakout is its location on the face. If you're noticing inflamed cystic acne on your chin or jawline area—anywhere around your lower face, really—you can bet your bottom dollar that it's probably hormonal acne.

self.com - What Is Hormonal Acne? Causes, Treatments, and Remedies | SELF

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When you hear the term “hormonal acne,” your mind probably jumps to those deep, super-red, painful pimples that plagued you during your teen years. But for many people, those breakouts aren’t just a distant memory. Unfortunately, hormonal acne can still show up much later in your life (and just in time to crash that wedding you were invited to). In fact, hormonal acne is most common in adult women between the ages of 20 and 40. You might assume you’re in the clear once you hit your 40s, but that’s not always the case, Cherise M. Levi, D.O.1, board-certified dermatologist and cofounder of Ayana Dermatology in New York City, tells SELF. You can even experience angry breakouts around menopause due to the fluctuating hormones in your body. So, if you’re dealing with adult acne, how can you tell if those sudden chin breakouts are hormonal or just your typical patch of pimples? There are a few specific things dermatologists look for when trying to determine what’s behind those pesky bumps. Keep reading to learn how to spot hormonal breakouts—and what you can do to finally get rid of them.

What is hormonal acne, anyway?

First, it’s important to understand the difference between hormonal acne and good old-fashioned pimples. Hormonal acne is intrinsically linked to (you guessed it) your hormones, resulting in “cyclical breakouts” that usually coincide with a person’s menstrual cycle, Joshua Zeichner, M.D.2, board-certified dermatologist and director of cosmetic and clinical research at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, tells SELF. It can also match up with other hormonal shifts in your life, meaning your menopausal acne or postpartum pimples could be hormonal. One important thing to note: Hormonal acne is technically not a medical term, board-certified dermatologist Ife J. Rodney, M.D.3, founding director of Eternal Dermatology + Aesthetics and professor of dermatology at Howard University and George Washington University, tells SELF. However, when a person tends to get very specific types of breakouts around the time of their period or when their body is experiencing vast hormonal shifts for other reasons (such as in the case of a condition like PCOS), dermatologists generally describe it as hormonal acne.

What causes hormonal acne?

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Aaand we’re back to hormones. “The hormones that cause this type of acne are fluctuations of estrogen and progesterone, which both vary widely throughout the menstrual cycle,” S. Manjula Jegasothy, M.D.4, board-certified dermatologist and founder of Miami Skin Institute, tells SELF. “In addition, the ratio of each of these hormones to each other can also affect women’s testosterone levels, and can also be causative in hormonal acne.” Cortisol, the stress hormone, can affect all of these hormones too. “It is believed that hormonal fluctuations, which can be menstrual or cyclical (or both) in women, do cause increased oil production in the pore,” says Dr. Jegasothy. This is how skin-care experts believe hormonal acne starts5, although the actual cause has yet to be determined.

How do you know if acne is hormonal?

There are several signs that your pimples are related to hormones. According to dermatologists, here are a few signs of hormonal acne:

1. You’re definitely past your teen years.

While we’d love to leave acne behind (along with our braces and boy band posters) once we enter our 20s, the reality is acne flare-ups are possible at any time. Hormonal acne is the type that’s most likely to attack in your 20-something years, since those are the years when people with vaginas tend to be most hormonally active. “Your 20s is often the peak childbearing age,” says Dr. Jegasothy. This makes people with vaginas more prone to the intense hormonal fluctuations of pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding.

self.com - What Is Hormonal Acne? Causes, Treatments, and Remedies | SELF

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