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Have you ever tried a new skincare product, only to discover that it makes your skin flare up with pimples? This could be purging, or it could be reacting with a regular breakout. Purging is when your skin is adjusting to the new product, and persevering with the product will eventually make your skin better – in fact, the sudden crop of pimples means that it’s working as intended. A regular breakout is when your skin is reacting because it’s sensitive to something in the product. It could be clogging your pores, or causing an allergy, or just plain old irritation. Continuing with the product will just make the situation worse. If your skin is purging, you need to keep going. If your skin is reacting with a breakout, you need to stop using the product.

How do you tell the difference? Here’s the lowdown:

What causes purging?

To understand the difference between purging and plain old breakouts, we need to understand how they happen.

How a pimple forms

Firstly, we need to look at how a pimple forms. A pore becomes clogged – usually by dead skin cells that don’t detach and get to the surface properly – and forms what’s called a microcomedone.

Microcomedones aren’t visible at the surface of the skin. Sometimes they’ll develop into a whitehead, blackhead, pimple or full-blown cyst; sometimes they’ll go away on their own without you noticing. It can take up to 8 weeks for a microcomedone to surface.

Anatomy & Physiology, Connexions Website, OpenStax College

How purging happens

Here’s how purging can actually work – if a product speeds up skin turnover (the rate at which skin cells are shed and replaced), then the entire cycle will be accelerated and microcomedones will turn into whiteheads/blackheads/pimples/cysts more quickly, so you’ll suddenly see a rush of blemishes rearing their ugly heads.

If the product is irritating (which most skin turnover-accelerating products are), some microcomedones that weren’t going to show up might join the party too, since inflammation is one of the factors causing acne. However, these microcomedones were in the skin before you started the new product, not new blockages caused by the product.

Now, remember how the microcomedone started as dead skin cells that didn’t detach and get to the surface properly? Products that increase skin turnover target this exact process to treat acne!

So as the product starts to work, less microcomedones should form, and after the initial angry-volcano stage your skin should become clearer than when you started the product.

The difference with a reactive breakout

On the other hand, a reaction will occur when the product is either causing new clogged pores, or increasing irritation without an improvement in how your skin is functioning because you’re sensitive to it. New clogged pores means more blemishes overall, while irritation means inflammation, which means a larger proportion of your microcomedones are flaring up.

There’s a small chance that your skin will get used to the product over time, but most of the time you’ll just cause further damage and it’s time to find a better product.