Round Lab: How to Get Rid of Rough, Bumpy Skin

How to Get Rid of Rough, Bumpy Skin

No matter your skin type, rough and bumpy skin texture can creep up on you at some point in time. Despite being one of the most common skin problems, the work to get rid of it isn't easy to figure out.

If you're frustrated with stubborn bumps, rough patches, and dullness of textured skin, you are in the right place. There are various causes, treatments, and skincare for this dilemma of yours, and we're covering them all today to help you say goodbye to rough skin for good!

Ready to finally get that silky-smooth, radiant skin you've always wanted? Read on.

Causes and At-Home Treatments

Acne Scars and Large Pores

Oftentimes, acne scars and large pores are the culprits of uneven, rough skin texture.

After surviving acne breakouts, the skin surface can be marked with depressions or raised areas, known as acne scars. The inflammation and damage of acne affect the skin's surface, creating unevenness in both color and texture of the skin.

While large pores don't cause color inconsistency like acne scars, they too contribute to the skin's dullness and rough touch. Large pores can be easily clogged with oil and debris. Once congested with nasty plugs, pores stretch out and become more noticeable, leading to a lackluster complexion.

Treatments:

AHAs and BHAs

To refine your skin texture, enlist AHAs and BHAs to your skincare lineup. A combination of both exfoliants will help speed up your way to velvety, smooth skin. While AHAs encourage skin resurfacing, BHAs go deep into the pores to clean up pore plugs and prevent future congestion.

If you have sensitive skin, consider opting for products with PHA, LHA (a Salicylic Acid derivative), or Enzymes. They are milder exfoliants, yet they can still excellently smooth out uneven skin texture.

For acne-prone skin, Azelaic Acid is a great option to look for. Besides taking care of textured skin, Azelaic Acid is a great antibacterial active, which helps target inflamed pimples.

Retinoids

If your skin can tolerate, get yourself acquainted with Retinoids. As you may know, this powerful ingredient can ground-kick textured skin like none other, boosting your skin renewal and turning your rough skin into a smooth, luminous complexion.

With that said, be careful with how you incorporate Retinoids into your routine. As the power of Retinoids is great, the transforming action can be quite aggressive on the skin.

Vitamin C

Thanks to its ability to promote collagen production and wonderful antioxidant properties, Vitamin C is a game-changer for improving skin texture and minimizing the appearance of acne scars. While increasing collagen to rebuild healthy skin structure, Vitamin C also helps prevent future scarring by protecting the skin cells from environmental pollutants.

Milia

Milium cysts or milia can be identified as tiny seed-like bumps on the skin. At a brief glance, they are similar to whiteheads, but milia don't harbor pain, inflammation, or itchiness.

Milia are usually spotted around the eye area and cheek in clusters. Since they are made of trapped dead skin cells (aka keratin), they're pretty hard and have no opening to squeeze the content out, which is nature's way of saying you should never try to pop milia by yourself. As history has it, many more are left with scars in the attempt than successfully remove the milia.

Treatments:

Exfoliants and Oil-Regulating Actives

Mild milia cases in adults usually go away after a few weeks or months. But to assist the healing process, regular exfoliation can help a lot. You can employ Retinoids or Salicylic Acid to slough away dead skin cells that make milium cysts.

Between the two, Retinoids have a more speedy cell turnover rate, but Salicylic Acid has the added benefit of loosening up the oily debris. So choose as you may, but only take one to avoid irritating your skin with too many actives.

Leave it to the Professional

If you want to skip the wait, it's best to consult a professional on how to remove your milia. Unlike at-home removal methods, in-office treatments are varied and can reduce the risk of scarring to a minimum. Usually, there won't be any, and infection prevention is far superior.

Comedonal Acne

Comedonal acne can appear as either blackheads- open comedones or whiteheads - closed comedones.

Sometimes, you can also see closed comedones as tiny flesh-colored bumps, not necessarily full-on whiteheads with a little red, inflamed ring around, which make many mistakes them as fungal acne (more on how to tell the two apart later).

Comedones appear when pores are congested with accumulated dead skin cells, excess sebum, and other skin debris. These clogged pores create raised bumps on the surface and often pop up on the forehead, chin, and cheeks, causing rough and bumpy skin texture.

Left untreated, comedonal acne can become inflammatory pimples. And once you reach that stage, the saga of treating and healing is much more complicated.

Besides the unsightly appearance, another beef people have with comedonal acne is how they are easily mixed up as fungal acne. Without guidance from the right diagnosis, those stubborn bumps will continue to latch on.

An easy way to tell comedonal acne and fungal acne apart is to observe if the bumps carry any itchiness. If you feel itchy, you're probably having fungal acne. Otherwise, the bumps are comedones.

Treatments:

Prevent Skin Dehydration

Excess sebum hinders the skin's natural exfoliation process by making the dead skin cells and debris sticky. This can encourage the formation of comedones, hence, dehydrated skin is prone to comedonal acne. Insufficient skin hydration can trigger an increase in oil production, leading to excess sebum.

So, it's important that you hydrate and moisturize your skin consistently.

Chemical Exfoliants and Acne-Fighting Actives

To draw out trapped impurities in the pores, use chemical exfoliants like BHAs, AHAs, LHA, PHA, or Enzymes.

Additionally, incorporating acne-fighting actives like Azelaic Acid, Benzoyl Peroxide, and Retinoids into your routine can superbly improve skin texture. These ingredients smooth out all bumps, be it comedone or inflammatory acne. They also have antibacterial properties and help you balance oil production.

Avoid Oil

Remember what we said about oil? Yeah, so you want to be cautious about it. Don't go too heavy with moisturizers or balms, and be careful with oily hair products.

Also, watch out for a high-glycemic diet. Your daily intake of carbs and fried food can also tease out excess sebum.

Signs of Aging Skin

As we age, our skin undergoes a lot