Sudden breakout on cheeks

by Natasha
(UK)

I've always had reasonably good skin, but I have had the odd spot every now and then on my cheeks. However since the end of February, I've had a persistent breakout, mainly on my right cheek, that does not seem to improve. As soon as one massive spot starts clearing up, another one appears and its become an endless cycle - so bad in fact, that my self-esteem has plummeted and I hate even leaving the house.

It seems as though my cheek is persistently red underneath the skin, and its amongst that redness that the spots come out from.

I don't excessively moisturise, I've been using African Black Soap which is all natural twice a day to wash my face. I drink plenty of water and occasionally I do an aspirin mask to bring down the redness. Nothing seems to be helping, what can I do?

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Our reply

Hi Natasha, and thank you for message. I understand how difficult and embarrassing it is to develop skin rashes like this so suddenly and for no apparent reason.

First, I recommend you see your doctor or a qualified health professional to find out what is causing the skin rash. Once you have a diagnosis you can know better what options you have for finding a solution and eliminating the symptoms.

Medical treatments can sometimes help, however often they do not address the cause of the rashes, and so it will be helpful for you to look more closely at what may have changed in your life or your daily routine (if anything). Our article on What Causes Sensitive Skin? may be helpful to you in looking at your daily life and what might be contributing to your skin rash.

There are many root causes of skin outbreaks including stress, hormonal imbalance, sluggish elimination, food allergies, or toxicity in the body due to the accumulation of environmental toxins and food additive chemicals.

Our free eBook Clear Any Skin Problem Naturally offers a simple, five step approach to creating clear skin and whole body health.

Another helpful tool in finding ways to help your skin is to do a skin test to see how your skin reacts to each product or skin care treatment.

Even very safe and natural products can be irritating to some people with sensitive skin, so one way to check and make sure that your products are not adding further irritation is to go on a "skin care product fast" for a few days.

Don't use anything on your skin for a few days, and see what happens! For some people, this will clear up their skin problems. Even if it doesn't, at least you will have a baseline to start from.

Then, dab a little of one product that you use, such as the African Black Soap, onto your wrist or behind your ear. Wait 24 hours to see how your skin responds. Generally if you don't have a reaction, the product or treatment should not cause further outbreaks, although some people with sensitive skin find that they need two or three days for an accurate skin test.

Some people with sensitive skin find that they react to aspirin and salicylic acid, and so another thing you can try is to stop the aspirin masks to see if this helps.

Sometimes skin rashes create a cycle of inflammation where your skin breaks out, then you add creams, ointments or treatments to your skin to heal the rash. Sometimes these can help but sometimes these actually make the problem worse by adding more inflammation to your skin.

I have found that with sensitive skin, every new skin care ingredient or even natural products can cause a breakout. For this reason, many of us with sensitive skin have found that "less is more" and that reducing the amount of creams, lotions and treatments on the skin can actually help.

I hope these suggestions are helpful for you. Please let us know how these work for you and what you discover!