Oily Skin- What is it?



Our skin has sebaceous glands. These glands produce sebum. This sebum keeps our skin well moisturized and protects skin from microbial infections. The sebum is mainly made of lipids and dead skin cells. The skin constantly produces the sebum. If you don't wash your hair for few days you will find that your hair is oily. That is sebum. What if your body produces more than required sebum? You get oily skin.

Oily Skin- Why some people get it?

Why some people have it? As we saw, the sebum makes the skin oily. Some of us have overactive sebaceous glands. That is mainly because of hormones that trigger excess sebum production. That is the reason many women get more oily skin during their menstrual periods. Apart from regular care of the oily skin, talk to your doctor about any method to control the androgens that trigger sebum production.

Acne and oily skin-

Oily skin is the right environment for the P.acnes bacteria to flourish. With more oil in the glands and on the skin, these bacteria infect many glands and produce acne. If you have oily skin, please manage it properly, otherwise your chances of getting acne are high.

Acne on face and body-

Most of us think of face when we think of acne. That is because of two reasons. Acne does affect face more than other body areas. Secondly we can hide acne on our back or chest, but not on face. Acne on face makes us self-conscious. Let us find out what is the difference between acne on face and acne on other body areas.

Acne- where does it form?

Acne forms on the sebaceous glands. Every sebaceous gland is suspect to form acne. The sebum that gets blocked inside the gland forms acne by getting infected. By this theory we can get acne on allover body except few places such as lips etc. that do not have sebaceous glands.

Sebaceous glands distribution on body-

Though our whole body skin has these glands, the density is different. These glands are more on face and upper trunk. Areas such as feet etc. all have glands but the density is much small. Therefore we have more probability of getting acne on face and upper trunk compared to other body parts.

Is acne different on different body parts?

Acne as I said earlier is a disease of sebaceous glands. As the glands all over the body are same the acne is also same. There is no difference at all between acne on face and acne on the upper arms or trunk. Please treat acne on all body areas with the same medication. There is no difference.

This article is only for informative purposes. This article is not intended to be a medical advise and it is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Please consult your doctor for your medical concerns. Please follow any tip given in this article only after consulting your doctor. The author is not liable for any outcome or damage resulting from information obtained from this article.