I'd always heard the words "adult acne" bandied around, and thought: 'surely not'. I've never struggled with breakouts, aside from the odd flare-up, but in the lead-up to my 30th birthday, I started getting them persistently, to my horror. They weren't terrible, per se, but as soon as one area would clear, another would rise to the occasion and take its place. It was frustrating, and quite prohibitive to my job—as a beauty editor, I'm expected to trial the gamut of new products, and I began to suspect all that testing wasn't doing my skin any favours.
So, I stripped things back, and am pleased to report that things are slowly but surely improving. To get there, I consulted my black book of dermatologists to understand why and how my skin was changing—and whether it was linked to entering a pivotal new decade (spoiler alert, it was). Plus, most importantly, they shared how to deal with it. Get the lowdown below.
