Acne: Does Skin Color Matter?

November 30, 2016

We regularly hear people tell us that “because I am Asian”, “because I am part Latino”, “because I am X, Y, or Z” – I have acne. So we want to settle this once and for all – does skin color matter when it comes to acne? If your skin color is light, do you have a propensity to have oilier skin? If your skin color is dark, do you have drier skin and therefore, less acne?

The answer is easy and it might be sad for some of you who always thought your skin color might protect you from being acne-prone. The answer, my friends, is NO, skin color does NOT make you more or less resistant to acne. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Acne is caused from the retention of dead skin cells inside the hair follicles. Some people inherit the propensity to retain dead skin cells, and others do not. If your skin cells do not regularly slough out of the hair follicles, then the oil your skin produces will get clogged up in the dead skin cells and will attract bacteria. When the bacteria flourish on the skin, your body will fight them off by producing a pimple.

Some believe acne is treated differently based on whether you’re white, black, Asian, native, middle eastern, etc. But the fact is that skin is skin. We all have hair follicles. We all have oil glands. We all have skin cells and we all have bacteria that will live on our skin. We also all have self esteems that are negatively affected by breakouts.

What is different about acne as it pertains to skin color is the amount of darkness and length of time to fade the discoloration after a pimple goes away. Typically, the more pigment producing cells (melanin) a person has in their skin, the darker the marks will be after a pimple heals. Therefore, it’s important to work at reducing the size and number of the breakouts.

The bottom line is acne is acne. It does not matter your race or gender, we all have the same skin composition and it comes in a wide array of pigments and the genetic predisposition to have acne or not to have acne. Acne is a condition, which means that it will always be present, either in your skin or beneath its surface.

As always, if you have any more questions about this particular subject, please feel free to contact us.