Why your skin is throwing a tantrum (and what your hormones have to do with it).

Hormonal acne isn't a hygiene problem. It's not that you don’t have enough willpower, or something a new cleanser is going to fix. Hormonal acne is a chemistry problem. Specifically, what your hormones, your liver, and your blood sugar regulation is up to, inside your body. 

If you feel like you’ve been trying everything to clear your hormonal breakouts and nothing has worked, be kind to yourself. This stuff isn’t easy. But hopefully we can help shed light on it, to make it that tiny bit easier.

Oestrogen detoxification

Our bodies produce oestrogen constantly. 90% of our cells are sensitive to how much oestrogen is in our body, which gives you an idea of how important oestrogen is for us women. It's way more than ‘just a period thing’.  

Once oestrogen has been used, it gets to leave. It gets detoxified, primarily via the liver, and then gets excreted through the gut. Simple enough in theory.

However, problems can arise as this process has multiple steps, and each one requires specific nutrients and enzymes to work properly. When any part of the process is sluggish from, say, a stressed liver, low B vitamins, not enough fibre, or a gut that isn't moving things along; used oestrogen doesn't clear efficiently. Instead, it gets reabsorbed back into circulation.

That excess oestrogen has to go somewhere. And one of the places it ends up is your skin, where it stimulates sebum (oil) production. 

More sebum = more opportunity for pores to become blocked, for bacteria to thrive, and for inflammation to take hold. The result is breakouts, typically clustered around the chin, jaw, and neck, which is the classic hormonal acne pattern.

DIM, found in Clear Skin Drink, is an extract from broccoli scientifically studied to powerfully support liver detoxification and is an effective way to give your body the helping hand it needs to bring your oestrogen clearance back on track, thus supporting your hormonal breakouts.

Blood sugars 

Let’s say your oestrogen detoxification is running well - yay! But chronically unstable blood sugar levels can keep breakouts going through a completely different mechanism.

Every time our blood sugar spikes; whether from a meal, stress, or a 3pm something-treat moment; our bodies release insulin. Insulin signals our skin cells to produce more oil. It also triggers a rise in androgens (such as testosterone), which are known to ramp up sebum production even more. More oil = more blocked pores = more breakouts.

Blood sugar instability also drives a low-key inflammatory state throughout the body. Inflammation, needless to say, makes acne worse. 

It can cause skin to be more reactive, slower to heal, and more prone to pigmentation post-breakout. It's essentially pouring petrol on a fire your hormones already started.

It can become a tricky pattern to break because inflammation interferes with hormonal balance, which can make oestrogen detoxification less efficient, which perpetuates the hormonal excess; and round and round we go.

Therefore, Clear Skin Drink contains a scientifically backed 4000mg dose of myo-inositol to meaningfully support blood sugar regulation to help smooth out inflammatory spikes, and 15mg zinc gluconate. Zinc is backed by excellent research demonstrating its skin healing and supporting properties; excellent to help soothe angry skin. It also supports testosterone balance within the body, thus supporting oil production and reactivity within the skin.  

The takeaway

Hormonal acne is almost never about one thing, which is what makes it such a tricky, and frankly emotional, thing for us to live with.

But at the core of things, blemishes are the skin's way of flagging a conversation happening deeper within; between your liver, gut, blood sugars, and hormones. 

Skincare helps manage the symptoms, which is really important. But by supporting the underlying body systems, you're actually changing the conditions that created the problem in the first place.