How to Deal with Acne on Your Stomach

When it comes to battling acne, the face is the frontline. It’s basically an endless struggle. You arm yourself with all the right products and never let up. You stay vigilant and bring it every single day. And just when you get your routine down and think you have the acne under control on your face, you find the battle lines have moved south. 

And we’re not just talking about chest and back acne. We’re talking about those blemishes sprouting on your stomach. 

Sometimes it feels like a fella can’t catch a break. Buck up, though. We’re gonna whip that stomach acne, too. So, gentlemen, grab that charcoal body wash and get ready to take action.  

Vanquish Body Acne with Our Charcoal Body Wash

We’ll learn all about what makes some dudes more susceptible to stomach acne and how to differentiate acne from other bumps that emerge on your stomach. And most importantly of all, we’re gonna prepare you with all the tools and knowledge you need to keep your skin looking as good as possible.  

HOW PREVALENT IS STOMACH ACNE? 

While chest and back acne are indeed more common afflictions, many a dude out there struggles with stomach acne, too. But even dudes who count themselves among the stomach-acne afflicted, the real number of stomach-acne sufferers is likely smaller. That’s because many dudes commonly confuse other bumps for acne. Most commonly, those little red knolls are actually razor bumps, not acne. 

Yep, if you’re looking at bumps in the day or so after you’ve gone after that stomach hair, there’s a pretty strong likelihood those irritated knobs are indeed razor bumps. Razor bumps are ingrown hairs — typically freshly clipped hair curling back into the skin — and they are much more likely to emerge if you aren’t properly prepping for your shave. We’ll get into the proper shave routine in a moment, but let’s zoom in on stomach acne for now. 

Why is stomach acne a relative rarity? Well, real quick, some acne basics: Acne occurs when your pores get plugged. Dead skin cells and sebum, the natural oil your sebaceous glands produce, are the most common pore-blockers. And while sebaceous glands are present on nearly every part of your body, apart from your hands and feet, there just aren’t that many of them in some regions. One of those regions without a whole lot of oil production is your stomach. 

In fact, sebaceous glands are less prevalent as you move south of the chest, as this helpful illustration shows. When sebaceous glands are in short supply, acne is much less common. Your T-zone — the area of your face that extends from your chin, up through the nose and branches out over the eyes — is your body’s sebaceous gland epicenter, which is why acne is such a relentless problem on your face. 

A LITTLE TOO MUCH FRICTION 

Because of that reduced oil production below the chest and upper back, it often takes a little more than mere bad luck to sprout body breakouts. Sometimes, it just takes a little extra heat, some fiction on the skin and voila: you’re looking at acne mechanica. 

If you’re an athlete, the term itself may be new to you, but this type of acne is probably infuriatingly familiar. It most commonly happens when sweat gets trapped beneath form-fitting workout clothes or other athletic gear — underneath your chin strap, where your hat band meets your forehead and, yes, underneath skin-tight shirts.

To put it bluntly, gentlemen, one of the best ways to fight against acne mechanica is to not be so damn nasty. For starters, wear fresh clothes when you exercise. Wearing that same compression shirt three runs in a row without washing? Yeah, you might want to cool it with that funky practice. Obviously, you’re gonna start smelling gross, but you’ll also be accumulating bacteria that all the jostling from exercise is going to use as kindling for acne. 

Keep those clothes clean. Keep your body clean, too. Shower as soon as possible after you exercise and change into more breathable duds. Stewing in your funk while wearing skin-tight sweaty garb is a truly fabulous way to give yourself a bout of acne, not just on your stomach, but wherever those clothes are clinging to. 

NOT RAZOR BUMPS, BUT NOT ACNE, EITHER

Before we offer some acne-fighting solutions, let’s take a moment here to note a couple of other skin irritations that can easily be mistaken for acne. 

First up, folliculitis. Not only does this condition look quite a bit like acne, but it’s also caused by some of the same things: tight clothes and bad shaves to name a couple. But folliculitis, caused by Staph aureus, can also come from poorly maintained hot tubs, an especially gross way to come down with a skin affliction. 

The good news is, folliculitis generally goes away on its own in fairly short order. That’s not quite the case with the next bump in question… 

If that bump on your stomach is all by its lonesome, oddly firm and painful, well, you might be dealing with a boil. Left alone, boils can linger. Especially persistent boils may also require lancing and an antibiotic. 

But when luck is on your side, simply applying a warm compress for 10 minutes at a time may get the boil to clear up in a week or so without additional treatment. 

You can greatly reduce or altogether eliminate the appearance of both folliculitis and boils by maintaining proper hygiene. In fact, hygiene goes a long way toward dealing with all the bumps in question here… 

THE RIGHT STUFF 

All right, so let’s talk about how you can put together the ideal acne-fighting skincare routine. 

To keep that body acne-free, my dudes, you need to arm yourself with three critical elements: a body wash with salicylic acid, the right exfoliant for your frame and a body scrubber that isn’t going to defeat the purpose and spread bacteria and dead skin cells all over the place. 

Do we have you covered? Indeed. 

First off, the body wash. You best believe our charcoal body wash comes correct with acne-fighting salicylic acid. The charcoal also serves to rid your body of toxins and impurities. Use it every time you shower.

Now for the ideal exfoliant, our charcoal body scrub. While you want to hook yourself up with our body wash each and every time you shower, you only need to get after it with our body scrub once or twice per week — use it more frequently than that, and you’ll likely irritate your skin. The scrub serves to give your pores a deep clean with a combo of walnut shells and bamboo stems, a duo replete with a cast of jojoba esters, pineapple and papaya. 

You’re set with the right body wash and body scrub, but that’s not enough. You need the right tool to apply these acne-fighting shower companions. Your hands won’t do. And neither will that sneakily nasty loofah you might be tempted to reach for. Nah, gentlemen, we can’t have you “cleaning” with a loofah. We care too much about you for that. That’s why we have you covered with a long-lasting silicone body scrubber that stays clean. 

Exfoliate with Our Silicone Body Scrubber

Now if it seems like we’re implying that loofahs aren’t exactly hygienic, maybe we should just come out and say it: They are absolutely, no-question-about-it disgusting. Hopefully, that’s clear enough. Loofahs collect dead skin cells and bacteria in their fibers, so the longer you have them around, the nastier they become. On the other hand, our 100 percent silicone scrubber repels acne-causing dead skin cells and bacteria. And just how long do these scrubbers last? How about a full damn year.  

ABOUT THAT SHAVE PREP

It’s time we keep our word and provide the shaving prep tips we promised a few paragraphs ago. Not only will a proper pre-shave routine help with razor bumps, it should all-but-eliminate the acne that a bad shave can indeed bring on.

You probably know that you should shower and exfoliate before you shave. The same absolutely applies to your body. This serves to vastly reduce irritation by making things easier on your razor by softening the hair and clearing away the dead skin cells that add to your razor’s workload.  

Also, you definitely want to avoid using a dull razor. They are just as bad as loofahs when it comes to toting acne-causing bacteria. 

So the good news is proper shave prep looks quite a bit like the kind of skincare routine you need to keep your frame free of body blemishes. 

All right, dudes, now you know a thing or two about those bumps on your stomach. They might be acne — they might not be. But the good news is, even if you feel like you can’t diagnose your stomach bumps with 100 percent confidence, the skincare routine we’ve laid out here will go a long way toward preventing all the bumps in question. 

 

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