I have some time to kill, so I wanted to share what I learned about clogged pores, a problem many of us suffer from. And the root cause of clogged pores is excessive sebum production, nothing else.

Forget about the theories about food, vitamins, dirty skin etc. I think there are only two main reasons why some people experience excessive sebum production: hormonal (age) and excessive skin cleaning, or both.

In my case I can only blame myself: I had flawless skin until I started to scrub my skin, and as this not surprisingly increased the oil production of my skin, so I started to use even more harsh products and the end result was (after some years) every single pore of my skin was clogged.

The thing to understand is that clogged pores means the problem is (deep) inside your skin: your skin and skin pores structure has changed, and is now clogged with sebum. sebum that over time, and depending on all the drying products you used, has hardened, making it even more difficult to unclog them. Think of you clogged skin as a swiss cheese, full of holes, and these holes are now all clogged with sebum. It is EXTREMELY difficult to go back to a flawless skin again. Even if your skin is not oily anymore (like in my case when I stopped with the excessive skincare), the damage is done, your pores are clogged. If you have a very oily skin, during puberty, causing clogged pores, I don't think there is much you can do at all (apart from maybe accutane).

Now to the solutions: obviously we all want a quick fix for clogged pores (I did) but I am sorry to say, but there is no quick fix. As said, your skin structure deep under the surface has changed, that sebum is sticky, it's almost impossible to return to flawless skin. Or it can take years, like in my case (and I am still not there).

Forget about all topical treatments like creams, cleansers, scrubs, peelings, etc. EXCEPT retenoids (later more). I have tried them all, but as these topical treatments work on the surface of your skin, they don't do anything to solve the problem of the clogged, changed structure under/inside your skin. A best they do give you the illusion you are purging your skin, but that's just at the surface. More likely, these topical treatments, dry out your skin, with your skin reacting with producing more oil, continuing the problem.

This is important to understand: when a pore is clogged, you only see the tip of the iceberg (plug or blackhead), often the largest part of the clogged pore goes deep into your skin and is stuck. Sometimes you don't see anything at all, just a bump. When you use a topical treatment hoping to ''clean'' the pores, all it does at best is get rid of the top part of the blackhead (or what's sticking out), not the root. So your skin reacts with filling up the top part again within days, as the pore is still clogged inside your skin, nothing has changed.

What makes things even more frustrating is that even when you get out the root of the backhead, and the pore is fully empty, your skin is left with like an empty hole, and fills this up as soon as possible with sebum as protection, before your skin has had the chance to let the pore grow back to normal size. I guess sebum production goes faster then making new skin cells. The only good news is that often the new blackhead is smaller but depending on how large the ''hole'' under your skin was, it can take many times emptying the pore before it is normal size and unclogged again.

One remark about pimples or infected acne: I have not really experienced this, just clogged pores. I guess a lot of people use products like BP to kill the bacteria that feed on the clogged pores to prevent the pimples. Although this is fully understandable, I think it's important to realize this doesn't solve the problem of the clogged pores.

Now about what does work for clogged pores: retenoids (aka Retin A, Differin, tretionoin etc).

Retenoids are the only topical medication that actually works on the skin from the inside: it slowly pushes out the sebum plug that got stuck inside the pore, at the same time giving the pore the chance the grow back to normal size.

The problem with retenoids are that first they work very slowly. Conventional wisdom says at least 3-6 months. Based upon my own experience at least a year (if not longer). And my skin is still not fully clear. If you continue to have oily skin, you might have to continue to use retenoids to help prevent new clogged pores as well.

The second issue is that when the retenoid starts working, and your plugs start moving and are slowly pushed to the surface, this actually is an opportunity for bacteria to get into the clogged pore and you get pimples you normally would't have, just clogged pores. This happened to me.

I have used tretinoin cream, Retin A gel, and Differin, and i think Differin works best (more pushing power). I think why some people like Retin A gel is because the gel contains alcohol, killing bacteria on your skin. But it also dries out your skin, and the plugs clogging your skin, potentially making it more difficult to get them to the surface.

Finally some words about skin picking. I know opinions vary, and I do not recommend this to anyone (for risk of permanent skin damage) but I did squeeze my pores a lot to get rid of the clogged pores. And I mean a lot, with many times of damaged skin.

I simply did not have the patience on letting the retenoids do their work.

What I did learn because of the squeezing though is how deep pores can be clogged, and that you really need to get out the deepest root part of the plug, before the pore can shrink back to normal size. Under the hardened plugs, I often did have this white liquid sebum, that I also needed to squeeze out. It's like my whole skin was a reservoir full of sebum. Word of warning: retenoids make your skin more ''soft'', easier to rupture. Damage to skin is done very easily to skin when you use a retenoid. But because the skin structure becomes more loose, it also makes it easier to squeeze out the full plug, not just the tip of the iceberg.

Summarizing: the problem of clogged pores is inside your skin, not on the surface, therefore don't believe the marketing blabla and forget about all topicals except retenoids as they work from the inside. It's best to avoid all other topicals anyway in my opinion, just use some water to clean your skin. Even for oily skin, just splashing some water on it, will wash away the oil.

But remember that the oil is there to protect your skin (if you think about it, it's crazy we first wash off the oil, and than put up a cream again containing oil to protect the skin).

I would definitely avoid peelings and scrubs, they harm your skin by getting rid of the protective top layers, and won't solve clogged pores anyway (in my case they caused them).

Only use products with anti bacterial properties if you are suffering from infected pimples.

Squeeze at own risk, but personally I think it's at times the only solution to get rid of a clogged pore, as they can be very stubborn (in particular when the plug has hardened).