I'm 18 years old, female. I've never had bad skin/acne problems and have considered myself to be lucky seeing as I only got a few pimples throughout puberty. I lived in Michigan my entire life but moved to the deep south 2 years ago. Ever since then, I've had nothing but problems, especially when it came to my skin. I broke out horribly within a month of living down here. I had up to 20 white heads on a single day, which was shocking for me. I had never had more than a single pimple on my face once in a blue moon while living in Michigan. I immediately tried many different remedies and products and finally found a line by Neutrogena that worked for me and stabilized the problem...However, this line has since been discontinued and my acne has steadily been growing worse again.
I've always ate healthy, drank tons of water, and have attributed this to why I've had good skin my whole life up until moving. I haven't changed my diet but yet I have this problem.
I have stopped wearing makeup COMPLETELY for the last 2 months, no foundation, no powder, not even concealer, NOTHING touches my face. I sleep on clean sheets and pillowcases and I cleanse my face twice a day and use a scrub twice a week. Yet I still have perpetual acne. I get big pimples more often than I ever have but at least those are easy to get rid of...my biggest problem are tiny, needle-point sized whiteheads that form in clusters around my mouth and chin. I have about 10 right now in that area. No one notices them until they are within close proximity with my face. They will not go away unless I pick at them, which I hate doing because it irritates them and turns them into unsightly red marks and scabs which take months to heal or even diminish. It's a lost cause because even when I do remove them through such a process and suffer through the red marks and inflammation, the little whiteheads immediately come back right where they were.
I don't know what to refer to the little whiteheads as, since more oil comes out instead of pus when I squeeze them. What type of acne am I even dealing with here? No one I know of has ever had a problem like this.
The interesting thing is, whenever I go back home to Michigan, my skin clears up within the first few days of me staying there, with no changes to my skin routine or diet. I'm going back in 2 weeks so I'm excited to experience this but at the same time, I have a feeling that the clear skin won't last long and my "little whiteheads" and other pimples will come back.
I am on the oral contraceptive Safyral right now and I can't say that it is working for me any better than Yaz did, which I took before this.
I don't know what to do, I don't know why this is happening to me. I'm not one to stress out about things like this but it's been a problem for 2 years now and it's getting to the point where it is extremely bothering me. Please help me!!