20. Shampoo Showdown and Pore-Clogging Conditioners

Doctor Jacob here today, and we're talking about shampoo showdown and pore-clogging conditioners.

As you probably have guessed from listening to all of our other episodes, it's going to be something that worsens the acne in many cases. So shampoos and conditioners are easiest in terms of dealing with them to just keep them from getting onto the face. If you avoid the forehead with the shampoo, and you manage to keep the shampoo about an inch or two inches away from the forehead, it will bleed forward to kind of cover the entire scalp. But if you go right up to the scalp margin, it will bleed onto the forehead and can cause irritation and comedogenicity.

There are a couple of ingredients that are worth pointing out in shampoos, which are notorious for being highly comedogenic. They kind of have the same base chemical in them; there is laureth-4, there is sodium lauryl sulfate and sodium laureth sulfate, and all of those ingredients can be comedogenic - acne on the forehead.

Also, conditioners - same story. They're supposed to be sealing in moisture in the scalp and moisturizing your hair, so all these things are using oils or synthetic oils and basically if they get onto the forehead they can really gunk up the pores. So keep conditioners especially, and shampoos too, off the face.

That's probably the easiest way to do it - when you rinse, rinse backward instead of rinsing forward over the face. Rinse backward so it gets away from the face. You can also look for a special, non-comedogenic shampoos and I'll put some on my website as well, some conditioners, but in terms of hair care products, let's talk about them. It's usually men who use more greasy hair care products, so if you are using a greasy hair care product like a hair grease, then keep it away from the skin of the temples and the forehead. Or, if you are using something that you find gets all over the place and you can't deal with it, switch to just plain old petroleum jelly. That won't clog up the pores, and it does give a greasy shine to the hair, if that's what you're looking for. I'm not advising it, but if you like to use a hair grease, plain Vaseline is a great non-comedogenic alternative. It's very economical, as well.

That's all for today. I'm Doctor Jacob, we'll see you next time.