Color Me Bonita - Acne Series - Corporate Acne

Skincare expert and CMS contributor Daniela is back with a 2 part article on how your job might be contributing to your acne. Unfortunately work is a part of life for most of us... those who don't work probably have flawless skin. 

My last article, “How Can I Stress Less About Work?” (Part 1 & Part 2) refers to stress that many of my clients ask me about, as the economy has produced a new kind of work force full of women under pressure.  The subject of workplace stress is especially pertinent to my business.  As a specialist in Adult Acne, I get quite a few clients seeing me because of stress caused by their jobs.

Contrary to what conventional wisdom would hold, not one person since the economy blew up in 2008 has come to me for a facial to feel better, prepare the skin to look better for an interview, nor has anyone named worry about being out of work as a reason for coming in.  Everyone who has come to me for help with Adult Acne is working.  So why did my business as an Acne Specialist boom after the economy blew up in 2008?

What makes this recession different from all others are the layoffs that created a smaller workforce doing double to triple the work.  This is the average client that has come through my door in the last 4 years.  As middle management with MBA’s were laid off, those working under them got promoted from within, at very little above their previous underling salary.  Having no real experience in leadership or management, these (usually) women are under tremendous pressure to turn out numbers like their MBA predecessors while supervising former colleagues.

The result?  Days on end of terrified supervisors behaving badly, creating an environment where if someone willing and able to do the work of more than one person wants to keep her job, she’d better keep her mouth shut.  She may be more valuable than the supervisor, but she’s not irreplaceable.  She wants to flee, she wants to fight, but she can’t.  As valuable as she is, she can still lose her job.  And with companies enjoying this new found money-saving work force doing double or triple the work, why should they hire anyone else?  No wonder there are no job openings.  So she has to keep her fight or flight response inside, taking that stress home with her.

Stress is the obvious result of doing the work of more than one person while under the supervision of an often under-qualified VP produces many situations where you want to flee and/or fight but you can’t for fear of losing your job, even though, arguably, you’re more valuable to the company you work for than said VP.

This “conflict stress” is different than “worry stress” or even “gotta get it done stress”.  Why?  Because fight or flight stress produces regular adrenaline rushes, where in men there’s no skin issue – but in women, since we produce testosterone in our adrenal glands, every time we have a rush of adrenaline, we have a rush of testosterone.  Testosterone is responsible for oil in the skin.  Every time you have an adrenaline rush, you get an oil rush.

If a skin care and/or makeup routine is dehydrating or clogging in any way, this excess oil will get stuck, creating inflammation inside pores, leading to swelling, redness, pain, and if left long enough, infection.

Since the pores are getting irritated in a completely different way, the acne has to be treated in a completely different way.

How? 

Deep breaths... tomorrow we’ll share Part 2.