Dear Diary: She knew her acne was hormonal. She just didn't know what that meant.
Struggling with hormonal acne in your 20s or 30s? Discover why your acne keeps coming back, what hormonal acne really means, and why understanding the root causes matters.
Emily Britten
31/08/26
Dear Diary,
I had another one of those conversations today that stays with me. A woman sitting in front of me, telling me about her skin.
She had been dealing with acne for years. She had tried the products. She had tried treatments. She had made changes to her diet. She had been prescribed medication.
And somewhere along the way, she had been told: "It's hormonal."
She knew that. She had known it for a while.
But when I started asking her questions, I realised something.
She knew her acne was hormonal. She just didn't really understand what that meant.
And I think this happens far more often than people realise.
"It's hormonal" isn't really an explanation
When someone tells you your acne is hormonal, it can feel like you've finally got an answer.
Except... What do you actually do with that information?
Why does it keep coming back?
Why does it seem to appear in the same places?
Why does it flare at certain times?
Why have the things you've tried only helped temporarily?
Why are you still dealing with it years later?
Those are the questions I want to get to. Because being given a label is not the same thing as understanding your skin.
And if nobody explains the bigger picture, you can be left feeling as though your only option is to keep trying things until something sticks.
I see this all the time
A woman will come to me and tell me she has tried everything. And when she says everything, she often means it.
• Antibiotics.
• The pill.
• Chemical peels.
• LED light therapy.
• Skincare products.
• Facials.
• Different diets.
• Supplements.
• Changing her routine again and again.
• She has spent money.
• She has spent time.
• She has researched.
• She has tried to be consistent.
And yet she is still waking up to new spots. Eventually, something starts to happen.
She stops asking:
"What is causing this?"
And starts asking:
"What else can I try?"
That is a very different question.
And I think it is one of the reasons women can get stuck in the cycle for so long.
The problem isn't that you haven't tried hard enough
This is something I really want women with persistent acne to hear. You have not necessarily failed at skincare. You may simply have been given a very fragmented picture.
• One person looks at your products.
• Someone else talks about hormones.
• Someone else recommends a treatment.
• Someone tells you to change your diet.
•Someone tells you to drink more water.
• Someone tells you to wash your face more.
And you are left trying to put all of those pieces together yourself. No wonder you're exhausted. No wonder you're confused. No wonder you start thinking that maybe nothing works for you.
The problem isn't necessarily that there is nothing that can help.
It may be that nobody has properly stopped to look at all of it together.
This is where I work differently
When I work with an acne client, I don't want to simply look at the latest breakout and decide what product might calm it down. I want to understand the person sitting in front of me.
• What has happened with her skin?
• What has she already tried?
• What patterns are we seeing?
• What does her skin look like?
• What is happening consistently?
• What has worked before?
• What hasn't?
• And what does all of that tell us?
Because I don't believe you should have to blindly follow a list of instructions without understanding why you are doing any of it. Education is part of my process. I want you to understand your skin. I want you to understand the reasoning behind the decisions we make. And I want you to be able to look at your own skin differently because you finally understand what you are looking at.
That is the thinking behind my HELP+ Method.
It exists because I don't believe one product or one treatment is enough to properly understand persistent acne.
The question I wish more women were asking
Not:
"What product should I use?"
Not:
"What's the best treatment for hormonal acne?"
But:
"Why is this happening to me, and what is my skin actually trying to tell me?"
That is a much more useful place to start. Because when you understand the why, you stop having to react to every new breakout as though it has appeared out of nowhere.
• You start seeing patterns.
• You start understanding your skin.
• And you stop feeling quite so powerless.
And this is the part I care about most
Of course I want your skin to improve. I am an acne specialist. But the reason this work matters to me goes far beyond the skin itself. Because I know what persistent acne can take from you.
• The mirror checking.
• The makeup.
• The cancelled plans.
• The photographs you don't want to be in.
• The feeling of being uncomfortable in your own face.
• The amount of mental space it can take up.
My goal isn't to make you spend the rest of your life thinking about your skin. It is to help you get to a point where you don't have to. Clear skin is not the whole goal. Getting your confidence, your energy and your life back is the goal. The skin is how we get there.
So, if you have been told your acne is hormonal and still feel like nobody has actually explained what that means for you, I want you to know this:
You are not asking for too much.
You are not being difficult.
And you are not failing because you still don't have the answers.
You deserve an explanation.
Love,
Emily x
Your next step
If you want to understand more about how I approach persistent acne and why I believe looking at the full picture matters, watch my free masterclass.