A SPOT OF BOTHER

Aged 33, Katie Rosseinsky says adult acne has taken over her life. She shares the emotional and financial burden, and how it can feel impossible to find out which products actually help

- By Katie Rosseinsky

Every morning, I wake up, head to the bathroom and assess the damage. What fresh hell has broken out on my face overnight? Did the latest wonder serum work? Or is the angry constellation of blemishes still multiplying?

Acne is a skin condition synonymous with adolescence: it’s Clearasil adverts and the pungent smell of tea tree and countless movie scenes where the young heroine gets a massive spot before the school prom. But it’s not simply a matter of “growing out of it” when you leave your teens behind. For some, acne can continue - or rear its ugly head for the first time - well into adulthood. According to the NHS, around 5 per cent of women and 1 per cent of men experience it over the age of 25, and I’m among them (acne is thought to be more common in women because of hormonal fluctuations).

In my teens and early twenties, my skin could best be described as passable: a few spots cropped up here and there, but nothing I couldn’t manage. But around the time I turned 26, a magazine colleague asked me to test out and review an intricate skincare routine from an upmarket American brand. It was on the verge of launching in the UK, and the brand’s resident expert had picked out all the products that I needed for an all-round transformation. But the sheer array of active ingredients in this cocktail - sulphur! Acids! Collagen “boosters”! - sent my skin haywire. The resulting “before” and “after” pictures were laughable (or they would have been, had it not actually hurt to laugh).