I sit here in my mid 30s with multiple little round opaque acne patches dotting around my chin and the rest of my face. What happened? Where did I go wrong in the skincare game? I sit here at 10pm on a Wed night pondering. I used to have the best skin and little to no breakouts. The pandemic hit and I start breaking out everywhere when I’m wearing no makeup for days on end. What happened!? I mean the obvious answer is of course the dreaded maskne. It can’t be anything else since the majority of the acne breakouts concentrate around my chin and my mouth/upper lip. It is sad. This also makes me wonder when I wear makeup if it acts as a protective layer against the mask rubbing against bare skin. I read some articles that suggest rubbing vaseline or aquaphor underneath the mask for this reason, but who wants to look greasy at dinner as the moonlight hits your face? I’ve also started to get small acne on my forehead, but it’s not as bad as the chin, so it leads me to wonder about a little something called acne mapping. 

Acne mapping comes from ancient China and Ayurvedic medicine. Acne mapping tells you what’s off balance internally based on the location of your acne breakouts on your body. Do you need to drink more water or perhaps lay off the sweets? Read on to find out!

However, when you google this, quite a handful of images come up. It's hard to discern which ones are accurate. Acne mapping breaks out your face into quadrants and the map looks like a map of the neighborhoods in Paris. Each quaint little neighborhood has its own unique characteristics controlled by the function of each vital organ. It’s hard to discern which mapping is the most accurate one, because so many sites have made their own. I like to cross reference. Some sites map it out better than others, while some don’t include everything. The skincare game includes your neck and your décolleté, and some sites cut these right out! (I'm assuming their neck looks older than their face?) Some of these maps just list things like acne around the mouth is hormonal imbalance, greasy foods are evident around your nose, and the best...constipation. These are very, very simple and don’t fully list out the maps. These are the ones that just discovered North America and put the continent as one big blob. The ones you really want to look for are the ones that map out all the states on your face. I like to see why and what is the underlying organ causing this. The acne map face that lists out the organs in my research have the in depth information are the ones you should trust more.

For example, here’s one courtesy of Mutki Organics, an Australian based skincare line. Not only does it give you information on what organ is causing your breakouts, it also tells you clearly and plainly what the issue is that’s causing them. See all the neighborhoods mapped out too? ALB approved.