Am sure you have seen a lot of the word sebum being thrown around especially in relation to acne. I have received lots of questions on what sebum is , so today we demystify sebum!
The human body works more like a machine.It needs to be cleaned and oiled regularly in order to work efficiently. Naturally, the body produces oil in order to keep our skin supple and soft otherwise we would all be so wrinkled and as dry as twigs.The Latin meaning of sebum is fat.This fat protects skin from bacterial infection and also reduces the natural water loss of body from the skin.
Sebum is part of the oil that is found on the surface of the skin. Other ingredients of the oil on the skin are- sweat, lipids and environmental dirt. It is sebum, which contributes a lot to our body odor. Sebum itself is odorless but then it mixes with bacteria and exposed to air it produces odor. That is why if you keep your skin clean of bacteria by washing with anti bacterial soaps regularly, you can reduce body odor to a great extent. Sebum reaches the skin through the hair follicles and coats the hair that is all over our body. This is the reason why many people experience oily hair if hair is left unwashed for few days. That happens because of sebum.
Sebum is produced by sebaceous glands. These glands are found on most parts of the body and most sebaceous glands open into a hair follicle. These are the sites of acne formation.Acne mainly appears when sebum blocks a hair follicle forming a comedone that can either become a blackhead (when exposed to air) or a white head.
Sebum production decreases with age, in women it reduces sharply after menopause.While in men,the decrease is gradual. Generally,adult females produce less sebum than men however sebum production may experience a jump during of puberty in men.
There are some common theories about reducing sebum production. Some people believe that drying excess sebum with blotting papers will reduce sebum production. Some believe that if you use products supposed to control oil production that will reduce the sebum produced by our bodies. Both are wrong conclusions. Drying excess oil will only remove surface oil. And using oil control products will not reduce sebum production, it will only reduce the surface oil. Sebum is required to protect our skin, but increased production of sebum leads to oily skin and frequent acne flare-ups.So how can you effectively reduce the amount of sebum produced by your body?