You probably think that acne is acne. Pure and simple. After all it affects the face and also some areas of the body such as the back and chest.

But the surprising thing is that there is more than one type of acne that is present, in fact there are several. So just how you know what type of acne you have and then how do you treat it?

Whilst acne has an appearance of pimples and spots on the skin, the types of acne are generally grouped into inflammatory acne and also non-inflammatory acne.

First of all there in non-inflammatory acne, which has two forms, mainly closed or open. Closed is represented by a whitehead and open is represented by a blackhead.

The whiteheads are normally underneath the skin and appear as white bumps.

A blackhead happens when the pore has become enlarged and it pushes itself to the surface of the skin. Unlike what many people think the darkness is not dirt, it is the excess build up of melanin.

On the other hand there is the opposite and we have what is known as inflammatory acne. There are three different types of inflammatory acne and they are presented here

Papule – often very tender to touch and are seen as small pink bumps on the surface of the skin

Cysts are another type of inflammatory acne and these can become very large and also very painful. These are generally filled with pus and are quite deep within the skin and if they are on the skin for some time they can have a tendency to leave a scar.

Then there are pustules which are small and are of a round shape and these are often mistaken for papules. They are filled with pus and quite often they are very inflamed. But this inflammation is not due to bacteria that people think, it is because of certain reactions within the body and skin itself.

The last type of inflammatory acne is known as acne conglobata. This is not at all very common but it is the most serious type of acne that a person can develop and is generally found on areas of the body such as the back and the chest.

The most common form of acne is referred to as acne vulgaris and this contains a combination of both whiteheads and blackheads. A common treatment is use benzoyl peroxide and the results are generally seen as being very positive.