The appearance of acne suggests that if only you rubbed and scrubbed your face really hard and often, you could get your acne to go away. Not so -- in fact, before all of the effective acne treatments became available to us, that was how acne was often treated -- and unsuccessfully.

What may look like dirt inside your blackheads is actually melanin, the pigment that provides the natural color of your skin. Despite what you may have seen or heard in commercials, your pores don't get blocked from the top down; instead, most of the action of acne formation takes place on the inside of your skin in your hair follicle.

Although there is a connection between how severe acne is and the amount of oil a person's skin produces, not all people with oily skin have acne and not all people with acne have oily skin. It so happens that some people with dry skin also have it.

Scrubbing and rubbing a face that has acne will only serve to irritate and redden an already inflamed complexion. Instead, the face should be washed daily (twice a day at the most!) with a gentle cleanser.