If you have acne, you’ve probably spent a majority of your skin care routine trying to avoid acne scars. While acne treatment products boast immediate, amazing results, not all of them can guarantee a reduced appearance to your acne scars, only prevention for further breakouts. The best skin care routines to prevent acne scarring are simple, non-irritating acne treatment methods, free of these seriously destructive skin care habits:

Touching your breakouts – No matter what, you should never pop, squeeze, or pick at your breakouts. The additional oils and dirt from your hands can transfer into your pores, leading to even more pimples. The best way to treat a breakout is to keep your hands off of it. It will run its course naturally in a few days if it’s left alone. If your acne persists severely after this amount of time, it may be indicative of cystic acne, and you should consult a dermatologist.

Eating greasy foods – The grease from your fried food is going to get all over your hands, which, even when they aren’t supposed to, touch your face. This grease can clog your pores even further, leading to hardened oil buildups that we know better as whiteheads. As previously mentioned, you should never attempt to pop or break these whiteheads, or they could just get even worse, and cause acne scars.

Improper face washing – If you don’t wash your face enough, or you’re using the wrong products and washing your face too much, your skin could become imbalanced and break out. Make sure that your face wash isn’t abrasive or highly exfoliating, or that it doesn’t have highly scented ingredients that could irritate your skin. If you aren’t washing your face enough, the additional oil buildups can lead to increased acne and additional acne scars. The best skin care routine is to wash your face once a day with specialized acne scrub.