As a child going through puberty acne can get on my nerves. The blemishes hurt when you touch them and there sort of embarrassing when there on your face. So that’s hoe it lead me to choosing my science fair topic. My goal was to find out which acne cleanser worked the best. I rated them 0-5 on which one worked the best at suppressing the acne.


Acne is a skin condition that people mostly go through in early adolescence. Caused by changes in the pilosebaceous which consists with skin structures like the hair follicles and sebaceous glands. Glands where oil builds up mostly in areas on the face and scalp. Its starts to build up more when you go through puberty and your hormones increase which causes the follicles to grow larger creating more sebum the oil helps the bacteria in your skin multiply and cause your skin to become inflamed. If the oil breaks through to the surface it becomes a whitehead. “If the oil accumulates in the melalin pigment or becomes oxidized then the oil changes from white to black and results in a blackhead” [“what causes acne”par.2]. There are three main types of acne whiteheads, blackhead, and cysts.

Even though most people start getting acne during the teenage years many people have it when their ten through forty years old. There is no way to really cure acne it can when your around twenty it can go away and then come back when you are around thirty so acne is just a condition in life. There is no one way to get because there can be many factors for acne. Some are heredity. Some say you get acne from your parents but every one has the same type of acne as everyone else at some point in their life. Foods you often hear people say watch what you eat because it can lead to acne. Greasy food and foods that aren’t so healthy for you don’t cause acne but dairy products can increase acne. Cosmetics that are not oil or water free can clog the pores. Some types of medication can make your acne worse like steroids basically any kind prescribed or the kind bodybuilders use. Also pressure from things like bike helmets can aggravate your acne. Hormones can play big part in your acne in males and females.


I also wanted to know when was the right time to start treating acne in people. You should start treating your acne when it starts to bother you. If you have severe acne flares you should probably ask a doctor for some specially prescribed acne medication. Don’t pick a them or it can cause inflammation. It’s not likely to leave scars or marks that are likely to leave scars. Only when you pick at cysts.

In my experiment the independent variable is the type of cleanser used. The dependent variable is how much the cleanser controls the acne. There were also factors like the amount of cleanser used and how many times you used it a day but they didn’t affect the dependent and independent variables.





With my experiment I had to try out 3 different brands of cleansers. Clean & clear, Clearasil, and St. Ives Swiss formula. They were all cream cleansers that wet your face dab the cleanser onto problem areas and rub it in then you dab dry with a towel and repeat twice a day. For at least a week.


For my first week I used the clean & clear for two times a day and put it on problem areas. I repeated this two more times and rated the cleansers from 0-5. Then I tried it out on my sister and mom. The results were a little different but remained consistent. In my experiment I found that the clean and clear worked the best at controlling the acne Clearasil and St. Ives worked about the same and kept my skin really soft. On my mom the same results happened but for my sister the St. Ives the best. I believe that the clean& clear killed most of the bacteria out of the three. The other two basically soften your skin or dry out your skin.

I also found out that no ones skin type is the same not one cleanser worked better one other people than the next one. In the end I think my hypothesis was right but because people have different skin types and one acne cleanser might not be right for you. So there for you should try different cleanser to see which the right is for you or to find one that works better than the one you use.