TLDR; this started 7 months ago and i had no changes to my routine

Ok so my acne started at basically 10 years old. I’ll start with what has been consistent: This is not pictured well but I have the most strawberry nose ever and have always had a bad strawberry  blackhead filled nose and a blackhead filled chin. I have tried avocado face masks, the cursed blackhead strips, softer blackhead strils, exfoliating, nothing works. Ok, so that blackheads have basically been the only consistent thing. Between ages 10-17 I have only  had worsening blackheads, tons of red papules on my nose, and a forehead full of horrible bumps some reddened and some not. I rarely ever got cheek acne, just bad blackheads in my tzone. Occasionally i would get a nasty Lip line pustule that would start as a bag blackhead and turn to the largest most painful pustule. I also used to get a lot of bumps on my back and occasionally buttne.

And then something surprisingly positive changed: i started Syeda birth control at age 17. And 5 weeks after starting Syeda, i went vegan. I know this is rare with birth control, but it entirely cleared me up except for the huge pores and blackheads. Anything on my forehead disappeared. I never saw bumps or redness again. Those occasional lip pimples NEVER came back again. I was basically 90% acne free, maybe even 95%, and only had a max of 3 pimples at all times, and they were much more of your regular zit. Unsure if it was the birth control or the veganism or an awesome combo of both.

And that stayed pretty consistent till the beginning of 2024, aged 19-20.

I started getting an occasional pimple on like the very edge of my t zone on my inner cheek if that makes sense that was just so imbedded and i guess a papule?? If im using that word write. It didn’t ever surface like a pustule. It would be liked clockwork, take weeks to go away and once it would go away, a symmetric one on the other side appeared. And that continued for a while and started getting frustrating because i just consistently had a large red purply hill on my face at all times. Then, also like clockwork around the same time, i would get a small bump that also didn’t seem to have pus in it or surface on my left side of my forehead.

Now, from 2022-now, i have used the same cleanser. Drunk elephant jelly cleanser. I used to use byoma rich moisturizer, but as of 2024 i used good molecule light weight.

So in 2024 when these problems started, i had literally not changed anything about my birth control, the way i ate, my skin routine. If anything, i actually ate healthier and entirely stopped eating any frozen food and moved to a whole food organic unprocessed as possible vegan diet. As far as birth control, i think in the beginning of 2023 i got switched to a generic version of syeda in a blue and white box (i know syeda is already generic for something else, but my pharmacy started giving me an even MORE generic version) but that was a whole year before my acne problems started. In 2022 i moved from the southwest to NYC and moved back in 2023, but that didnt affect my acne. All NYC did was cause my eczema on my arms and legs to worsen, but my acne was basically nonexistent. In 2024, the only change that happened in my life was i began dating my current partner and at the same time this abnormal skin pattern appeared.

A couple times i bought the good molecule discoloration serum and niacinimide and used both throughout 2024 until i ran out and wouldnt buy again for a month and then go back to it. My complexion certainly got better and perhaps the niacinimide did help the redness, but those red purply papules on my t zone edge/cheek would not budge and became more frequent and i began getting them on the same side at the same time.

So then my acne just started worsening until this. It has looked like this since about April 2025. Again, i have not changed anything. Lifestyle wise i did move from my parents house to an apartment with my partner in January. Birth control stayed the same. Eating stayed the same. I suppose my stress levels HAVE sky rocketed from moving to being an adult basically when there is a government administration making it hard for me to be financially stable and go to school at the same time. High stress is the only explanation i can think of, but even so i have had a few long periods of minimal stressors and still my face was unchanged.

I also started getting nasty large back pimples, different than the small bump clusters i used to get before, but those returned too. Buttne thankfully has not returned.

This has been my routine since June 2025 (also note: i introduced all new products gradually. I used to only cleanse and moisturize, so any new product i took a while to introduce to my skin so this exact routine has been my routine since September), and my skin has been totally unchanged. Only my complexion got better, but the acne goes through cycles of getting REALLY bad (this is the worst it has been in about 4 weeks) to a little better but even the best it has looked since April is still not even its best when I was a teen.

My entire routine: Well i live everyday in very high stress since August, thanks college … I eat vegan, i tried GF for a week and it helped my stomach and my skin a little but not much at all and is too expensive to be GF AND vegan.

So i am 100% vegan and like 85% GF … I basically eat minimal gluten 4/7 days of the week.

Skin routine: Morning Cleanse with drunk elephant jelly cleaner Good molecule discoloration serum Good molecule niacinimide toner Good molecule lightweight moisturizer Byoma spf 45 sunscreen

Mondays Tuesdays Thursdays Saturdays Nights Cleanse Discoloration serum Niacinimide Moisturizer

Wednesdays Fridays nights Cleanse Good molecule glycolic acid toner Discoloration serum Hylauronic acid good molecule Moisturizer

Sunday nights Cleanse Hylauronic acid Good molecule retinol cream Moisturizer

So,, what is the culprit? What do i change?? What do i do?? It makes me crazy insecure. I am 21 now, why do I have acne way worse than when i was a teen?

[Acne] HELP!!! Why is this acne happening how do i fix it