For me, puberty brought with it sweaty hands, excessive angst and a drastically misguided faith in my poetic talents, but for the most part no skin issues. Instead, my face erupted with spots as soon as I’d crossed the threshold into adulthood, and in the years since I’ve devoted an embarrassing amount of time to fighting the acne scourge. I should note that I’m qualified to talk about adult acne only by my own splotchy visage and upwards of one million hours of Googling-whilst-crying, which is to say not qualified at all. Thanks to said Googling, I know all too well how easy it is to convince yourself that what worked for one internet stranger will definitely work for you too, to the extent that you have read several heated threads about applying urine to your face and are almost on board (world, I want to stress that I did not go through with this plan.) So I won’t attempt to dictate to you, my pimply brethren, exactly what you should be doing with your skin, because unless I am the Tenth Doctor and you are the human version of the Tenth Doctor, hanging out with Rose (This is a Doctor Who reference – Ed.) we do not have the same face and what mine likes yours might hate. Instead, allow me to serve you up a hefty dish of anecdata as I waffle about some general things you could look into that have helped with my own unruly face:

1. Check out your hormones. I suspected something was going on with my hormones, got a few blood tests, fainted like the tiny baby that I am every damn time, and found that I had a (likely stress-related) hormonal imbalance which is now being medicated. My doctor couldn’t definitely state, only strongly suspect, that it’s connected to my acne, and my skin didn’t completely clear once I started popping the pills, but I will say that the coin sized under-skin monsters that sprung up weekly around my upper lip and chin have all but disappeared. If you have the means to (I love you, NHS), a hormone test may well provide you with some answers. Sidenote: during the final days of the under-skin monsters’ glorious reign on my lower face, I found myself standing next to Emma Watson, one of my heroes since childhood, in a sandwich shop. I did not speak to her because 1. She was not wearing makeup and was so beautiful and clear-skinned that the thought of addressing her–my camouflage foundation sweating off my lumpy face like snowmelt down a mountain range–was just too overwhelming and 2. I had forgotten all words.

2. Consider a prescription retinoid. Of all the terrifying substances I’ve gladly smeared all over my face, retinoids have had the most drastic–and most frustrating–impact. The ride has not been a smooth one. According to my own experience and the many wise denizens of the internet, starting a retinoid might involve a ‘purge period,’ during which every spot you ever had and ever will have and ever even thought of will come bubbling to the surface and you must repeat “WORSE BEFORE BETTER” every time you walk past a mirror. It’s also advisable to start slowly, applying every couple of nights and gradually building up to nightly. Or, if you are like me, you can frantically smother on great globs of the stuff every night and watch your face dry up and crumble away like an old fresco. The former is the safer route, but the latter is an excellent test of friendship should, for instance, your friend come to stay and you greet her in the morning looking like the Eleventh Doctor after his unpleasant experience in Sweetville (By now you should know this is a Doctor Who reference – Ed.) Again, retinoids haven’t entirely cleared my skin, and it took a bloody long time to see considerable improvement, but after seven months of usage I’m vastly less pimply, my old red marks are almost entirely faded and I’m no longer wearing camouflage makeup to nip to Tesco.

3. Challenge your doctor. I mean, don’t burst into her office, steal her white coat, jump on her desk and scream “I’M THE DOCTOR NOW,” because it turns out all those years of uni mean they know stuff. But after burning through a billion different ineffective prescriptions, you’re likely to have an inkling of what sort of stuff your skin doesn’t like, at least, and there’s no harm in asking if you could try something different. In my case, antibiotics were never much use, and I’m incredibly glad that I didn’t quietly accept another tablet that likely wouldn’t help after Retin-A was discontinued in the UK (my darkest day) but instead asked for another retinoid. I say ‘asked’ when what I mean is ‘whispered quickly whilst sweating,’ because, again, I am a tiny baby and my doctor is a very impressive woman, but the outcome was the same. This suggestion works both ways, of course – sometimes, your doctor will recommend something to you, and you will cry and say “WHAT’S THE POINT, NOTHING WORKS, I’VE BEEN LOOKING INTO REMOTE CAVE DWELLINGS,” and she will very kindly refrain from telling you you’re a tiny whiny baby, encourage you to try it, and it will change your life a bit.

4. Challenge your skincare. I want to believe that I’m not the only one who is far too easily swayed by marketing claims, and has continued to stubbornly believe that a product is ‘gentle’ even though my face is in danger of peeling away into nothingness. Working out which ingredients your skin does and doesn’t like is a lengthy and tedious process, and will likely lead to an addiction to Googling reviews (which is helpful, but also proceed with caution, because there is always someone who will slam an eyeliner because it doesn’t make their hair shiny.) But ultimately, listening to a product’s ingredients rather than its magnificent claims will save you from wasting money on fancy crap your face hates, and also from eating an 80% store brand cereal diet for two months because said fancy crap was not remotely in your budget. Which is, of course, an entirely hypothetical situation and definitely has not happened to me more than once.

5. Get your makeup off properly. For those of you who wear makeup, I’m not going to suggest you don’t, because I have lost count of all the perfect-skinned ladies who’ve suggested brightly, “Why don’t you just let your skin breathe?” and I have never not wanted to calmly and politely slap them in their radiantly clear faces. But if you do wear it, it is imperative you get that stuff off, and completely off, because it will lurk in your pores and cause havoc. I realised too late that makeup wipes were not cutting it; now, adhering to the blogging oracle that is Caroline Hirons, I use a cleansing balm or milk. I’ve come to acknowledge that a cleanser alone likely won’t clear my acne, but it’ll allow me to keep on painting my face without exacerbating it.

6. I am the worst for saying this, but I suspect outdoor exercise helps. Discovering the power of running was bittersweet for me, because historically exercise and I have not meshed. I have tasted the storied humiliation of being picked last in P.E. I have felt the rough embrace of an errant basketball smashing into my face. But somehow, running has had a dramatic impact on my skin. Perhaps it’s the stress relieving aspect. Perhaps it’s the fresh air. Or perhaps it’s the transformative powers of the only acceptable running playlist, Ciara’s latest album. Aaaand of course it might be having no real impact at all and it’s all in my head.

So there you have it! The fruits of my adult acne experience, with the unsuccessful experiments helpfully omitted; if, however, you are interested in 5689 ways to turn yourself into a scaly lady Silurian who somehow still has acne, please get in touch (If you do not recognize that this is a Doctor Who reference by now, nothing can be done – Ed.) I will leave you only with the words I hope no jellyfish will ever cause me to regret: friends, the answer is probably not urine.