Our face is filled with small hair follicles (a small dot-like part of skin which grows hair)
When the hair comes out from the follicle, it causes opening up of the skin and exposes it to microorganisms and other dangers such loss of water and temperature change.
To protect the skin from these dangers, nature has provided all hair follicles with sebaceous glands (at least one per hair follicle), which produce an oil called sebum.
Sebum travels through the space that surrounds the hair to form a slightly greasy surface film on the skin, keeping it lubricated, protected from infections & loss of water.
Generally, the amount of sebum is well regulated, but some hormonal changes (e.g. puberty) stimulate the sebaceous glands to secret more sebum.
Now, human body keeps making new skin cells while shedding huge numbers each hour (we have 19 million skin cells for every inch and shed 3.6 kg every year).
But some times the dead skin cells, rather than falling on the floor or furniture, fall on our skin only and block the skin pores.
So, the sebum instead of spreading on the skin gets stuck and creates a small bump on the skin.
Sebum, being oil, is fat and therefore food to bacteria, which grow rapidly because of the rich nutrition from fat and cause infection.
As soon as brain senses infection, it signals our immune system to send antibodies in blood to fight this infection; the redness around pimples is because of this blood.
The swelling is immune system’s way of cordoning off the area and every time we have an injury or infection, a fluid filled with white blood cells is sent over to the spot to curb spread.
This is a great blog.
Thank you. Really glad you like it 🙂