Explainer | Rosacea: treatment, causes, the four types, and which make-up products to use to disguise its acne-like appearance

The skin condition looks like ‘redness over the nose, cheeks, chin and forehead’ and bumps ‘like acne, but not acne’ – and it can make sufferers miserable

Rosacea affects supersensitive skin – common triggers include extremes of heat and cold, and stress – but the cause is not yet well understood

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Rosacea happens to people whose skin is supersensitive, and makes it more so. Its cause is not yet well understood. Sufferers can control and mask it, though. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 5:15pm, 23 Dec 2020Updated: 11:59am, 18 Nov 2021

Rosacea – say “row zay shuh” – is a skin condition that sounds prettier than it looks. And it’s quite common, affecting from one to 10 per cent of people.

Dr Carmen Lam, a Hong Kong specialist in dermatology, describes it as “redness over the nose, cheeks, chin and forehead”. Sometimes the redness may be present with bumps which are “like acne, but not acne”. Those most commonly affected are aged 30 to 60, and are usually fair skinned.

Gina Franich, who splits her time between Hong Kong and New Zealand, fits the criteria: in her late 40s with a pale complexion, she developed a “slight redness” on her cheeks after she turned 40 which had become chronic by the time she was 47. And it made her miserable.

Her rosacea, which was diagnosed by a doctor, presented as subtype one, the vascular stage in which redness appears, but developed into subtype two, or the inflammatory stage, when those acne-but-not-acne-like spots appear.

Dr Carmen Lam describes rosacea as “redness over the nose, cheeks, chin and forehead”. Photo: SCMP/Dickson Lee

Rosacea happens because a person’s skin is supersensitive – and only makes it more so. Common triggers include extremes of heat and cold, sunlight, stress, eating spicy food and consuming alcoholic drinks.