About Us

Folliculitis Scout is an online community of skincare soldiers devoted to fighting fungal acne. We educate people on this unpopular skin condition and help locate safe products to treat it.

We also have a skincare ingredient checker that can help identify which ingredients are safe for fungal acne and which ones aren’t. folliculitisscout.com offers a global platform where users can actively share their feedback, skin experiences, and reviews with others.

Malassezia folliculitis, also known as fungal acne, is a skin condition caused by the overgrowth and infection of hair follicles by Malassezia yeast.

This yeast is naturally present on the skin but causes breakouts to erupt when it gets into hair follicles. These breakouts commonly occur on the chest, arms, back, and shoulders and but can also appear on the cheeks, chin, forehead, and t-zone.

These breakouts appear in groups of tiny papules and pustules that are often itchy and inflamed. Because these breakouts look similar to regular acne (acne vulgaris), Malassezia folliculitis is often misdiagnosed as acne and treated with traditional acne remedies.

However, these remedies do not work because regular acne is caused by bacteria, while Malassezia folliculitis is caused by fungi.

Excess oil production, use of antibiotics, excessive sweating, and a suppressed immune system are all issues that encourage the overgrowth of Malassezia yeast.

Another major factor contributing to the development of this condition is skincare and makeup products containing ingredients that trigger it. Ingredients like most oils, esters, and fatty acids with carbon chain lengths of 11-24 can promote Malassezia folliculitis.

Using products containing these ingredients to get rid of fungal acne symptoms may contribute to the fungi’ overgrowth.

There are many skincare products in the market that exacerbate fungal acne symptoms. People dealing with this skin condition should avoid these triggering skincare ingredients. However, it can be confusing and time-consuming to find safe, fungal acne products.

The Folliculitis Scout ingredient checker was designed to help people dealing with fungal acne quickly identify and verify products that are safe to use on their skin.

All you have to do is enter an ingredient or list of ingredients and do a quick check. The ingredient checker will tell you which ingredients are safe for fungal acne and which ones are not.