“I have always felt greasy, like a french fry,” said the 61-year-old grandmother of eight in Kittery, Maine. “My skin was extremely oily all the time. Of course, this led to terrible, terrible acne which caused me problems with feelings of being accepted and my own self-worth.”

Desrochers, like many others with oily skin, suffers from a condition that skin-care professionals say is one of the toughest to treat. “Everyone has sebaceous glands in their skin. If the skin is oily, it means the sebaceous glands are more active,” said Dr. Peter Pugliese.

Pugliese is a physician and president of Peter T. Pugliese and Associates, a Reading, Pa. facility that does research into skin and skin-care products. “You are more apt to get acne if have oily skin,” Pugliese said.

And if you have oily skin, you have your ancestors to thank. For Desrochers, it was most likely passed down by her French-Canadian ancestors, and she in turn passed it to her four children.

“It’s terrible to see your children have to go through the same thing,” she said.

“You are genetically predisposed to oily skin and acne,” said Christine Heathman, an aesthetician with more than 30 years of experience. Heathman is chief executive officer of Glymed Plus, a Utah company that dispenses medically based products used in the medical and aesthetic industries.

“Controlling oily skin can be very frustrating,” Heathman said. “There is nothing more frustrating than putting on makeup and then having oil everywhere in an hour.”

Heathman should know. Her suffering with oily skin and resulting acne led her to do her own research into skin care, in search of a cure. Now, she not only helps develop “cosme-ceutical” (cosmetic pharmaceutical) products, she also treats patients with skin problems. While there may not be much you can do about your sebaceous glands, there are things you can do to decrease the oil they secrete and its effects on your skin.

“Diet is an important one, because skin is also a great garbage disposal area of the body. Much of what you eat is reflected in some manner in the skin,” Pugliese said. Pugliese suggests limiting saturated fats in one’s diet.

“Sugars can step up oil production, so I often encourage the elimination of them, as well as limiting environmental factors such as sun exposure,” said Heathman. Heathman added that ultraviolet radiation creates free radicals and breaks down collagen in the skin.

An imbalance of hormones can negatively affect the skin, but the hormone production can be controlled.”Androgens are male hormones that can create this imbalance,” Pugliese said. “Women going through menopause can experience adult acne because their hormones are out of whack.”

“Stress can also create hormone imbalance,” Heathman added. “It activates the adrenal glands, which produce more hormones that get dumped into the bloodstream and can cause acne flare-ups.”