Developed Bad Skin After Quitting Smoking?

We know smoking is bad for our health. Decades of research have proven that smoking is the leading risk factor for disease burden in Australia.

It is linked to 39 diseases, including 19 types of cancer, 7 types of cardiovascular disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Smoking impacts every organ in the body — including the skin. From speeding up the effects of aging to causing skin cancers, smoking can significantly impact the way our skin looks and functions.

Below, we look at the effects of smoking on the skin. We also break down why you might have developed bad skin after quitting smoking and explain what you can do about it.

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Why Does Bad Skin Happen After Quitting Smoking?

Bad skin happens after quitting smoking because of your body’s dependence on nicotine and other dangerous chemicals from cigarette smoke. 

Think of it this way: your body has an equilibrium of chemicals including nicotine. After you’ve quit smoking, nicotine leaves a void in the balance, which can tip things over and cause various reactions in your body.

As you go through nicotine withdrawal, the absence of nicotine and other cigarette chemicals may cause changes in your hormones and various aspects of your bodily functions, including your skin.

Hormonal changes also means your skin may throw off its oil balance. Natural oil in the skin, while essential, can cause sebum blockages on your pores, which can lead to acne, inflammation and flare-ups.

Another reason why you might have bad skin after quitting smoking is your increased food intake. 

As your body looks to have the stimulation and dopamine hit introduced by nicotine and smoking, it will nudge you to increase various stimulation. One of the ways it does this is making you crave the various flavours of food — most notably junk and fast food.

Weight gain after quitting smoking is a challenge in itself, and if you have a high salt diet – which is typically the food of choice for many people just quitting smoking – you can expect increased acne flare-ups.

So, aside from anxiety, irritability, and headaches, you might also experience acne flare-ups (which would be discussed in detail below). 

While most may expect their skin to clear out and even look younger, you might initially endure some initial inflammation, itching, and dry skin.

How to Deal With Bad Skin When Quitting Smoking

When you decide to quit smoking, the process is both rewarding and challenging. Aside from nicotine withdrawal symptoms and the urge to replace the hand-to-mouth habit with other stimuli, your skin may also go through noticeable changes.

Breakouts, dryness, or uneven texture are common during this transition. The good news is that these effects are temporary, and there are many steps you can take to protect your skin while your body adjusts to being smoke-free.

Below are practical approaches to help you minimize skin problems and manage the initial side effects that often appear during your journey to quitting cigarettes.

Stay Hydrated

Hydration is one of the simplest yet most effective ways to support your skin health while quitting smoking. Water plays a vital role in flushing toxins from the body, supporting circulation, and keeping the skin soft and resilient.

Aim to drink at least eight glasses of water per day, but don’t stop there—hydration can also come from herbal teas and water-rich fruits such as melons, cucumbers, and oranges.

Since nicotine withdrawal may cause increased cravings or leave you feeling restless, reaching for water instead of snacks or sugary drinks can also help curb urges and keep your skin balanced. Proper hydration maintains elasticity and prevents your complexion from looking dull, which is especially helpful as your skin begins repairing itself.

Focus on a Balanced Diet

The foods you eat directly affect your skin, and quitting smoking is the perfect time to reset your nutrition habits. Instead of indulging in processed snacks or greasy fast foods that may trigger breakouts, focus on meals that are nutrient-dense and rich in vitamins.

Preparing meals in advance—like cooking a batch of lean proteins, roasted vegetables, or whole grains on weekends—can make it easier to avoid poor food choices when cravings strike.

Antioxidant-rich foods such as berries, leafy greens, and nuts help combat oxidative stress that smoking leaves behind. Omega-3 fatty acids, found in salmon, walnuts, and flaxseeds, work to reduce inflammation and keep your skin looking calmer and clearer.

By nourishing your body with the right nutrients, you’re  supporting healthier skin and also reinforcing your overall recovery from smoking.

Cleanse With Care

Many people assume that acne or skin irritation during the quitting process comes solely from chemical imbalances in the body.

While that is true, your skincare products can also contribute to the problem. Harsh cleansers or overuse of acne-fighting ingredients can strip the skin of its natural oils, leading to more breakouts or irritation.

Switch to a gentle, sulfate-free cleanser that removes impurities without damaging your skin barrier. Ingredients like salicylic acid or benzoyl peroxide can still be useful for breakouts, but they should be used sparingly.

Always follow cleansing with a lightweight, non-comedogenic moisturizer to restore hydration and keep your skin calm without clogging pores.

Exfoliate the Right Way

As your skin begins to recover from the damage caused by smoking, it works harder to shed dead cells and regenerate fresh ones. Without proper exfoliation, this increase in turnover can lead to clogged pores, rough patches, or a dull complexion.

Incorporating exfoliation into your skincare routine a few times per week can help remove buildup and allow new, healthier cells to come through.

Choose a mild product that contains alpha hydroxy acids (AHAs) or beta hydroxy acids (BHAs) for effective yet gentle exfoliation. Over-exfoliating, however, can irritate the skin and trigger more problems, so it’s best to stick to 2–3 sessions weekly and always follow with moisturizer.

Manage Stress Levels

Nicotine withdrawal affects your body on both a physical and emotional level. Stress, anxiety, and mood swings are common during the quitting phase, and unfortunately, high stress often shows up on the skin in the form of breakouts or flare-ups.

Finding ways to calm your mind and body is essential not only for your skin but for your overall success in quitting smoking.

Consider adopting stress-relieving practices like yoga, meditation, journaling, or deep-breathing exercises. Even a daily walk or light exercise routine can make a significant difference by balancing hormones and improving circulation.

Keeping your stress under control will help you feel more grounded and give your skin a chance to recover more quickly.

How Quitting Smoking Impacts Your Skin

One of the biggest questions people have is: Does quitting smoking actually improve your skin? The answer is yes. Once you stop smoking, the inflammation in your blood vessels begins to subside.

This allows for better circulation, improved oxygen flow, and enhanced delivery of nutrients to your skin cells. Your heart and lung function also improve, which indirectly benefits your skin health as your entire system becomes stronger.

While lifestyle factors like diet, sleep, and skincare routines also influence your complexion, quitting smoking provides your body with the foundation it needs to heal and renew itself.

Increased Skin Cell Turnover

Nicotine causes blood vessels to constrict, limiting the supply of oxygen and antioxidants to skin cells. Without these essentials, cell regeneration slows dramatically. After quitting, blood vessels relax and circulation improves, delivering what your skin needs to repair itself.

As a result, your skin starts producing fresh cells at a healthier pace, leading to smoother texture and more resilience over time.

Slowed Aging

Smoking accelerates the breakdown of collagen, the protein responsible for keeping skin firm and youthful. This leads to wrinkles, sagging, and dark spots.

Once you quit, your body gradually restores its ability to produce and protect collagen, slowing down the aging process. Over time, you may notice that fine lines soften, discolouration fades, and your skin regains a more vibrant, bouncy appearance.

Brighter Complexion

One of the most visible improvements happens quickly—your complexion. Smoking reduces oxygen supply in the body, often leaving the skin pale, greyish, or uneven in tone.

Within just 24 hours of quitting, oxygen circulation improves, helping restore colour and vitality to your skin. Over the weeks that follow, your complexion becomes more even, and the natural glow returns.

Effects of Smoking on Skin

When you inhale cigarette smoke, your body is exposed to over 7,000 chemicals and toxic substances, including nicotine and tar. These elements can damage your skin in a number of ways.

When you quit smoking, you save yourself a boatload of skin issues and even critical ailments later on. Let’s take a look.

Skin Ageing

Smoking speeds up the process of skin ageing.

Many of the chemicals in tobacco damage the collagen and elastin fibres within the skin. These fibres help to keep the skin strong and elastic, giving it that youthful ‘plump’ appearance.

When collagen production decreases and the skin’s elasticity is damaged, the skin begins to sag and wrinkle. This is why smokers often experience wrinkled skin at a younger age than non-smokers.

Free radicals is the biggest cause of skin ageing. These dangerous molecules weaken the cell and tissue structure in our body. If you’ve noticed sagging skin, wrinkles, and dark spots, you can blame the free radicals from cigarette smoke. 

This is further exacerbated if you’re daily exposed to pollution and have a diet that includes alcohol and fatty and salty foods.

Furthermore, you’re limiting the nutrition crucial to your skin. Smoking depletes vitamin A levels in our bodies, which are essential for protecting our skin from free radical damage.

It’s also thought that pursing your lips to smoke repeatedly can contribute to the formation of wrinkles around the mouth.

Skin Complexion

When you smoke, your skin complexion changes. This is largely due to the nicotine content in cigarettes.

Nicotine is the addictive chemical found in cigarettes. It causes the blood vessels in the skin to narrow, which limits the amount of oxygen your skin receives.

When your skin is starved of oxygen, the colour tends to drain from the face and you are left with an uneven, dull, and grey complexion.

Without smoking, the levels of melanin in the skin returns to its former levels. This will cause dark spots and pigmentation to disappear and never materialise further. Quitting smoking also ensures you won’t have yellowing skin from the tar and nicotine of cigarettes.

Skin Healing

Nicotine causes vascular constriction, which impairs the body’s ability to send blood through the body. While it’s nothing dangerous, it still causes your skin to look much worse than a non-smoker’s, and heal even slower in the process.

This lack of blood flow makes it more difficult for your skin to heal wounds, and your skin is also more likely to scar from injuries. 

Given that smoking is an ‘all-cause’ vector among many diseases, if you have diabetes and are still smoking, it’s best to stop smoking for good and help your skin improve its healing capabilities faster.

Skin Cancer

A study has found that smoking doubles the risk of squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), the second most common form of skin cancer.

SCC may appear as rough or scaly patches, open sores, warts, or raised lumps on the skin. They are likely to appear brown on dark skin tones and red on lighter skin tones.

It’s no surprise that smoking can cause cancer anywhere in the body. Your best bet to have great looking skin and avoid any risk of cancer is to zero in on the cause and remove it — cigarette smoking in this case.

Buerger’s Disease

Vasculitis is a group of autoimmune diseases that occur when the blood vessels become inflamed and narrow. The body struggles to deliver these blood vessels to various organs.

Cigarette smoking puts you at risk of a particular type of vasculitis, known as Buerger’s Disease.

Symptoms of Buerger’s Disease include pale, red or bluish fingers and toes, painful sores on your extremities, gangrene, and pain in the feet, hands, ankles, or legs.

Spider Veins

Spider veins, medically known as telangiectasia, occur when small blood vessels within the body dilate, damaging the capillary walls.

They are most noticeable when this happens close to the skin’s surface. They usually appear as purple blotches or very prominent veins.

Smoking has been closely linked with palmar telangiectasia, which occurs on the palms of the hands.

A study found that out of 30 participants who currently smoked, half had palmar telangiectasia.

When you quit smoking, the risk of having this disease is halved or reduced to the level of its occurrence to non-smokers. You’re also making your skin look great as a result.

Psoriasis and Eczema

Nicotine affects the immune system, skin cell growth, and inflammation in the body, which is why it can cause skin conditions such as psoriasis and eczema.

If you’ve had itchy and scaly patches on the skin or have seen anyone with psoriasis or eczema, it can be extremely uncomfortable. Anyone who continues to smoke increases the risk of developing psoriasis — and the effects on smokers is even worse than those who don’t smoke.

Smoking can also cause atopic dermatitis, which is the most common form of eczema. Eczema presents as dry, itchy patches on the skin, and it doesn’t do your skin’s aesthetics any favours.

Does Smoking Cause Acne?

Increasingly, research is showing that smoking can cause or worsen acne. It has been heavily linked to the onset of adult acne.

Smoking actually causes a particular type of acne called atypical post-adolescent acne (APAA). This form of acne is non-inflammatory and has a different pathway from inflammatory acne, which is the more common form.

This condition is also known as smoker’s acne.

You’ve had acne once as an adolescent, and like anyone else, you’ve found it a nuisance that doesn’t easily go away. By stopping smoking for good, you can avoid post-adolescent acne for good and make your skin look great as you age.

It should be noted that smoking can also trigger hidradenitis suppurativa (HS) which is known as acne inversa. It is an inflammatory skin disease that causes wounds to develop where skin rubs against skin, such as under the breasts or armpits.

It can be extremely uncomfortable, especially in humid and hot environments. So, if you’re not looking forward to getting the itches as you age, it’s best to stop smoking and let your skin heal itself and remain healthy for longer.

Smoker’s Acne Symptoms

While inflammatory acne presents as inflamed, red pimples, APAA appears as blocked pores, whiteheads, and blackheads.

Whiteheads are small pimples without redness, while blackheads are open spots on the skin that become clogged with oil and dead skin cells.

Smoker’s acne can appear anywhere on the body.

Why Does It Happen?

It’s thought that smoking triggers acne in two different but related ways.

Firstly, smoking increases sebum peroxidation of the skin. Sebum is the oily substance within the pores that causes blackheads. Peroxidation occurs when free radicals attack the fatty acids within the sebum.  When the fatty acids within the sebum break down, bacteria are formed. This creates the ideal environment for acne to develop.

Secondly, smoking decreases vitamin E production by degenerating the fatty acids that transport it through the body. Vitamin E is the antioxidant that prevents free radicals from causing peroxidation. Without enough Vitamin E, free radicals are left to attack the sebum and repeat the peroxidation cycle.

Smokers are four times more likely to have acne than non-smokers.

Skin Benefits of Quitting Smoking: A Timeline

So, when do the skin-related benefits of quitting smoking appear? Just how long after quitting smoking does skin improve?

After you’ve gone through the initial stages of withdrawal and bad skin that itches or won’t leave you alone after quitting smoking, you’re all set.

Just 24 hours after quitting, the colour in your skin will begin to return thanks to increased circulation and blood flow.

One week after quitting, the oxygen levels in the skin increase, which creates more vibrancy in the skin.

One month after quitting, your blood circulation has vastly improved — even back to its initial levels. With increased cell turnover, you have skin that has a healthier glow than when you still were puffing.

Six months after quitting, you will likely see a reduction in fine lines and pigmentation.

One year after quitting,  you should pat yourself on the back first because the skin there feels smooth and looks glowing. Your skin looks great, feels less irritating and dry, and looks supple and wrinkle-free thanks to the improved collagen and blood flow in the body.

For the best results, take a photo of yourself to see how your skin looks like before and after quitting smoking. Trust us, you’ll never regret seeing your before-and-after transformation.

Can Quitting Smoking Cause Itchy Skin?

Can quitting smoking cause itchy skin? This is a common nicotine withdrawal symptom — nicotine can shrink your blood vessels. As they’re returning to their original size after you quit smoking, you might feel some form of itchiness as they start to branch out once again.

Don’t be alarmed — it’s a sign that your body is recovering from the effects of cigarette smoke on your body.

As mentioned earlier, your diet may also be responsible for your post-quitting breakouts. If you’ve changed your diet during your quitting period, your skin may be reacting to this. Foods high in iodine, such as soy, dairy, and shellfish, are triggers for acne.

The good news is that once the nicotine is cleared from your system, the acne flare-up will settle again. You will likely notice the acne reduces again once the withdrawal period ends. This usually takes about four weeks.

The best thing you can do is stick to your quit plan and prepare to reap the skin-rewarding benefits of smoke-free living.

A Final Word

When you quit smoking, the health of all of your organs improves — that includes the skin. Smoking can cause a range of skin-related issues, including advanced aging, pigmentation, psoriasis, acne, and spider veins.

While you may experience acne flare-ups in the initial phase of quitting, this will soon settle and the health of your skin will be greatly restored. Quitting improves skin by slowing the aging process, promoting skin cell turnover, increasing circulation, and boosting collagen production.

Have a question about quitting? You can book a telehealth appointment with a specialist-trained GP for free to discuss your road to quitting.

Resources and links:

• https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamadermatology/article-abstract/1184491
• https://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/481855
• https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-4377464/v1
• https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.4161/derm.1.3.9638
• https://www.lung.org/research/sotc/by-the-numbers/10-worst-diseases-smoking-causes
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11097250/
• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S175199182400010X