最惱人的一件事就是青春期臉上長痘痘。

Not only do they make their entrance just at the time when people are most self-conscious, but they come and go for the rest of your life.

在人們最有自我意識的時候會冒痘痘，而且痘痘可能會在你臉上保留一輩子。

It would almost be better to have a hairy face.

也許臉上長滿毛會更好。

Ironically, the general covering of our bodies in hair---what we call "fur" on other animals---is at the root of our problem with acne.

諷刺的是，我們身上的體毛，就是我們所說的其他動物的“皮毛”——就是我們臉上長粉刺的根源所在。

In the course of evolution human beings lost their entirely hairy faces and now have a lot of exposed skin there: even a bearded man with bushy eyebrows has much of his face bare.

在進化的過程中，人類完全失去了他們毛茸茸的面孔，進而暴露出大部分的皮膚：甚至是濃眉大眼的長滿胡須的男人，他的臉都是光滑的。

The structures in the facial skin that once gave rise to hair, however, have not disappeared entirely: many still contain tiny vestigial hairs which do not grow.

面部皮膚結構一旦催生出毛發，就不能完全消失：很多還包含著微小殘留的長不出來的毛發。

That means there is nothing to open up the pore itself; and that means the pore is a great place for oils, dirt and bacteria to get clogged.

那就意味著和毛孔本身無關，而且意味著毛孔能被油脂，污垢和細菌堵塞。

You can get zits anywhere vestigial follicles become clogged.

殘留毛囊堵塞的地方就會長有青春痘。

The big culprit on faces, though, isn't dirt so much as an internally-produced substance called sebum that makes the skin cells shed inside the pores.

不過臉部的罪魁禍首與其說是不干凈，倒不如說是一種內部產生的物質，皮脂，使得皮膚毛孔內的細胞脫落。

These dead cells, unable to flake away, collect until they become an irritation to the pore.

這些死細胞，無法自動脫落，一直累積直到其對毛孔產生刺激作用。

At this point the body reacts in a miniature version of the way it deals with any other invasion: it sends white blood cells to the site to attack the invading body.

此時人體會減弱其他任何形式的入侵，從而它會將白細胞送至機體來抵抗受侵細胞。

The result is a mild inflammation at the scene of battle. That inflammation is the zit.

結果就是輕度炎癥在作怪。而那炎癥就是青春痘。

So evolution, while having cleaned our hairy faces, gave us pimply skin instead.

所以進化在清理我們多毛的面孔的同時，也會使我們的皮膚長有粉刺。