Researchers from the National University of Ireland have discovered. Rosacea, a disease that causes reddened, rough, swollen skin in the face, is a particular problem for the fair-skinned Irish. So it made sense for Irish researchers to investigate its cause, but now they probably wish they hadn’t — because the answer is “the poop of zillions of eight-legged face-dwelling bugs.”
The mites, called Demodex, live in your face even if you don’t have rosacea. But if you’re not afflicted, you probably have way fewer — one or two per square centimeter. At night, they come out of your hair follicles to party on your face, mating and eating your facial oils and pooping. But they don’t just poop willy-nilly, oh no. Because Demodex don’t have an anus. So they just poop right inside their bodies, and carry on doing that until they die and explode into a pile of mite-shit in your pores. Hooray!
People with rosacea can have 10 times as many mites, and 10 times as much mite poo, which causes an immune reaction (ya THINK?). It may be that stress, which is known to aggravate the disease, causes changes in their face oils that make them more delicious and nutritious to Demodex. Stress like, say, the stress of knowing that mites are constantly shitting in your face-holes. (Another cause of rosacea: heavy drinking, like the heavy drinking you want to do after finding out that mites are constantly shitting in your face-holes.)
You're probably not gonna sleep tonight, are ya?