Lysine
★★★★★
Milk of Magnesia
★★★★★
Milk of Magnesia
★★★★★
Milk Thistle
★★★★★
Milk Thistle
★★★★☆
Milk Thistle
★★★★★
Milk Thistle
★★★★★
Multiple Remedies
★★★★★
It took about a month and a half to achieve clear, smooth skin. The results aren't instant and it took few weeks to actually see the effects from my natural remedies.
My regime included:
- a healthy diet (minimal sugar or foods high in saturated fat)
- drinking green tea each morning
- 1-2x a week lemon/cinnamon/honey mask
- 2-3 x a week using baking soda masks (baking soda + a dab of water on acne and rubbing circular motions then washing off in 5 minutes)
- rubbing lemon on my face
- drinking water and lemon slice before bed
- Apple cider vinegar toner (ration of one part ACV and two parts water
- In addition, the acne medication I used to attack the acne bacteria were a benzoyl peroxide face wash + spot treatment cream.
Good luck, and continually seek out natural remedies that work best for your skin type!
Multiple Remedies
★★★★★
to remove acne scar, apply a thin layer aloe Vera gel (cut the leaves close to the ground) over the skin twice a day for as long as it takes. In addition, use a natural fruit peel to continuously exfoliate and encourage new skin.
Really effective!!
Multiple Remedies
★★★★★
I am in my early 30's and have struggled with face and body acne since my teens. I was put on a wide variety of drugs for a good part of my 20's but I knew they were just a band-aid and not dealing with the root cause (and they were waay expensive). I finally went off of them a few years ago and have been trying one thing after another to get this under control.
After reading a bunch on your site at the beginning of this year this is what I have done:
* Take ACV every morning.
* Cook with coconut oil and drink in my tea throughout the day.
* Stop using my 'acne pads' that are very drying - I just learned from a former skin care consultant that these products are so drying that they can actually trigger the oil production response in your skin. What! That makes sense to me so I stopped about a month ago.
* Each night I wipe my makeup off with a gentle face wipe and then I wipe my T Zone with Hydrogen Peroxide. It makes my skin feel SOOO clear and dry and smooth
* Each morning after my shower I use a gently high quality moisturizer on my face.
* The only other thing I have done in relation to my skin is that I cut out the greek yogurt I was eating everyday.
Obviously I tried a lot of things at once so it is hard to tell what made the most difference. My heart tells me the biggest shifts came from the ACV the Hydrogen Peroxide and ditching the super-drying acne pads.
Now that I am 2 months into this process I can't tell you how different my face looks and feels. No more deep cystic acne. Significantly reduced pimples, smaller pores, and the redness from years of other pimples is starting to fade. When I get a pimple here or there it is gone quickly and isn't nearly as painful.
I do still believe I need to make more shifts in my diet for the acne to go away completely but I am SO pumped that these remedies are helping as much as they are. Thank you Earth Clinic!
Multiple Remedies
I go to an Aveda school and they teach you the importance of cleansing your body inside and out and how important it is to use natural products and not synthetic ones. According to Aruveydic medicine, where you break out on your bady and face is where you are having troubles in your body (chin-hormones, like before menstrual. Forehead-intestinal upset, from food allergies or parasites. Cheeks- liver and lungs, could be from pollution, smoking, virus, bacteria)
So I went to a good doctor(not one trying to give me random medication) who did a lot of tests and it turned out I have a major hormonal imbalance (thank you birth control), multiple food allergies (gluten, dairy, peanuts, pork) and she also thought I might have a parasite build up (most people have parasites in their systems). Parasites can cause you to hang on to toxins and then cause you to break out. Food allergies can cause you to break out. Hormones can cause you to break out.
Bottom of the line, acne is your body's way of telling you that something is not right. And it is a bacterial infection once it occurs so you must treat it accordingly. I try to use as natural of face regime as possible because I am very senstive to synthetic chemicals, parabens, petrochemicals, and fragrance adn I always have been since I was an infant.
First I would suggest detoxing your body in some way, and STICKING TO IT! It will get much worse before it gets better, but stick it out.
You might need to get an antibiotic if your acne has gone septic, because then it could get into your blood stream and cause a lot of harm to the rest of your body.
Second, get a GOOD SKIN CARE REGIME.
I personally LOVE aveda and I use the 'botanical kinetics' line. Face washes made for acne irritate my skin and are too harsh. However, try different things out, everyone is different. But I highly reccomend natural or organic face washes. They are less likely to irritate your skin further. African black soap and tea tree oil are wonderful things to use to cleanse the face with. there are many products that contain these two in them at natural food stores.
ALWAYS CLEANSE TWICE! Use a gentle motion with you fingers and cleanser twice! The first time removes dirt, pollution, makeup, the second time insures nothign is left behind and gives your face wash a chance to work.
Next, exfoliate with a chemical exfoliant! Abrasive exfoliants are WAAAAYYY TOO harsh for acne skin and actually SPREAD THE BACTERIA AROUND and cause you to break out MORE! I made this mistake until recently when an esthitician explained to me how to properly cleanse the skin. Until your acne clears up more, you don't want to risk making your acne septic my spreading the infection. I put the exfoliant in a spray bottle and spritz it instead of rubbing harsh cotton on my face. THIS STUFF IS MIRACLE SPRAY. If you don't want to get the rest of the B. K. Line, at least give thsi stuff a try. it has a small % of saycilic acid in it to help kill bacteria and exfoliate dead skin cells.
Then, at night I just lightly pat moisturizer on my face. DO NOT RUB IT into your skin. This will also spread the bacteria around. I use the Botanical kinetics line BUT sometimes it can irritate some people's skin. It would be best to use 1-2 drops of ORGANIC jojoba and one drop of tea tree oil. Jojoba is the closet plant oil to sebum that our bodies produce and tea tree is the natural version of benzyl peroxide. It dries up acne and acts as an antiseptic.
In the morning I usually just spritz a toner (ORGANIC witch hazel works well. The B. K. Line has a toner with witch hazel in it already) and then lightly pat my moisturizer on my face, while it is still damp from the toner bc it will soak in nicer. I ALWAYS use sunscreen if I am going to be exposed to the sun. I like La Rosche Posay tourmaline spf60 and Neutrogena dry touch spf100. They both are extremly light and do not leave a greasy feel to the face.
I use a face mask once a week, depending on what my face needs. Sometimes I just use organic honey to heal my scars, kill bacteria and add moisture into my skin. Sometimes I use a clay and ACV mask. Aveda makes a mask in the Tourmaline line that helps reduce scarrign and it is very gentle. A mask just helps give more nutrients to your skin. BE VERY GENTLE when you do masks, you don't want to use anythign irritating or abrasive.
I spot treat my acne with staright tea tree essential oil. I have tried B. Perox and Say. Acid but they don't seem to be as effective. Just get a dropper and drop a couple of drops onto your finger and lightly apply it to the effected area.
SO, from doing this, I have noticed a HUGE improvement in my horrible cystic and the reoccurence there of. Get PLENTY of sleep, your body heals itself when you sleep. Drink water with ACV in it to help detox your body, and be very careful of what you eat, medicines and vitamins you take, and even products you use (laundry soap, perfume, lotion, soaps) these can all cause you to break out because they have a lot of synthetic chemicals in them that irritate the lymphatic system in your body. Usually, those with acne, less is more and be VERY GENTLE or you will irritate it more and cause scarring. I made that mistake... So learn from me, be very gentle! Washign twice helps remove all that makeup so you don't have to scrub so hard to remove it all!
And get your hormone levels checked out. That could be the root of all the evil. There are a lot of natural ways to help regulate hormones, although you may sometimes have to take another approach.
Multiple Remedies
★★★★★
Here's my regimen: I wash with pure (saponified) oil soaps, scented with natural oils. Then, as a toner, you can use 3% h2o2 (carefull not to touch brows or eye lashes, it will bleach it, trust me).
Moisturiser? A big culprit in causing pimples. For over 15 years now my favorite has been jojoba oil. It's the only one that actually will keep the sebum flowing instead of clogging pores. Sebum (aka oily skin) will harden, clog pores, cause painful pimples.
What I use when I get the ocasional pimple (or should I say the start of one, deep/painfull or otherwise)? The best that I've found was simply mixing a bit of unpasturized honey with plain witch hazel (any pharmacy carries it). The ratio is about 1 to 8. If it's too sticky, where makeup won't go on properly, dilute some more. It's quite watery. Keep in a small bottle. Will last a long time. Rub on pimples 2-3 times a day to stop them from even coming to the surface. Honey is antibacterial and moisturizing. You don't get the awefull red/drying flaking effect of most acne creams. Keeps it from getting infected.
I also always had a problem with pimples on my back, chest and arms. Solution? A good old fashion body brush. Go figure!! As long as I regularly brush my skin (when it's dry) with a plant fiber body brush, I have clear skin! The brushing removes the dead skin cells that (you guessed it) BLOCK YOUR SKIN PORES!!! Shower AFTER brushing to wash away the dead skin.
What have I learned? Pimples occur when your skin is trying to remove toxins from you body and it can't find an exit because of CLOGGED PORES!!!
PS: I'm curious to see if this works for anyone else...
Multiple Remedies
★★★★★
Multiple Remedies
Best of luck.
Skin issues take a while
Multiple Remedies
★★★☆☆
BETTER BUT WITH SIDE EFFECTS
I have been reading and loving this website for a while now. and have been using many of the remedies suggested here like ACV Molasses and OP. I have also been using Lecithin granules as per Ted's suggestion for acne. And doing urine therapy. (for at least 4 month now)
However, while my acne and melasma have somewhat improved and my energy - greatly improved, I have developed a strange side effect to which I can not find the reason or a cure.
The skin on my neck looks like lizard skin and it feels terrible, do dry as if it's about to crack. Also the skin under my eyes has worsened and I have a lot more wrinkles.
This question is for Ted, please help me find out what could be causing this, I feel so old because of this "new" look and it seems to be getting worse fast!
Hi there,
The way you describe your neck sounds like you need help in a hurry.
My suggestion is to use Extra Virgin olive oil, coconut oil or if either of these sound unpleasant, add about l ounce of of cold pressed castor oil to your favorite lotion and use that on your neck. (Anyone who loves the smell
of castor oil as much as I do can easily identify what is probably the most effective ingredient in Avon's expensive neck oil - I have never found any product containing castor oil to completely succeed in covering up its odor, even when advertised as odorless castor oil.
(Fort Collins, Co)
12/23/2009
Juno, I remember Ted posting something recently (11/01/2009) about oil pulling that Lecithin pulls oil from the body. Maybe what you're experiencing is you're losing too much oil? For me, if I don't have enough good fats (omega-3s and coconut oil) in my system my skin loses its suppleness and starts to dry out and, especially my lips, start to crack. I even start to get pimples because my skin tries to compensate for the drying out by producing more oil. I agree with Joyce that you should start applying some soothing oils to your skin but maybe start supplementing with them as well? I read a book describing the benefits of coconut oil and remember it saying that it helps the skin cells keep water in them (instead of the water getting immediately flushed into the blood stream) and helps them to keep hydrated and plump. I eat a small amount of EVCO several times a day and my skin glows without blemishes. Hope it gets better!
(West Hollywood, California)
12/24/2009
Tamara and Joyce, thank you so much for your response and suggestions.
I will try avoiding Lecithin granules for a while and adding VCO to my diet. I do take 2 pills of Omega 3 and one of Flax seed oil every day. And I do use oils on my skin (Avocado, Peanut and Olive oil depending) but none of this seems to have any effect on this horrible feeling (like my skin is cracking) and look.
Another thing I've been doing for a long time now is drinking a pot of green tea every day. I tried to research and see if green tea might have this effect, but couldn't find anything that would suggest that.
I will keep you posted on any changes.
Thank you.
