So what did I do ? I set out to search what could possibly trigger my acne and I made a list of all the items I suspected worsened my acne.

Here was my own personal list of potential acne causes:

• Chocolate bars
• Chips & salsa sauce
• Soft drinks(soda) & Ice tea
• M&Ms
• Mouthwash
• Stress
• Lack of sleep
• Poutines (Fries and cheese)
• Subs
• Wraps
• Gum
• Cookies
• Orange juice
• Pastries
• Ice cream
• Nuts

Evaluation of the acne breakouts list:

I suspected a lot of things promoted acne, and a lot of those foods were really enjoyable! I didn’t really want to give them up, at least not completely, especially not for a homemade acne treatment! Not to mention I didn’t even have any hard evidence that these foods flared up my acne… I mean, I have eaten these things before without getting acne, so why would I assume they are harmful now. Not to mention, tons of people eat it those things and never get acne!

Something must be wrong.

But at the same time… I can vaguely recall eating those goodies in excess and then having a breakout 1-2 days later… what’s happening?

Digestive track and acne

Well for me, because I have a poor digestive track (probably due to doing Accutane, the worst acne remedy), I have to watch out for foods that would otherwise ‘clog up’ my system. In a healthy body, you eat, absord all the necessary nutrients from the food and then expell the trash. However, what happens if I clog up my system is that the trash stays in my body for longer periods of time. This is not healthy. Imagine leaving chinese food out for 2 days in your home, what kind of odor would it have.

Now the foods from the list that ‘clogged’ up my system were subs (with soggy bread and meat), poutine (fries and cheese), chicken wraps and pastries. All these foods would just sit in my system for days, reducing my bowel time (time it takes to go to the washroom) to days instead of something like a regular 12-24 hours.

Now, if you have a good digestive system, ignore these things as they aren’t likely to affect you at all! Make this remedy your own by adapting it to your body, not mine.

Sugar and my acne triggers

Next on the my homemade trigger list: the sugars. Soft drinks, M&Ms (my favorite candy), chocolate, orange juice, ice cream, cookies. Now the reason sugar affects me is not because of the sugar itself… but because of the reaction my body has to the sugar. Anyone doubting this should read the best seller “The Perricone prescription” book.

I dont think that sugar is bad, but excessive amounts affects me. How much is excessive? That depends from person to person, in my case, it’s fairly low.

Environmental acne triggers

Now, what about the mouthwash & gum ? Well, the mouthwash was one of those weird catalyts that everyone has at home … when I started taking some on a regular basis, I noticed that I would break out near my mouth. And although I dont have any studies to back this up (hey, if I dont have anything, I’ll tell you straight up) but there’s a reason they say: “DO NOT SWALLOW” and not to give it to children. It’s because it’s not good for you! Of course I dont swallow it, but there is some mouthwash that remains in my mouth even after rinsing, and that gets absorbed through the linings in my mouth.

What about the gum?

Well… 90% of it has aspartame, which is renowed to be a poizon in high quantities. For some reason, I believe I am more sensitive to these things than regular people who do not have acne, and therefore I have to avoid it while others can go and chew on it all day. It’s a personal thing, what causes acne for me might be different for you so it’s up to you to figure out exactly what triggers your acne and then keep that list handy.

Now, pimples usually take a day or so to fully appear, but for this article, we’ll concentrate on the first moment you notice you have a pimple ‘growing’ on your face.

Does your acne ‘pop up’ at different times of the day? In different places? What are the triggers?

Morning Acne – Possible Cause and Effect

Being chronological, we’ll start by morning pimples. You wake up in the morning, walk to the mirror (actually, you don’t even need to walk to the mirror, you can feel them on your face by making weird smiles) and you see that you have a few new pimples to start the day.

So what’s the likely cause of these morning pimples? Because you sleep a whole 8 hours, it can be a multitude of things.

Pillow Acne

Possible cause #1. One of them is often that you simply get really warm while sleeping, perspire more than usual and your blocked pores are rubbing in your oily pillow. You therefore get a pretty much the idea conditions for pimples to form.

The solution ?

Before going to sleep, wash your face with water (do the warm/cold/warm/cold wash) and then go to sleep on your back. Yes, it takes some getting used to for many, but force yourself to sleep exclusively on your back. That way, your face won’t rub on your pillow throughout the night. It will also be a lot cooler and your face won’t ‘perspire’ as much if its exposed to open air.

Acne caused by Excess Waste

Possible cause #2. Another factor that affects morning acne is that you didn’t spend all your energy the night before. Therefore, throughout the entire night your body has to do something with those calories you didn’t spend. Its like if you put a log in a fire, and then you put the fire out… You end up with having a log. But your body can’t just have a log sitting inside of it. It has to expel anything it doesn’t use. And since your skin is the biggest organ, it expels it through your skin. Have you ever exercised a lot in a day, and gone to bed completely tired? Usually the next day, you wake up with a bit less acne. The opposite is true too, have you ever ate tons of sugar before going to bed? Yeah, the next morning isn’t pretty.

The solution?

Go to bed tired, make sure you do enough physical activity throughout the day, watching TV or being in front of the computer before bed doesn’t count.

Acne caused by indigestion

Possible cause #3. Finally, because you’re sleeping for 8 hours, it can also be indigestion, if you didn’t have any bowel movements during the day, chances are you have food just sitting in your stomach, and it needs to be expelled.

The solution?

If that’s the case, eat an 2-3 apples in the morning. This simple step will improve your daily digestion immensely and you should start seeing results shortly.

Now obviously there are many more causes of acne that were not mentioned, but if any of these seem to be part of your life, then definitely pay special attention to them. It’s by noticing what affects you that you will eventually overcome your acne.