These creams are designed for acne prone skin care and aim to eliminate the bacteria which causes it. In theory, without bacteria, acne would not form. The active ingredient in most creams for pimples is benzoyl peroxide, which has been proven to kill p. acne vulgaris but is also very damaging to the skin.

Benzoyl peroxide dries up the skin, pharmaceutical companies have combined benzoyl peroxide with moisturizing agents to neutralize this effect.

The Problem with most Products used in the Treatment of Acne

The problem with all acne creams is that it only temporarely kills the bacteria. The bacteria that is responsible for acne is very resilient and returns withing hours of it being killed. This is why the only successful acne cream regimen seems to be Dan’s from Acne.org in which he applies exorbitants amount of cream all over his face. The cream is then absorbed by the skin and provides longer lasting effects versus bacteria.

It is then essential to apply massive amounts of moisturizer in order to keep your face from litteraly peeling off. He claims that it takes 2-3 months for your face to get adjusted harshness of the benzoyl peroxide, after which the redness fades away.

I do not know the long term effects of this treatment, but I would imagine that applying heavy dosages of benzoil peroxide for 10 years would not be healthy. Especially since your liver is responsible for filtering all the chemicals absorbed through your skin.

The solution to treat acne? Avoid most creams!

The worse creams seem to be the ones that are commercially available over the counter. These do not successfully kill the bacteria and dry the skin. This results in more breakouts than before, resulting in the consumer buying more creams. Instead, concentrating on keeping your skin as healthy as possible will be much more effective in your fight against acne. So throw those acne treatment products away, most of them are junk anyways.

If it’s a severe scar, it can form a permanent mark or pit, if you have any acne scar pits, then you might eventually want to look into professional scar treatments.

The Basics of Treating Acne Scars

Treating acne scars, in most cases, involves abasing the skin so that it can regrow and repair itself. This can be done through scrubs, washes, chemical peels and masks. Once the top layer of skin is slightly worn down, the body heals itself and creates a new, fresh layer of skin.

There are various professional skin services which will aid people with skin scars. These are not necessarily the best treatments and they will require you to have stopped producing acne.

Professional vs Natural Scar Treatment

The natural solutions are softer, take less time, are MUCH cheaper and can be done even when your acne is minimized.

The professional acne treatments include:

• Dermabrasion
• Laser Resurfacing
• Chemical Peels
• Punch Technique
• Subcision
• Augmentation

The more natural treatments include a light scrub, either with a soft toothbrush or a clothe. There’s even an aspirin with cotton swab treatment! If done properly, these can be just as effective as the other treatments.

Using Scrubs as a Scar Treatment

Scrubs are a common element in general skin care and can be crucial to clear, healthy skin. In theory, scrubs are slightly rugged semi-liquid products that are applied on the face in order to ‘scrub off’ dead skin cells and dirt. With an ideal scrub, you would have no dead skin cells on your face, no irritation, no dryness. This would alleviate one of the main causes of acne, which is clogged pores. However scrubs have their limits and even the most intense scrub only affects the most upper level of the epidermis.

Without clogged pores, sebum cannot get trapped and bacteria will have an extremely difficult time forming.

Most scrubs are flawed. They are either too harsh on the skin, use chemicals which irritate the skin or not effective enough. The scrubs like the famous apricot scrub, irritate the skin because they are too rough. Although they are effective that removing dead skin cells at the moment, its the after effect that will do more harm than good.

Avoid harsh scrubs!

After using a harsh scrub, your irritated skin will dry up and die. This in turn produces more dead skin cells a few hours later, and then pimples form. To minimize this effect, people have resorted to using toners and moisturizers in order to keep their skin from drying up.

Medium scrubs are hard to find, you will know that you have a medium scrub if after scrubbing your face is slightly flush for a minute or two, and then returns to normal. Medium scrubs will be the most recommended scrub, because they tend to eliminate the most dead skin cells without producing new ones. It is recommend to *very* lightly massage the face with this scrub.

Light scrubs are similar to soap and use chemicals to disloge the dead skin cells and impurities. In theory, they would work great if the chemicals they used didn’t irritate and dry the skin. The chemicals are absorbed by your skin and continue to eat away at it even after your wash it off. These scrubs are to be avoided entirely.

Green Tea to Help with Acne Scars

Up until recently, I was never a big fan of coffee or tea. That’s why I was surprised to learn that you can take green tea to clear acne scars. I disliked both but the promise of getting rid of scars made me search for higher quality teas. Originally I was taking green tea extracts for acne and that seemed to help. So I was trilled when I found that the tea purchased in local health stores is often much better tea and seems to have a much more prominent effect on my skin.

Recommended Tea to Treat Acne scars

However, the ‘real’ teas (the one you can buy at certain specialized tea shops that I find in Chinatown) are MUCH better. I find that drinking 2-3 glasses of green or white tea helps to cleanse my body, which is important for fighting acne. The reason that tea helps so much is that it has a high concentration of antioxidents which cleanse your system. It also helps you relax which also very important for clear skin. If you’re an adult and not drinking green tea, I would recommend you start immediately.

There are also other teas such as kombucha tea which have live bacterias which can be helpful. These will improve digestion and mineral absorption. Unfortunately, it is a bit more difficult to make kombucha tea and I have to settle for green tea that I can buy at the health store. Please take note that red, black and white tea are also beneficial for acne, and in some cases might even surpass green tea’s effect.

Finishing the Treatment

When you’re concentrating on reducing acne scars, make sure that you eat a balanced, healthy diet. The food that you eat will be used to rebuild your body, so choose your construction blocks wisely. Make sure you’re getting plenty of vitamin C and E from fruits and vegetables when you’re performing your acne scar treatment and you will see much faster results.

Of course, people will soon realize that these topical creams do nothing against acne. Have you ever put cream on a pimple and have it magically disappear the next day? Of course not. What usually ends up happening is that the skin dries up in a massive & unhealthy way. Then the pimple ‘dies’ an ugly death, only to be avenged by 2-3 other pimples on the other side of your face. If anything, it seems that all the acne products and creams actually TRIGGER breakouts. Let’s be honest, your skin doesn’t like the creams, in fact, it gets irritated. When it gets irritated, you get more acne.

Now, I’m going to attempt to explain why using cream as a spot treatment on one side of your face can potentially trigger many other acne pimples.

Note: this is just a theory of mine.

My theory on Acne Products and Merchandise

We all know that skin absorbs whatever it comes into contact with. Using that logic, we can assume that the antibacterial solution that is inside every acne cream will be propagated throughout your entire face through your blood vessels. Therefore, for a little while (until the solution dilutes to a point where it is no longer effective), your entire face will have this ‘antibiotic’ fighting p. acne.

Immediately after, there will be a rebound effect where all the supressed acne bacteria will replenish, in larger quantities than before. Finally, you breakout. The trick to figthing acne is to keep everything in balance. If you’re using acne creams, its like breathing on a fire, the flames will subside momenteraly, but the fire will come right back at you, stronger than before.

So what do can I can’t use cream based products against acne?

Well that’s pretty simple, basically the best thing to use against acne is, (brace yourself), water.

Yes, H20, water has been found to be the best way to control acne in the long run. If you really want to get that ‘clean’ feeling and get all the dirt off, you can use this special (ok its not special, its pretty basic) technique: Splash warm water on your face (pores open), splash cold water on your face (pores close), splash warm water on your face (pores open) and finally splash your face with cold water one last time.

There, its done, your face is now washed and it cost you about $0.00 (unless you live in Europe where that amount of water cost you 250 euros). At least now your skin won’t breakout.

But I REALLY need to use a product on my face!

Ok, if you MUST use a product on your face, I will tell you which ones to avoid. Whatever you do (seriously), DO NOT BUY USE A PRODUCT WHICH IS AIMED AT FIGHTING ACNE. If it says: “for acne prone skin” then DONT USE IT. Also, avoid anything that’s antibacterial for the reasons previously mentioned. A good soap that I found was goat milk’s soap, which can be found at health stores.

Exceptions to the no-acne-product-rule

Ok ok, there is ONE exception (sorta). The only situation where cream will actually work is if you completely overload your face with cream. Now in my opinion, this will be seriously detrimental to your health and I do NOT recommend this. What Dan talks in his regimen is applying a ridiculous amount of cream *everywhere* on your face on a daily basis. Applying an obscene amount of cream will mean your face entire will take longer to completely dilute it into your blood stream and process it (through your liver? yeah, that sounds really healthy). Therefore, for 24 hours, the acne will be under control.

The drawback is that your skin will be extremely reddish and irritated from this. To counter the reddish effect, you must use intensive moisturizer to lessen the effects.
Now after about 3-4 years of this, your liver will probably be roting and your skin will be paper thin, so you better wear sunscreen or your face might catch fire when you’re out in the sun.

Enough said, I do NOT recommend applying this much cream (or any for that matter) on your face. All you’re doing is making other people rich and hurting yourself in the progress (sort of like cigarettes)

To summarize, there have been many people that have been very successful in using only water to treat their acne. I suggest that you try it for a while instead of spending more money on acne products that you really don’t need.

My all Natural Cure for Acne

Whenever I get a break out I do this for one week and my acne clears up. I usually end up doing this for two weeks just to be sure, and then I go into maintenance mode. My maintenance mode involves doing the exact same things as the homemade recipes for acne cure, except instead of doing them daily, I do them every 2-3 days.

Also, the great thing is that I can cheat and drink a soda after, or have a chocolate bar, chips, etc. Of course, I can’t return to eating trash all day, but why would I want to do that?

Natural Acne Treatment:

1. Eliminate all ‘bad’ foods
2. Steam
3. Eat 1 small portion of salmon per day
4. Drink 1 lemon water mixture per day
5. Drink 1 ACV water mixture per day
6. Get 15-25 minutes of sun per day
7. Vitamin C per day

Extra Acne Treatments Tips

Now along the years, I’ve discovered a few more things which really seem to make a difference in my acne. They aren’t really crucial to my regime, but I figured it could help some people and it would be worthwhile to mention them.

First, the most important thing when starting a treatment is to stick with it. Regardless of what treatment you choose, if you don’t go through with it, then you’ll never know if it works or not. This is especially important with the all natural treatment because if you don’t eliminate the ‘bad foods’, then you won’t see the full benefit of it.

Second, when starting natural acne treatments, it’s important to log and keep track of your progress. You should be taking notes on a daily basis of the improvement (or lack of) of the treatment. That way, you’ll see if you’re improving or not after a week. If you aren’t, then it’s time to change something!