Home Remedies For Acne

July 29, 2010 | 0 comments

I am a huge proponent of changing dietary habits to clear and cure your acne. However, there are some acne remedies you can do at home which will help alleviate your symptoms while you treat the true cause. I only recommend all natural acne remedies, rule of thumb – if you wouldn’t want to ingest it, don’t put it on your skin!

Epsom Salt Baths

What are epsom salt baths? Epsom Salt is otherwise known chemically as Magnesium Sulfate. Magnesium is an essential component in all living cells. Essential means it is neccesary for you to consume this mineral for optimal skin function. Sulfate is the salt form of another essential mineral, sulfur. Sulfur is an element that is found widely amongst different acne medications. This chemical compound in salt form easily dissolves in warm water.

What benefits do they provide for the skin?

• A decrease in inflammation and redness
• Older skin layers will shed
• You’ll have a healthier looking glow
• Your stress from acne will decrease
• Joint aches, commonly cause by Accutane, will decrease

Why does it work? The all natural, chemical makeup of epsom salts is the reason why it helps your skin. The magnesium and sulfate provide your skin with necessary nutrients for it to look and function properly.The circulation to the areas soaked will increase, further bringing necessary nutrients from the blood stream. Lastly, the warm water coupled with this salt will aid in detoxifying your skin and circulatory system.

How do I take them? Draw a bath with warm water. Measure two cups of epsom salts and mix it with the bath. Now, here is the trick no one tells you about. Add 1 tablespoon of ascorbic acid(Vitamin C) crystals to this bath. The Vitamin C Crystals remove chlorine and chloramines, which are otherwise damaging to your skin. Not to mention, Vitamin C is another essential nutrient that has a multitude of health benefits for your skin. Soak in this bath for atleast 15 minutes, and make sure to soak as much as your face as possible whilst still being able to breathe!

Where can I get it? Any grocery store or drugstore will carry it.

Unrefined Extra-Virgin Coconut Oil

What is coconut oil? Coconut oil is a fat that is extracted from coconut milk. The fat can be extracted from the milk in many different ways. The best method of extraction is fermentation, where the water, natural solids, and pure unrefined coconut oil gradually seperate from themselves without the use of heat or machines.

What benefits does it provide for the skin?

• Moisturizes the skin
• Provides a healthy glow
• Combats bacteria on your skin

Why does it work? Did you know that the skin cells are chemically made up of 50% saturated fat? Coconut oil is made up of 92% saturated fat. The fatty acid that constitutes these saturated fats are all naturally occuring in nature, and provide a multitude of benefits to the skin.

How do I… Continue reading…

What Everybody Ought to Know About Acne – 15 Acne Myths Debunked

January 3, 2010 | 0 comments

Do you ever feel like you know a topic really well, and when someone tries to throw misinformation out there, you get angry. You get angry because you know the real truth and you are sure of it! This is one of those instances – since most acne information on the web is useless, there is a lot of misinformation out there which are leading sufferers to make the wrong decisions in treating and curing their acne. Let’s go over all of them, and keep on adding more as they come along.

• Acne is caused by genetics. Acne is not caused by genetics. The health of your parents is passed on to you when you are conceived. Their dietary habits influence what you eat when you are growing up as a child.
• Acne is caused by dirt on your skin. Acne comes from within your body. The things you put on the outer layer of your skin may aggravate, but do not cause acne.
• Acne is a result of hormones during your period. Hormones play a role in acne but they aren’t a true cause. Poor dietary habits cause an imbalance of hormones which result in acne.
• Benzoyl Peroxide or Salilycylic Acid can cure acne. BP and SA only treat the superficial symptoms of acne and do not treat the true cause.
• Acne is the result of your hormones during teen years. Not everyone in their teens have acne, obviously.
• Visiting the dermatologist can cure your acne. The dermatologist is only in business to treat the superficial symptoms. e.g. Topicals to treat symptoms on the skin, antibiotics to treat symptoms of overgrowth of bacteria.
• Acne is caused by stress. Stress plays a role in acne but isn’t the main cause. Stress can cause an imbalance of hormones and poor digestion but a healthy human being’s immune system is strong enough to handle these stressors.
• Acne will cure itself when I get older. You got acne in the first place for a very specific reason. Unless you make the correct adjustments to your dietary habits, your acne will persist wether you like it or not.
• Oily foods cause acne. Some foods which are cooked in unhealthy oils such as oxidized vegetable oil will cause acne but this does using proper oils in cooking will actually heal your acne.
• Accutane is the most effective treatment of acne. Accutane is dangerous! It will treat superfluous sebum production but will also destroy your immune system in the process!
• Antibiotics is an effective treatment of acne. Antiobiotics are damaging to your body. It will treat bacteria overgrowth in your body but will also destroy friendly microorganisms that are part of a healthy immune system
• Eating vegetables and fruits can cure your acne. Vegetables are healthy if properly cooked otherwise difficult for someone with a weak immune system to digest. Fruits contain too many sugars which is unhealthy and will cause acne.
• Sweating causes acne. Sweating will

… Continue reading…

Does Google Know the Relationship Between Diet and Acne?

October 12, 2009 | 0 comments

Is there a direct relationship between your diet and acne? Yes. Does Google know? Lets do a little research and figure out what Google really thinks about ‘Diet and Acne’

A proper search in Google should include the correct keywords – you don’t need superflous words like ‘and,’ ‘or,’ ‘with,’ etc. Google should be showing us the most relevant results when it comes to diet and acne when we query ‘acne diet.’ Now let’s dissect the results.

The Secrets of Antibiotics & it’s Relationship to Acne

October 8, 2009 | 1 comment

Yes, I said it.  The same antibiotics that your drug pushing dermatologist prescribes you to ‘fix’ your acne indeed does cause acne! Let me explain. Antibiotics work by destroying micro-organisms, such as bacteria, in your body. A pretty simple concept. The problem is, our bodies have both healthy microorganisms and unhealthy ones. What the antibiotics are doing so effectively is destroying ALL microorganisms, good and bad. This is extremely unhealthy for our bodies and consequently for our skin!

Now if you’ve ever taken antibiotics, maybe you’ve noticed that things got better at first – this is because all that bad bacteria has been destroyed. It’s a known fact that superfluous bacteria on your skin leads to acne. However, this is only destroying a symptom of a true cause – that is a weak immune system. A weak immune system allows this bad bacteria to overgrow in the first place. Overgrowth of bacteria is only one step on the ladder of causes. The only way to keep a good ratio of healthy and unhealthy bacteria in your body is to practice healthy eating habits.

Antibiotics causing acne to become worse is a very common issue. A simple search on the acne.org forums show dozens of these cases:

Tetracycline (Antibiotics) Reviews – Acne.org Reviews

I was on tetracycline for about a year before i had to come off it because it made me lose so much weight and I was becoming resistant to antibiotics in general. It’s great for a temporary solution, but unfortunately when I came off of it again after a few months my acne went from being mild/moderate to severe when I went away to college and practically impossible to control since.

after a month all of the zits came back even in places on my face i never had them before

You have to keep using it, once you stop they come back. I have been on them for years. Everytime I think I should stop using them I break out all over again!!!

I stopped taking the pills for about two months and decided to start taking them again. I found that my acne had worsened. My cheeks are red and they feel/look almost like I have a rash. I’m not sure what to do. I’m frustrated.

later..after i was taking it for over a year, it entirely quite working and my acne got very very very bad. way way way worse than when i started a year earlier. this happened to be right when i started college.. really made it easy meeting ppl

Is it possible for antibiotics to make it worse? – Acne.org Forums

I have been on lymecycline before and it worked very well.
I stopped taking it for 6 months to see how it went and it wasnt good.
Ive just started again 3 weeks ago and my acne is worse than ever.

and she changed my minocycline to lymecyline, saying she couldn’t see any reason why

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Topical Acne Treatments are Ineffective and Damaging

October 6, 2009 | 2 comments

It took thousands of years of evolution to create the cells and organs that make up our bodies today. Every organ in your body was created for a reason and every cell that constitutes the organs, blood, etc. play a very specific role. The cells that constitute your skin have a specific role, too. Simply put, your skin is a protective barrier to both release and absorb. It releases sebum to keep your skin supple and moist. It releases heat (in the form of sweat) to keep your body cool.  It absorbs sunlight to produce Vitamin D , a very important hormone with a multitude of it’s own functions. [1]

Companies like Neutrogena, L’oreal(see L’Oreal accused of using banned chemicals) and pharmaceutical companies create and market these topicals for two reasons.  To treat a specific symptom which may be one cause of your acne and to make as much money as they can doing so.

Inneffective – topicals don’t treat the true cause

One example of a prescription topical pharmaceutical companies have created in a lab is Benzamycin. Let’s take a look at the active ingredients in Benzamycin:

• Benzoyl Peroxide, hydrous, equivalent to benzoyl peroxide 5%
• Erythromycin 3%

Erythromycin inhibits lipase production whilst benzoyl peroxide reduces the comedone count and has antibacterial action.[2]

In theory, this should stop acne from forming, thus curing your acne. WRONG. If you’ve read, ‘The Ladder of Causes‘ you’ll know that this effort is futile. Benzamycin may help curbing your acne initially, but what happens when you stop? Your acne comes back.  Acne sufferers are lead to believe that if their symptoms are temporary alleviated, then it is an effective treatment. WRONG. Effective means your acne is gone and will never come back. There is only one effective treatment of acne, and topicals aren’t it. The true cause of acne deals specifically with your diet and nutrition and healing comes within.

Damaging – Active and inactive ingredients are absorbed into our bloodstream and change homeostasis

We partially absorb everything we put on our skin. That foundation with a million different chemicals is absorbed by our skin. Those chemicals in that commercial shampoo you are using is absorbed by the skin, too. The same goes with Benzamycin and any other topical to treat acne.

In vivo, the higher the concentration of benzoyl peroxide applied, the greater the amount absorbed, as indicated by the urinary excretion of ¹⁴C-benzoic acid. [3]

Absorption is not specific to active ingredients. Inactive ingredients are absorbed as well. Let’s take a look at the inactive ingredients in Benzamycin.

• Carbomer 980
• Sodium Hydroxide
• SD Alcohol
• Lemon Fragrance Oil
• Methyl Salicylate
• Docusate Sodium 75% Solution
• Purified Water
• Ethanol 70 HSE*

* Added by the pharmacist during reconstitution.

Pharmaceutical and OTC Companies don’t take into account the accumulative harmful effects of absorbing these ingredients into our bloodstream. They are probably aware of said effects, but don’t bring it to attention with their greed and… Continue reading…