12 Proven Natural Remedies for Acne

I'm 24 years old and have had problems with inflammatory acne since the beginning of high school. I've got some scarring on my face and even when I don't have pimples, my skin looks terrible and uneven. I heard about Earth Clinic from a friend a while ago and finally decided to look up a solution (I'd kind of given up trying to fix it).

This morning I had big, angry red pimples on my cheeks. About three hours ago I scrubbed my face with baking soda, (another solution I found on here...) and rubbed some cold-pressed Coconut Oil into my skin, I can hardly believe it - my skin has calmed down so much and my red spots are almost gone! Even in just a few hours my complexion has improved more than it has in months. Nothing has ever helped as quickly and effectively as this! Totally incredible!

To substitute healthier snacks for our 13 year old, I lightly toasted regular grocery store shredded coconut in my cast iron skillet. Yum! I noticed, after our teen ate a teen-sized handful at breakfast - his acne was always totally clear by dinner, for a couple days. When he'd eat a handful at dinner, by morning time, his skin would also be all clear. We love that it seems now (3 years) to have cured our lethargic appetites and healed our lower digestion functions too. Our teen loves the cleared skin and renewed energy! Thanks for this site!

I just had to share my experiences and results with this wonderful community who finally helped me get a handle on my acne.

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!

I am in my 40's with a mild case of PCOS and have dealt with acne since I was 19. In the past 16 months I've found things that help.

Eating raw carrots OR carrot juice can help with acne considerably. According to Ray Peat (Google him), carrot fiber reduces amounts of toxins in the gut that contribute to hormonal acne. He also suggests that activated charcoal has the same effect. So, in this case, it's the fiber, and not the carotenoids that do the trick. On the other hand, we all know that vitamin A has an impact on acne, so carrots may help in that way too.

I've recently read a post by Ted that drinking carrot juice before meals lowers the blood sugar, which is interesting because carrots are a high sugar food. There is a strong correlation between high sugar levels in the blood and acne, so this might be the triple whammy. I keep a bag of organic baby carrots in the fridge and munch on them in the mornings (4-7 baby carrots - equivalent, I suppose, to one large carrot. ) Doing so has considerable improved my acne.

When I get sick of eating carrots, I take a few activated charcoal caps in the morning instead.

Lastly, when I've neglected to do those things, and I break out terribly, I (after immediately incorporating those back into the diet) have had success in clearing up the acne quickly by rubbing a lemon over the breakout after washing my face, and before I go to sleep. (I have fair skin - the first night doing this, my face turns bright red.)

Another thing that really helps me is drinking peppermint tea regulalry. Don't know why it works. I avoid soap, except for liquid castille. Coconut oil internally and externally did not help whatsoever.

Liver support helped quite a bit - detoxing, N-A-C (600 mg day) and Milk Thistle (1, 000 mg 4 x day during breakouts) and this is another thing I do when I get the occassional bad breakout (usually after neglecting my carrots.) In my case, there is a strong gut/liver health component to my breakouts. Keep in mind that there are different causes. Middle aged women with hormonal acne may have a cause different from a teenage boy.

I eat a low sugar diet, and that also helps. When I have bread (less than once per week), I usually get a zit within a few days. Rice doesn't seem to have this effect. I think that tomatoes could be a problem, still experimenting with that. Peanuts are a huge problem, as are any nut or seed oils that are mostly polyunsaturated fats. Eliminating those from my diet helped many things, including acne.

Zinc helps, and I take it a few times per week. Rubbing the face with calamine lotion provides zinc and also dries out the pimples. And ice cube on a zit, held there for as long as possible, breaks down the tissue, and allows the body to remove the debris. I read this in an acne book a decade ago, and all I know is that it does help.

That said, I have not completely cleared my acne but I also drink milk and coffee daily, so those may be contributing. Carrots (or charcoal), some zinc, avoiding polyunsatrated fats, drinking peppermint tea, and liver support vitamins have improved the condition by about 90%. Iodine makes my acne worse, and I am aware of the protocols to increase salt and other nutrients to reduce acne while on Lugol's.

Things that haven't worked:

• Magnesium applied topically (but I think this works for teenage boys)
• Face masks
• Proactive
• Hydrogen Peroxide
• Coconut oil
• Castor oil (made acne much, much worse)
• tea tree oil applied topically
• B vitamins (but they work for other things)
• Probiotics

I'd just say yes to carrots first thing in the morning, or on an empty stomach, as a first step if you're dealing with adult acne.

I discovered long ago when I was in college that using Boraxo on my face would not only keep the oils down, but my skin was soft and smooth when I was done and also appeared vibrant looking. As soon as I started using it to wash my face I noticed how acne pimples started going away within a few days. I've been using Borax ever since even though I no longer suffer from acne. It's great especially in the summer time when you just feel like you can't get rid of the grime. This stuff really works for acne. Give it a try!

Sometimes, just changing your soap, lotion, cream, medicine, make-up, what ever, will cause a period of break out. You have to give yourself an adjustment period. If it does continue, you know it is the new product, habit, whatever, and to discontinue.

I suffered from acne for years. As I got older, it got worse. After trying numerous OTC remedies, at great expense, I started doing research on what the problem could be. Chemicals! SLS/ALS's trigger acne. Propylene glycol triggers acne. Parabens trigger acne. Mineral oil triggers acne. The list goes on and on. All these chemicals were linked to my bad skin. So, I stopped using everything - shampoo, face/body wash, toothpaste, deodorant, lotions, creams, etc. I started over. K.I.S.S. - keep it super simple. Natural is the key with the fewest ingredients possible. There are cosmetics out there that are natural and pigmented with fruit. There are soaps out there that are just made with castille soap. Baking soda for deodorant. Read the labels - you'd be surprised. The stuff is even in our food. Moisturize with an organic oil (yes, you can put natural oil on your face if you have acne). Look into essential oils and adding a few drops. Eliminate everything and then start adding in a few natural things. After I eliminated all the chemicals, my skin cleared. I get a zit here and there (PMS related), but rarely. Read your labels! Note: the cosmetic industry is self-regulated. Even if it says "natural" it may not be. Don't be fooled - read the ingredients.

Sodium Bicarbonate (Baking Soda) for Acne

My son is 12 years old and has bad acne for about 1 1/2 years. I tried many of the over the counter products: cleansers, facial scrubs, toners, astringents, and moisturizers, but nothing worked. While doing some house cleaning using sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and water it occured to me to try that for a face wash for him. I made a paste and have him use it every morning and every night ~ he uses it like any other facial cleanser and it has been fantastic! The pimples have shrunk in size and many are gone. His pores are much smaller. It doesn't burn, sting, or dry out his face. And best of all, it is really inexpensive.

The most incredible supplements I have ever tried for acne are L-Glutathione (500 milligrams up to 3 times a day) and vitamin B6 (ONLY get the P5P form. The other form can cause neuropathy). Split a 50 milligram pill of vitamin B6 (P5P) up and take a few times a day. I would ask your doctor about going up to as high as 100 milligrams of P5P if you really need that much to keep your skin clear. My skin is completely clear as long as I take the B6 or the L-Glutathione. I do not need to take both of these supplements together to have clear skin, - both have worked separately equally as well to clear my skin in record time (about a week to see results) but test it out and see what works for you - both have amazing health benefits. I have noticed that L-Glutathione has the added benefit of also making my hair really shiny and healthy looking.

Both vitamin B6 and L-Glutathione are potent detoxifiers of the liver so go up to the dose you need VERY slowly! If you break out initially, bear with it - this is just a detox/cleansing reaction.

Try opening a capsule of vitamin B6 (P5P) and take a third of it - or half of it - and see how you do Same goes with the L-Glutathione pills or powder . You can take the same dosage up to 3 times a day. Definitely take the B6 with food because it can make you nauseous. Also, the B6 (P5P) could keep you up by giving you energy if you take it late at night.

Topically, Jojoba oil is great for acne. It moisturizes without clogging pores. I wear it all over my face and neck at night. It is the only moisturizer that does not break me out!

I have suffered with severe cystic acne and was on 3 courses of Accutane so I know what it's like to suffer with acne. With either of these supplements, thankfully I don't have to suffer anymore. I hope this info helps anyone out there who is struggling with acne.

I haven't ever had severe acne, but I tend to get a lot of blackheads and breakouts every once in a while. I have started this simple regimine and it has worked terrifically when I follow through with it.

I wash my face with non-foaming wash in the shower, and once with only water before bed. Once a week I apply AVC to my entire face besides the eye area. It dried out pimples but not the rest of your face.

For bacne I use naturally made soap and a pumice stone. It works great.

Also applying an organic lotion in the morning helps with acne and bacne. I use Nubian Organic Honey and Blackseed healing lotion. It smells good too. :)

Milk Thistle cured my acne! I'm now 21 and have had acne for a few years. After many trips to the dermatologist, I was prescribed Accutane which gave me acne-free skin for about a year. I then did acid peels which only made my skin worse. I was also put on birth control - that didn't help either. After lots of research, I finally decided it was time to attack the CAUSE of acne, and not the actual problem. For those of you who don't know it, acne is the cause of a poor functioning liver. If the liver is not functioning properly, acne forms (these are the toxins trying to get out of your body). Therefore, MILK THISTLE is a great natural herb that promotes healthy liver function by getting rid of the damaged liver cells, and creating new, healthy ones. I have not had a pimple since I started taking it, but be patient, it could take up to two weeks for you to see great results! Also, I take the liquid herbal extract - about 30 drops in a glass of water, twice a day.

Hi! I just found these last night and am going to order for my teenage son. I am going to tell him about the unlit match tonight, I think it is the sulphur..... There is a homeopathic company that sells individual remedies - sulphur iodatum, hepar sulphuris calcareum, calcarea sulphurica (hint: starts with a 'B' and the company is from France)

Aloe Vera for Acne: it works, I tried it last night got up and voala! smaller pimples.

I was suffering from acne scars , and severe red cheeks , now I've been only drnking Aloe vera juice, and it did wonders , my face has a clear , compelxion , the scars are there but the redness minimized , I can't wait till it gets better!!

If you can get your hands on a real aloe vera plant and put some the the gel on your face it will take care of your scars. Good Luck!

I just recently started to develop acne after my 25th birthday, before I would have a pimple or two only around the time of my cycle. Since then I have basically tried everything I could get my hands on over the pass eight months or so to rid myself of this embarrassing ailment. One day on one of my usual quests to find a real cure, I went to the Vitamin Shoppe looking for some type of multi-vitamin, hoping that I would find justice. An elderly Sales man, who was very knowledgeable, told me that my liver was full of toxins and Milk Thistle and Aloe Vera would clear my ailment right up. I took 200mg of Milk Thistle a day and 1 capsule of Aloe Vera and it did just that. After about a week later, I could see a huge difference - no breakouts. Your bowel movements will become more and more frequent which is what helps to release the build up of toxins in your body. He told me to take it for about 2 months and I should be okay. I still keep some on hand but at a lower dosage since my initial cleanse, I take 70mg (a lower dosage) two to three times a week for maintenance. It is not good to take any type of herb for an extended period of time unless recommended by your physician. Believe me, this inexpensive concoction is a sure-fire way to rid you of all of your stubborn acne.

For months I've been stressed out and my face has been breaking out with red swollen pimples, which just wouldn't go away. I spent a lot of money on expensive facial cleansers, toners, and lotions...none worked. After finding information via internet regarding honey and cinnamon paste for acne, I tried it. The next morning the pimples were visibly improved, shrunken. I did a test by not putting the paste on one part of my face, and sure enough that part remained the unchanged. I'm on my 4th day sleeping with this paste on my face and very excited that something so simple is working.

When I had acne, I used aloe vera gel which u can find in walgreens. It cleared up my acne in no time I. also drink plenty of water to cure the acne.

STOP USING SLS (SODIUM LAURYL SULFATE, SODIUM LAURETH SULFATE) AND ANY SULFATES IN YOUR BATH PRODUCTS!!! This ingredient is found EVERY body and face soap...and EVERY shampoo. IT IS ALSO WHY YOUNG MEN ARE GOING BALD!!! For acne, I'm trying the lemon juice exfoliation and the cucumber juice face mask. Seems to be working.