I had my share of oily skin and breakouts when I was younger. Though I didn’t have full-blown acne like some of my friends, blemishes of any kind were still a problem. I was cleaning out some boxes when coming across an old notebook at the bottom of one. I never thought that I saved it, but it was a small one that had some things that the three of us had tried to combat pimples and acne of what worked and didn’t work. Here are four must try home remedies for acne that really can help from testing on three plagued teenage faces.
There are a variety of reasons for breakouts and acne from out-of-control hormones, diet, product ingredients, stress, etc. Being teenagers, we were suffering through all of that from our bodies changing, junk food and too much soda every opportunity we had, pressure at school too not being as careful removing our makeup. Though not one of us was willing to admit it, what we all had in common despite the severity of what going on our face was not drinking any water. Then we read somewhere that water could possibly help to flush out toxins and hydrate our skin instead of allowing it to shed like snake skin from too strong over the counter acne products.
At first, we overdid the water. Every time we were near a sink, we would fill up like three camels. Instead of clearing our faces, we spent more time in the bathroom. We decided that five or six glasses were more of what we could handle. Therefore, we gave up most of the soda and coffee for that amount of water. This didn’t cure the problem with all of our faces, but after about a month most of us were seeing improvements.
We even went a step further and gave up the greasy, overly salty junk food after more reading on acne. For a while, we avoided French fries on the school plate lunches and shared them with another student as well as chips. For desserts or snacks, we turned to fresh fruit like apples, pears oranges, grapes, and berries. By the way, most fruits and vegetables have malic acid, which internally helps disinfect the skin. If you’re curious about diet and a bad skin connection, you might want to read another post of mine.
In between, we finally listened to one of the grandmother’s advice about trying what her mother taught her with a few old-world beauty tricks. One was using tomato slices on the blemishes or acne after washing your face. Apparently, the tomato had three valuable acids with its citric acid, malic acid and ascorbic acid, which have antimicrobial and inflammation fighting properties. Using tomatoes was a gentler way to keep the skin fresh and cleaner without overly drying it, harsh peeling or red irritation than our old habit of abusing our skin with alcohol or dabbing too much pimple medication with salicylic acid caused. Later, we eventually put some in the blender and made a toner to apply with cotton balls.
We also experimented with cucumber and honey as one of the four healthy acne home remedies at this grandmother’s recommendation. Believe it or not, cucumber has some amazing properties to offer troubled skin. It can fight bacteria, fungus and provide relief for inflammation. Actually, there was an interesting study that could explain why this was such a popular home beauty remedy for puffy eyes to skin eruptions. We started applying cucumber slices just like we did for the tomatoes slices, then alternated at night with dabbing some honey on the acne and covering with a bandage. However, we also took out the blender again and threw in a cucumber and a tablespoon of honey, making our own small bottles of disinfecting toners as well.
This may be hard to believe, but these four must try acne home remedies worked wonders to help clear as well as keep our distressed complexions more beautiful than they were.
I have never heard of using tomato or cucumbers and honey. Very interesting post!
One also can try my mom’s method — spread strawberry juice/pulp on your face, let it dry and wash it off. It is not a miracle cure, but it works
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You also might want to try this strawberry mask that I make.
https://www.beautycookskisses.com/2018/09/diy-illuminating-facial-mask-delivers-the-glow.html
Interesting that tomatoes and cucumber can help acne.