I\’ve had acne for 4 years now, and it got progressively worse up until about 2 months ago when I tried a couple of things that I\’d heard about and, together, they made a huge difference for me. My acne isn\’t completely gone, but I would say it\’s been reduced by about 70-80% or so, and to me (and probably you) that\’s an awesome improvement that I\’ll gladly take. So here we go, here\’s what to do:

1. Stop washing your face 10 times a day, once a day is sufficient. Here\’s why: when you wash too frequently you dry your skin out and it sort of freaks out and goes into emergency mode and starts producing oil like crazy to re-moisturize itself so it doesn\’t dry out completely and die. This is its natural defense mechanism and you\’re triggering it by nearly washing it to death. Try washing it only once a day, it might take it a day or two to realize what\’s going on and dial down the oil production, but it will happen and you\’ll notice that your skin, on average, is actually less oily now that you\’re only washing once a day than it was when you were washing much more frequently.

2. Exfoliate (gently) when you wash. Odds are you already do this, but if you aren\’t you need to. There are tons of scrubs and exfoliants (several good acne soaps actually have exfoliating stuff in them so you can wash and exfoliate at the same time) out there you can buy that are specifically designed to help treat acne. This is necessary because one of the primary causes of acne is the sebum (dead skin cells) clogging your pores and exfoliating will knock these dead skin cells loose so they can be washed away.

3. Put a fresh towel down on your pillow every night before you go to sleep. The bacteria on your skin that causes acne will build up on your pillowcase if you don\’t change it regularly (like, every night) thereby significantly increasing the amount of it on your face thereby making your acne worse. Simply putting a fresh, clean towel down on your pillow every night will fix this problem without having to constantly change the pillowcase. This, by far, made the biggest difference for me.

4. Tea tree oil. There have been several studies that showed that gels containing around 5% tea tree oil are as effective as the popular lotions I\’m sure you\’ve seen that contain 5% benzoyl peroxide, although tea tree oil may work more slowly. For certain people, tea tree oil can cause a reaction known as \”contact dermatitis\”, so test it on a small patch of skin and wait 24 hours to see if there\’s any kind of negative reaction before spreading it all over your face. Also, you shouldn\’t use tea tree oil if you\’ve got acne rosacea because it may actually make the symptoms worse.

5. Glycolic acid. This is a natural acid found in sugar cane. When glycolic acid is applied to your skin it does a superb job of removing dead skin cells and uncloging pores. Glycolic acid has also been shown to improve the appearance of acne scars.

6. Steam! Yes, really: try steaming your face about once or twice a week, this will help open the pores and thereby prevent clogging and the pimples it causes. Just boil some water, take the pot off the stove, then drape a towel over your head, bend over the pot, and hold your face over the it for about 5 minutes or so. Lastly, rinse your face with cold water to close up the pores quickly–now, go look in the mirror. Looks a LOT better, doesn\’t it?

Author Bio: If you\’d like to learn even more about how to reduce acne then I highly recommend you check out my blog where I frequently post new info and tips on what I\’ve found works for me.

Category: Medicines and Remedies
Keywords: acne, reduce acne, treat acne, get rid of acne, acne remedies, acne advice