Best Acne Cure or Treatment for You

What is the best acne cure or treatment? Everyone is different, so the best treatment for acne will vary. But by following a good strategy you can find what works for you.

I'm going to tell you the best approach to clearing your skin.

Don't expect some miracle cure in a bottle. This is a multi-pronged approach where we attack the acne at many different angles.

A girl with a zit on her nose

If you have acne that means something is out of balance in your body. Correcting that imbalance is the key to your best acne cure or treatment, and it takes some work. Your skin is supposed to look and feel great!

Once you get your body back into the state you want it to be in, things will be easier.

Ready? Let's go...

Best Acne Cure or Treatment Step 1 - Get Educated

Find out about all the things that can trigger or cause acne. Knowledge is power.

Once you see how acne is formed, the types of acne, and the long cause/effect chain of reactions, you may begin to have some "aha" moments.

The causes of acne are far from obvious. But once you know what they are, you can begin to take steps to eliminate them.

The following steps build on this knowledge.

It's one thing for me to tell you what to do to clear your skin. It's entirely another when you understand why I'm making these recommendations, because you'll take the advice more seriously.

Best Acne Cure or Treatment Step 2 - Improve Your Diet

The typical western diet these days is pretty sad. Our culture is grossly missing the mark in what we should be doing to be healthy.

It's sad because we all know what we should be doing. We are what we eat right? Eating whole foods, such as:

fruits
vegetables
nuts
seeds
lean meats (for some)

is what we should be doing. But instead, we eat a large amount of:

processed food
refined sugar
refined carbohydrates (crackers, breads, pasta, etc.)

which wreak havoc on our bodies. Any you know what?

They're one of the reasons why you have acne!

Yup, there are foods that "cause" acne, not to mention a whole bunch of other health problems that can be much more severe.

Even if there are other reasons why you're getting acne, such as a hormonal imbalance due to puberty or the menstrual cycle, a bad diet is only making things worse.

Improve your diet and you will see an improvement (or even elimination) of your acne. This step was what really eliminated my acne for good.

If I had to boil down my shotgun approach of treating acne to just one step, I think a diet improvement is the best acne cure or treatment available to everyone.

Best Acne Cure or Treatment Step 3 - Reduce Stress

Stress is also something that wreaks havoc on your body, and it certainly makes your acne worse than if you weren't stressed.

I'm not only talking about physical stress related to our eating habits mentioned above, but also mental and emotional stress. Stress releases a hormone called cortisol that amplifies the effects of many other hormones in the body which causes hormonal imbalances and blood sugar swings. So stress can greatly damage your health and increase the severity of your acne.

These days, our lives are filled with stress. I suppose we can thank technology for that. Instead of having to fight to survive, we have a million other things to worry about.

I know most people can't get rid of stress, heck I know I can't. There will always be stressful situations, and in some cases it's actually a good thing. Getting rid of stress probably wouldn't even get rid of your acne anyways. You would likely only see a mild to moderate improvement.

What you can do though is reduce your stress levels. There's a huge field of knowledge available out on the Internet for how to do this. The approaches are as wide and varied as the number of people on this Earth.

The easiest, simplest, and cheapest method I know of is meditation. Oddly enough there are many different flavors of sitting and doing "nothing", so explore a bit to see what's out there.

Here's my recommended method:

Sit down - It doesn't have to be in the lotus position. Even a chair will do as long as you don't slouch.
Breathe through your nose and focus on your breath.
A train of thought may develop and you can find yourself thinking about something other than your breath. If this happens, just focus on your breath again.

Practice this a little each day, for however long is practical to you. It can be 5 minutes or 1 hour, or even more. Start of with short sessions though because you can get restless at first and the practice won't be as beneficial.

The effects of meditation can be quite profound and I guarantee you will feel more relaxed afterward. I love meditation and practice everyday myself. While meditation may not be the best acne cure or treatment, it certainly helps and is available for free.

There are other stress reducing activities of course. Another popular one is Yoga. But really it can be anything you enjoy doing, like taking a walk.

Reduce your stress and you will reduce your acne - not to mention a whole range of other health benefits. You can find out more information on my stress and acne page.

Best Acne Cure or Treatment Step 4 - Build Proper Habits

I used to be pretty brutal to my skin. When I had acne I used to:

Shave with a 5 blade razor, against the grain. The Gillette Fusion specifically.
Wash my face upwards of 10 times a day.
Pop my zits
Rubbed my face all the time for various reasons.

Ouch! I shudder just typing that. Now I:

Shave with a 2 blade razor, with the grain. The Gillette Sensor Excel specifically.
Wash my face no more than 2 times a day.
Never pop my zits
Avoid touching my face as much as possible

and my skin has never been better.

Irritation is a nightmare for your skin, and can make your acne worse. Try to build similar habits to the ones I have, and your skin will improve due to reduced irritation.

Best Acne Cure or Treatment Step 5 - Use Good Skin Care Products

In a perfect world, our best skin care product would just be water. Yup, water.

The bad news is that we don't live in a perfect world. The air pollution we are all exposed to coats our skin and can cause irritation. By now you know that irritation can make your acne worse.

Water just doesn't do a good enough job getting the pollutants off.

Therefore, a man-made cleanser is our next best option. There is a huge variety of options out there, and they are covered in other areas of my site.

Natural cleansers are better in the long run for your skin. But, there are plenty of good artificial cleansers that are more readily available in stores and are generally less expensive. Which way you go is up to you.

After cleansing your skin, you can use a product to help exfoliate your skin. This will help you shed your dead skin cells, reducing the chances for acne to occur. It also improves the rate at which your skin heals.

Salicylic acid is a common ingredient you can find that helps exfoliate. Benzoyl peroxide also exfoliates a little, but its main job is to kill the P. acnes bacteria which plays a role in inflammation. Tea tree oil is also a natural alternative that works just about as well, without as much irritation.

These ingredients typically dry out your skin. I used to have very oily skin, but when I used benzoyl peroxide my skin was quite dry and irritated. Not only that, but my acne actually got worse. The cysts basically formed deeper in my skin.

Almost everyone needs a moisturizer if using acne treatment medications like benzoyl peroxide. I'd also recommend using a moisturizer if you live in a dry climate and have dry skin.

The Best Acne Cure or Treatment is You

Only you know what is ultimately the best for your skin. The steps mentioned above are things that I had help me immensely in my quest for clear skin. Despite what you may read elsewhere, there is no one best acne cure or treatment product.

It's what you do that matters.

Return from Best Acne Cure or Treatment to Help for Acne

Return from Best Acne Cure or Treatment to Real Acne Treatment Home