Acne is a long-term skin condition and one of the most common skin issues in the West and plagued almost everybody in their teenage years. It occurs most often in males aged from 16 to 19 and females aged from 14 to 17 but can strike older people: 1% of men and 5% of women.
This condition develops when pores become clogged with oil and dead skin cells or infected with bacteria. However, as visual condition, acne affects a person’s self-confidence and often leads to depression, particularly among girls.
While conventional acne treatments are proven to be the most effective, such product can be expensive and cause undesirable side effects, such as redness, irritation and dryness. Luckily, people can use various home remedies to help reduce inflammation, balance the skin’s oil levels, kill bacteria and prevent future acne breakouts. Here are the top four natural remedies that can help to treat acne at home.
Ice Cubs
It may sound like an old-fashioned piece of advice, but using ice cubs on your skin can actually be one of the best ways to treat pesky, swollen pimples. Ice wrapped in a tissue or other thin cloth applied on and off can help to diminish inflammation and speed up the healing process.
For added benefits, try to freeze chamomile tea or rose water into ice cubes and ice out your pimples. Rose water provides antibacterial effects while chamomile relieves inflammation and soothes red skin.
Green Tea
While drinking green tea offers various health benefits, it also might be a great remedy for acne. Green tea contains anti-inflammatory and antioxidant compounds that can be beneficial for the skin.
To get its positive effect, use a cup of cooled green tea as a face wash or place the bag over the affected skin area to help soothe irritated skin and diminish the inflammation of acne lesions. However, don’t expect that using green tea will clear your complexion completely. Using green tea bags on the skin can make it feel better for a couple of minutes, but it does not eliminate the cause of the blemish.
Jojoba Oil
Jojoba oil is a naturally occurring, waxy substance derived from the seeds of the jojoba shrub. The waxes in jojoba oil can help to repair damaged skin, which in turn help to speed up the healing of wounds, including acne lesions.
Certain compounds in jojoba oil can also help reduce skin inflammation, redness and swelling around whiteheads, pimples and other inflamed areas.
To use jojoba oil for acne treatment, mix jojoba essential oil with a cream, gel or clay face mask and apply it to acne. Alternatively, you can apply a few drops of the oil to a cotton pad and gently rub it over the sores.
CBD Oil
Without fur, the human body manufactures oil, so the skin can protect itself. Oil is made by the sebaceous glands, and these contain cannabinoid receptors, which cannabinoids affect. An article in the Journal of Clinical Investigation in 2014 pointed out that CBD controls how much oil the skin produces but does not dehydrate the skin as many acne treatments do. Another study in 2014 found CBD to be a “highly effective” sebostatic agent, i.e. it makes the sebaceous glands less active.
As well as treating acne, CBD oil benefits can help to alleviate the scars resulting from it: when the skin sustains damage, the immune system produces collagen to prevent further infection, and CBD oil brings about the production of more collagen. What’s more, you can find CBD products in various formats such as tinctures, capsules, topicals, vapes and many others.
