By Susan Arnold
Many home remedies for acne that have been passed down through the generations simply don't work. How many times have you heard that teenagers have more acne because they probably eat more pizza or cheeseburgers? Stop eating chocolate and your face will clear up. Stop eating greasy food. People keep repeating these "cures" and other home remedies for acne, even though medical science has proven they're not based in fact.
Eating pizza, chocolate or cheeseburgers will only affect your skin if you're sensitive to something in the food. No doubt there are some people who will break out after eating pizza. That doesn't mean that greasy pizza causes acne in everyone, just those people. So blanket cures like that aren't effective, but they keep getting passed along because they sound like they make sense.
Most home remedies for acne get passed along for the same reason. It sounds good to think that if you do this or use that it'll clear up your skin. But unfortunately for many people those great sounding remedies just don't work.
Acne isn't just annoying or troubling to your appearance. When your face is broken out it can do serious damage to your self-esteem and self-confidence. It's more than just sighing with irritation as you look in the mirror and see a pimple. It can become a serious problem emotionally, and if there's teasing about it as is often the case with kids, it can do long-term damage. It can cause long-term damage in the form of skin scarring, too.
There are some good "don'ts" that have gotten passed down through the years, though, even if most of the cures don't work.
Don't pick or squeeze your pimples. This is an almost certain way to end up with a scar. And if you're worried about your current appearance, picking and squeezing will only redden and irritate the area, making it even more noticeable.
Don't squeeze your skin to remove blackheads. You might think it'll be great to remove that blackhead that you see every time you look in the mirror. But squeezing it out actually makes it easier for another blackhead to form later. When you squeeze, it might pop out of your skin but you're putting pressure in the other direction also, making the pore deeper. This lets oil and dirt get a little deeper into your skin, and makes another blackhead more likely, and more difficult to remove. There are home remedies for acne that tell you to steam your face and then squeeze, but if you have issues with blackheads you might want to talk to a dermatologist about the best methods of removal.
Instead, do wash your face gently but thoroughly with a textured cleanser or a textured cloth and your ordinary soap. Don't scrub hard and irritate your skin, however. Some home remedies recommend light scrub-textured pads of or even mixing a little salt into your cleanser to remove built up dead skin cells and oil so blackheads can be gently washed away.
Susan Arnold is a dermatology expert. She reviews many skin care products, many of which have been alternative acne treatments.
Source:www.isnare.com |
