How I found the reason behind my acne and got rid of them 😀
My face was going through terrible times since the start of 2016. Earlier I had bouts of forehead acne due to improper sleep, but last year a new crop of ugly acne had started surfacing near my inner cheeks. Every morning I had to spend a good fifteen minutes to give myself a prep talk. These are the times when all those innovating and inspiring quotes, rampantly shared on Facebook, come to rescue. “Yes, I am more than my skin” – and with that thought I would board the bus and start a new day. It’s a herculean task to not let acne hit your confidence.
These weren’t the normal pop-it-and-get-over-it kind of pimples, but rather, these little devils would sneak under my skin and cause a red bump that lasted for weeks and even months. My bathroom shelf was creaking under the weight of numerous anti-acne face wash, night creams and whole lot of other ointments that I can’t even spell. The trouble was, the creams were excellent in drying the pimple, but they were totally useless in preventing further pimples from growing. Their alarming growth rate was slowly making me lose my mind.
Me to Body: Will you please stop this ruckus? It’s stressing me out!
Body: Did you just say stress.
Bhompp!!! Another pimple.
Body: 😀
Me: {under the table – crying}
It was the biggest mystery of my life. I eat healthy, rarely drink alcohol, never smoke and workout regularly. There was no reason that I could find behind this appalling rise in pimples. I found this article on face map very useful while trying to solve this mystery.
So last year, around Sept-Oct, I started the removal method. That is to remove everything that I suspected caused acne and then slowly add them back to find the cause.
Thankfully, hormonal acne was ruled out and my blood reports were normal too. I stopped the intake of salmon, removed dairy from my diet, stopped using all the anti acne creams/face wash. Then from January this year, I started applying Duac – (Clindamycin (1.2%) and Benzoyl Peroxide (5%), as prescribed by the doctor. Duac was very effective in drying the acne, but not so effective in removing scars.
The removal of dairy slowed down the growth of acne but they were still not completely gone.
The last step was to remove the foundation from my daily use. I don’t use much makeup, just a moisturiser, foundation and compact powder. I had been using this foundation for over two years now. After I stopped using this foundation, the ugly red bumpy pimples completely stopped appearing. That was two months ago.
Since I wasn’t convinced that my foundation was the culprit, I started using it again … and lo behold … two big pimples appeared on my face. Bad move… totally bad move! I was so disappointed to know that it was my favourite foundation that caused this.
The pimples are all gone now, but the scares remain. 🙁 Hopefully, the scars will be gone in few months.
I have slowly started consuming dairy products again, keeping in check the health of my skin.
**********************
My skin care routine is very simple. I don’t experiment much now – no more snail and placenta face masks 😛
Drinking loads of water : Even though I end up going to the bathroom 200 times a day.
Steaming: I found this accidentally, when I had to do steam inhalation day and night due to cough. My skin actually started looking healthy and rosy after steaming. So these days, over the weekend, you would find me in the kitchen, hovering over a boiling pot of water, with a big towel covering my head.
Washing my face twice a day – unfailingly.
And sometimes, I rub a lemon on my face, along with some turmeric or besan (chickpea powder).
********************
Please let me know in comment section if you know of any effective natural ways that can help me to get rid of these acne scars.
Ringing the Gratiude Bell last Saturday, grateful that I finally got one mystery resolved 🙂
Update : Added an image of a clearer skin.
I really liked the title of your post! It’s really a task to figure out what exactly causes pimples and acne. I rarely use makeup, so that’s a no-brainer. I once used a mix of apple cider vinegar and water for blackheads on my nose, and magically all the pimples started disappearing from all over my face. I tend to get pimples once in a while, and then applying toothpaste on it works wonders!
I have heard chocolate is good for the body skin, i don’t know about how it is for the face. Anti oxidents, take stuff that have anti-oxidents that would make your skin look young, that should help. The foundation was the cause of those ugly red pimples…who would have thought!! …really a mystery solved!!