Lifestyle Choices

Acne is usually a temporary condition caused by an upset to the hormones, resulting in an overproduction of sebum by the sebaceous glands. The skin attracts grime and dirt to its greasy surface, pores become blocked and infections take hold, causing blackheads and inflamed spots.

Cleansers

Cleansing is of prime importance, but nothing too harsh should be used. Use the soapwort cleanser given for normal skin, or a home-made soap. Use the Home-made Soap recipe given for normal skin with comfrey or yarrow as the herbal content. You might also add a small amount of sulphur powder, which has disinfectant properties and is a tried and tested substance to help with bad skin.

Herbal steaming can be particularly beneficial in treating acne. If you have a bad attack, you can gently steam the complexion every evening, using comfrey, sage or yarrow in the water. Keep the face at least 12 in (30 cm) from the water and cover the head with a towel. After three or four minutes the pores should be open and ready to receive a mask. Blot excess moisture from the face and then apply:

Comfrey and Kaolin Mask

• 6 fresh comfrey leaves, or infusion made by pouring
• 1 cup of boiling water onto
• 1 tablespoon dried comfrey
• Kaolin powder

Either sieve and pulp the fresh leaves to extract the juice, or strain off the cooled comfrey infusion and mix with enough kaolin powder to form a smooth paste. Leave for twenty minutes. Rinse off with tepid water and tone the skin gently with a comfrey or yarrow infusion, or use:

Sulphur Mask

• 1 egg white
• 1 teaspoon sulphur powder
• 2 tablespoons Fuller’s Earth
• Small amount of healing herb infusion (comfrey or sage)

Mix these ingredients in suitable proportions to give a smooth paste. You will need more of the herbal infusion if the egg white is small, less if it is big. Apply in usual way. Rinse off after twenty minutes and then tone as in previous recipe, or use:

Sage Pack

• 1 tablespoon plain yogurt (preferably live)
• 2 tablespoons fine oatmeal
• Infusion of sage (2 tablespoons of herb to 1 cup boiling water — stand, cool and strain)

Mix together the oatmeal and yogurt, then add enough sage infusion to make a paste that will smooth easily over the skin. Leave for twenty minutes while you relax, then rinse off with tepid water. Pat skin dry gently, and then tone with comfrey infusion.

Internal Cleansers

Cleanliness of the internal system is absolutely vital with acne. Avoid too much starchy food, especially white flour products, very fatty foods or sugary foods. Keep chocolates and cakes to a minimum. Eat as much fresh fruit as possible and as many salads as possible. Drink as many glasses of fresh water every day as you can.

Start first thing in the morning with the juice of a lemon squeezed into a glass of hot water. It is very refreshing and gets the body systems on the go. Substitute herbal teas for ordinary ones. Many herbal teas are available in bags so that you can take them to work with you quite conveniently. Mate tea is an excellent tonic for the kidneys, which are the organs responsible for flushing toxins from the body. Rosehip tea is marvellous, too, because it is a good source of vitamin C. A course of yeast tablets will also be very helpful.

Do not fiddle with spots and blackheads — rely on the regular use of herbal steaming and applications of masks to bring them to the skin surface and expel them. When you begin an intensive course of steaming and masks, the skin condition often appears to get worse before it gets better. This is because many of the impurities lie well below the skin surface and the only way out is up through the skin. Drinking plenty of water and herbal teas will help to eliminate these impurities and toxins more rapidly.

Moisturizers for Acne

A lotion will probably feel better for daytime use than a cream. One can be made as follows:

• 4 tablespoons lanolin
• 2 tablespoons emulsifying wax
• 6 tablespoons beeswax
• 6 tablespoons avocado oil

Strong comfrey infusion (2 tablespoons herb to 1 cup boiling water, cooled and strained)

First, take the oils and waxes and melt them together in a basin over a pan of simmering water. Mix them well together. Remove from the heat, cool, and then pour into a clean screw-top jar. Keep cool.

Make up the comfrey infusion and keep it for only a day or two in the refrigerator. To make the lotion, take two tablespoons of the oil and wax mixture, melt it and add a tablespoon of the comfrey infusion. Cool, then apply to the skin.

To make a comfrey cream, especially for use at night, take a good handful of fresh comfrey leaves and put them in a liquidizer. Strain the liquid off thoroughly and add it to the oils and waxes in the recipe above, while they are melting. The comfrey leaf-pulp can be kept and mixed with other ingredients as a face mask, or you can put it on your compost heap. If no fresh comfrey is available, use 2 tablespoons dried comfrey infused in a small cup of boiling water. Strain, and add a couple of tablespoons of liquid to the oils and waxes.

The basic oil and wax recipe above may be used with other herbs. A pinch of sulphur powder can be included to help clear the spots.

Acne usually clears up, given time and attention to what we put into our bodies, and what the environment is throwing at them. In very rare cases there can be difficult metabolic problems. Doctors are usually quite careful about prescribing antibiotics for skin conditions, but in some cases they will do so if all other treatments seem ineffective. If you do not see a conventional doctor, a homoeopathic doctor or a herbal practitioner may be able to help.

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