First off I will introduce myself! I’m Marissa Schillinger and I help women with acne get clear, glowing skin naturally! I struggled with pretty severe cystic acne in my past and am currently in the process of healing my pitted acne scarring. You can find all sorts of acne tips and information within my blog!
Now let’s get into this post!
Don’t get caught up in “Clear Skin Diet” rules
There are so many different “clear skin diets” our there, and the truth is, there is no one way of eating that will work for everyone wanting to clear their skin. Everybody has different micro and macronutrient needs, and react differently to certain foods depending on a huge variety of different factors including age, digestive health, stress levels, and physical activity levels, to name a few. As well, each person has different root causes of acne, so dietary needs will be different depending on the main root cause as well is the other contributing factors.
There are also “clear skin diets” out there that have rules around avoiding consuming any oils of any kind, and consuming a low-fat diet. However, for many people (myself included), eating a pretty high amount of fat each day is optimal! Healthy fats that you shouldn’t avoid eating include avocado, nuts & seeds, fatty wild-caught fish, coconut, and coconut oil, olive oil, & avocado oil. Play around with the amount of fat you eat to see what works best for your body. As well, you should be consuming the majority of your fats from whole food sources rather than oil so you get more nutrients.
Understand that you cannot truly heal your acne and skin if you are only addressing your acne topically
Acne is a symptom, therefore, by treating acne topically, you’re only covering up the symptom. If the root cause doesn’t get addressed, your acne will very likely come back at some point, and other symptoms will likely appear as well.
To truly heal your skin, there are many different factors that can influence it, including liver health, digestive health, hormone health, and stress levels, to name a few.
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Use products that do not contain endocrine disrupting ingredients
Most mainstream beauty and household products contain ingredients that are know to be endocrine disrupters. These ingredients can interfere with our hormones and lead to hormone imbalance. Not only do hormone imbalances play a role in acne, but also play a role in many other health conditions.
Take it one step at a time so you don’t get overwhelmed, and start with replacing your perfume/lotion/body spray, for example, then move onto replacing your shampoo, body wash, and conditioner. Eventually you can replace your sunscreen, toothpaste, cleaning products, and more.
Do not wash your face more than twice a day
Preferably, you’d wash your face at night, and in the morning you’d just rinse it with water in the sink or shower. The reason you don’t want to wash your face too often is because it can over-dry the skin, which in turn leads to more oil production, potentially leading to an increase in clogged pores.
Many face cleansers also can change the pH of the skin, so using cleansers less often can help our skin keep it’s typical pH balance.
Moisturize your face with oil
It may seem as though adding oil to our skin would lead to clogged pores and acne, however, if you use a non- or slightly comedogenic oil, then that is not a problem at all. Oil can help balance out sebum production, which is why moisturizing with oil is so helpful. Great oils for skin include fractionated coconut oil (it’s best if it’s fractionated, because this makes it liquid at room temperature; some people find that typical coconut oil clogs their pores), jojoba oil, evening primrose oil, rosehip oil, grape seed oil, argan oil, and almond oil.
Reduce stress
Stress can play a pretty big contributing role in getting acne. Stress hormones can trigger your body to produce excess oil and causes inflammation in the body. This is why many people experience breakouts, or worsening breakouts during stressful times in their lives.
Chronic stress can also lead to hormone imbalance, which can lead to acne.
Don’t pick at or squeeze your acne
This can be a challenging one, and you may have heard this a thousand times already, but by picking at or squeezing your acne, it can lead to scarring and can make your acne stick around for longer by pushing the pus and bacteria deeper into the skin.
For a quick recap, here are the things to do to clear your acne the right way – don’t get caught up in “clear skin diet” rules, understand that you cannot truly heal from acne if you are only addressing it topically, use products that don’t contain endocrine disrupting ingredients, do not wash your face more than two times per day, moisturize your face with oil, reduce stress, and don’t pick at or squeeze your acne!
