11 Tips on How to Prevent and Treat Acne-prone Skin

Looking for skin that exudes a goddess-like radiance through every minuscule pore? Want to zap those zits and stomp out bad skin days for good? YouQueen has you covered! Read on to discover some simple ways you can tame acne-prone skin.

Do you gaze at the clear, beautiful skin of babies and children with barely controlled envy? Want to rediscover the soft, dewy skin of your youth? If so, we completely understand. That’s why we have searched the globe and compiled the best beauty tips and tricks that will have your inner Aphrodite making a skintastic appearance in your life once again. Here are 11 tips on how you can treat your acne-prone skin:

1. Stop Eating Crap

Smiling Young Woman with Cookie 5

No, really … Put. Down. The. Cupcake. We have all heard it a million times but what’s one more for good luck: refined sugar and processed foods are bad for you. Baaad. And while you may snort, shrug your shoulders and say ‘So what? I live on the edge, baby!’ consider for a moment that many experts attribute a poor diet to problem skin. Hmm, you listening now?

Consuming cupcakes, pizza, chocolate and take-away food doesn’t just destroy the inside of your body, it attacks the largest organ on your body too: your skin. So ease up on the french fries and swap the donut for a carrot. You’ll stabilize your blood sugar levels and benefit from some much-needed vitamins and minerals that will help boost the development of healthy skin.

Oh, and while you’re at it – have another glass of water. Considering our body is made up of around 75% water, the chances are high that you’re probably not drinking enough of it. Aim for two liters each day and add an extra 500ml’s if you have exercised.

2. Sip Your Way to Clear Skin

It’s not just what you eat that impacts your skin either; it’s what you drink too. Water flavored with lemon (just cut up a few slices of a lemon and add them to a jug of water) is a proven antioxidant that helps alkalize and detoxify your body as well as provide it with vivacious vitamin C. But what does all this mean for you? Easy – clear, smooth, wrinkle-reduced and very delightful skin. Ah, swoon …

Another great beverage for awesome looking skin and stopping acne is green tea. Packed full of antioxidants and cancer-fighting substances, green tea boosts your metabolism (hmm, hello weight loss) and fights inflammation as well. So add a cup or two of green tea to your daily liquids and enjoy clear skin and a healthier body.

3. Nutrient up

Dr. Georgiana Donadio, who is the founder of the National Institute of Whole Health, believes that our skin is the fingerprint of what is happening inside of our bodies. She has stated that skin conditions including acne are manifestations of potential nutritional deficiencies. To restore the inner health of your body, try boosting the levels of the following vitamins and minerals in your diet.

  1. Silica
  2. Vitamin C, E and A
  3. Selenium
  4. Zinc
  5. Omega 3 Fatty Acids

With a healthy diet, you should be able to get all of these vitamins and minerals. Check out 8 Foods to Keep You Young and Healthy for some great healthy food ideas.

If you think you might be deficient in anything though, schedule yourself in for a blood test at your doctor and find out for sure. We know, we know, blood tests aren’t cool. But your doctor will be able to see exactly what’s happening in your body and then recommend some supplements to get your body (and your skin) back on track.

4. Clean up Your Act

Woman holding pillow

Here’s a fun trivia question: what daily item does the skin on your face come in contact with for the longest? … Still thinking? Here’s a hint: you sleep on it. It’s not your bed, it’s not your sheets and it’s certainly not your boyfriend, it’s your … pillow!

Now ask yourself how regularly do you wash your pillowcase. Is it weekly? Fortnightly? Monthly? Assuming you get around seven hours of sleep each night, that means that if you wash your pillowcase once a week you’re spending a solid 49 solid hours with your face mooshed against your pillowcase. If you’re washing it once a fortnight, that’s 98 hours. And if you’re washing it once a month … well, that’s 196 hours.

Moving on to our next science fact: did you know that you shed about 40,000 skin cells every hour? Every. Hour. So that means every night you shed 280,000 skin cells. Across a week, that’s 1,960,000 skin cells. Over a month it’s 7,840,000 … And guess where all of those skin cells are hanging out? Just chilling out, soaking in the atmosphere. That’s right: your pillowcase. Where you’re sleeping each night.

Ick, right? I’ll give you a quick break to go grab your pillowcases and stuff them into the washing machine. Okay, you done? Awesome. Now it’s pretty unreasonable to expect you to wash your pillowcase each night (although with those figures I don’t see how you can’t). So a good alternative is to cover your pillowcase with a clean towel.

In China, it’s actually pretty standard to put a small towel over the top of your pillowcase to keep the dirt and skin cells that accumulate during the night in the one place so it’s easy to remove and clean daily. A simple thing like this can instantly help you prevent acne, and we both know that preventing is easier than treating them.

5. Learn How to Sleep Properly

Sticking with the sleep theme, another good way to get the good skin fairies to pay you a visit is by learning how to sleep properly.

Sounds dumb, right? But actually, most of us aren’t utilizing the sleep function to the best of our abilities. It’s been proven that our body spends the hours between 10pm and 2am renewing, recovering and rebuilding itself. But what time do you normally go to bed? If you’re like most people, it’s probably around 12am. That means you’re missing out on two valuable hours of skin renewal time.

While it’ll be hard at first, timing your sleep to get the most benefit out of this restorative period will help boost the health of your skin so it’s looking plump, clear and soft come morning.

6. Keep Your Hands to Yourself

Woman touching her chin

Or technically, keep your hands away from yourself. Just like ick accumulates on your pillowcase during the night, dirt and germs accumulate on your hands during the day too. By touching your face, you’re automatically spreading those germs to your delicate skin.

To help ditch this habit, spend a few days being conscious of how often you actually touch your face. Maybe when you’re listening to someone talk, you cup your face with your hands. Or when you’re feeling stressed, you rub your hands over your face. When you’re tired you might even rub your eyes. There are a myriad of ways we unconsciously touch our face during the day. Just pay attention to what you do and how often – you’ll be surprised!

7. Sweat It off

Phwoar, just another reason to get some daily exercise – working out can help you to get clear, beautiful skin! Exercising increases the blood flow in your skin, which helps you to sweat. Sweating then removes toxins from your body that can clog your pores and encourage acne. The extra blood flow provided by exercise also increases the amount of oxygen in the skin and boosts nutrients that stimulate healthy skin. Pretty cool, right?

Tip: Make sure you wash your face after exercising to ensure your pores don’t become clogged.

8. Wash off Your Make up

It’s been a long, hard day. You tug on your pajamas and flop into bed. Your eyes close and you’re a second away from drifting off to sleep when you remember, crap – you forgot to wash off your makeup! Your eyes snap open and you wearily consider the reality of getting up and washing your face. You argue with yourself for a while. Finally, exhaustion wins the battle and you close your eyes once again, thinking ‘one night won’t matter’.

Uh, we’ve all done it! And then we’ve all broken out a few days later and felt like the massive pimples came out of nowhere. Now that you know what happens when you sleep makeup-free, imagine what happens when you sleep with makeup on.

The ick factor connected with hundreds of thousands of skin cells shedding? Triple it. Overnight, your skin absorbs all of the grease and grime and clogs your pores, preventing sebum from doing its job and removing irritants from the pores. With nowhere to go and nothing to do, it’s like having a power outage at work; sebum is left twiddling its thumbs and hanging around bored. It stays in place and further clogs your pores, promoting breakouts.

If you want to wake up with clear, perfect skin then you’ll need to remove your make up each night. Fact.

9. Steam Your Face

woman Steaming face

Want a cheap, easy way to develop healthy skin and banish bad skin days? Grab a pot, fill it with hot, boiling water then drape a towel over your head. Now, hang your head over the top of the pot. Voila – facial steaming on a budget!

The benefits of facial steaming are well documented. By steaming your face, you’re softening your skin and the top layer of dead skin cells. This in turn helps remove and release any build up of dirt, bacteria and dead skin cells. It will also help your skin absorb your skincare products better.

Note: If you suffer from rosacea of fungal infections, do not try facial steaming without first consulting with your dermatologist or doctor.

10. Clear Skin with a Clarisonic

If you’ve never heard of a Clarisonic, it’s like an electronic toothbrush for the face. The Clarisonic Sonic Skin Cleansing System is a technology that uses 300 movements per second to remove six times more makeup than regular manual cleaning.

For acne sufferers, this means skin that is cleaner, smoother and healthier than ever. Clarisonic is promoted as being a tool to remove impurities and reduce oily areas and blemishes. It has hundreds of positive reviews and while is quite pricey, is considered to be a lot of bang for your skincare buck.

11. See an Expert

Just like you see a plumber when your tap explodes and you call an electrician when your lights won’t turn on, you should really visit a skincare specialist when your skin is misbehaving. They know their stuff, can identify underlying issues and treat both the surface layer of the skin and the layers of skin underneath.

Skincare technology has come in leaps and bounds in recent years and there are a variety of proven techniques and procedures that remove acne and acne scarring. A few include microdermabrasion, facial peels, light therapy and comedone extractions. There are also a variety of laser treatments ranging from light and relatively pain-free to James Bond-style lasers.

You’ll need an expert to administer these treatments though, so book in an appointment to see your local trusted skin care clinic or dermatologist.

So, there you go – eleven easy ways to treat your acne-prone skin and transform yourself into a clear-skinned goddess! What do you think? Do you know of any more clear skin tricks that work a treat?

About the author

Cassandra Lane

While Cassandra readily admits to being a rampant cupcake aficionada (how could she not be with an almost-brother-in-law that owns not one, but three cupcake shops?) she happily works off her lust of all things sweet and sugary by slogging it out in the gym and outdoors.

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  • I’ve been told applying pure honey on your face is good, I have also tried it myself and I love it. Oatmeal masks are good too. I also put olive oil, however you have to remove it well after the 5-10 min time. White traditional Toothpaste sometimes helps to dry up a pimple. Oxy benzoyl peroxide works BUT its very irritating after if left on too long or applied too often. At the end of the day, for me, drinking a lot of water and eating a veggie and fruit filled diet( note: diet not meant to be as a weightloss diet) has worked for keeping that youthful look and soft plump skin. :)

  • i guess i know how to claer my acne, but the black spots, black heads..they wont leave !