Before searching for a good acne treatment, it proabably is  a good idea to make sense of how exactly your skin works. As one of your body’s vitally important organs, your skin plays a significant part in keeping you alive and healthy. In so many unique ways, it is responsible for your “internal surroundings” it does this by saving body fluids, controlling body temperature, supplying sensory information, as well as safeguarding against bacteria, germs and other risks coming in from the outside.

Your skin can be quite complicated too. It is made up of lots of different components within one square inch, which includes:

Skin layers

The skin can be divided into three layers:

1. Epidermis,
2. Dermis
3. Subcutaneous tissue

1. Epidermis

The epidermis shapes the external covering of your entire body and can be split into five sublayers:

• Stratum corneum
• Lucid cell
• Granular cell
• Spinous cell
• Basal cell

Each sub-layer signifies effective levels in the life cycle of epidermal cells. Because they move outwards from their first layer towards the surface, the cells gradually flatten and consequently develop into the surface area cells.

The epidermis is a thin protective layer of cells which has no blood vessels. It is intended to offer protection; the epidermal layer is responsible for the appearance, colour, flexibility and texture of your skin.

The skin we can see is called the stratum corneum. It serves as a protective barrier against the environment as well as moisture loss. If the structure becomes disturbed for any kind of reason (i.e. lipid removal brought on by using detergents or harsh cleansers), excessive moisture loss and skin dehydration results. This particular layer is the body’s primary barrier to water loss as well as to infection and skin trauma such as severe acne. Many over the counter acne treatment products today forget about this important bit of science and are so harsh and even dangerous to our sensitive skin.

2. Dermis

The dermis is a coating of tissue in between the epidermis and subcutaneous tissues. It supplies your skin toughness and also provides it support by means of elastin fibers and collagen.

Collagen is actually one of the most ample proteins within the body and encompasses around 70% of the dried weight of the dermis. It acts as the most important structural component of the skin, and also performs an essential function in healing wounds and scars. The generation of collagen decreases in puberty, phases out in your 20s and 30′s, and as you grow older it will become very little. This is the reason for the thin, frail, old and wrinkly appearance of aging skin. Furthermore, long-term direct exposure to the sun’s rays as well as extreme weather conditions weakens the strength and firmness of collagen.

Without having the dermis, the skin would most likely be a delicate, fragile layer of cells with very little power to be able to offer any kind of protection. At the same time, the vascular system (blood supply) within the dermis is designed to provide the epidermis with the much needed nutritional vitamins our skin requires particularly when you suffer from acne.

3. Subcutaneous tissue

The subcutaneous tissue is your skins deepest layer and is made up of loosened fatty tissue and elastic fibres. The thickness of subcutaneous tissue differs depending on where it is on your own body. It may be thickest around the stomach area, however non-existent around the eyes. No matter where it is, it is essential for your body to be able to take in shock, store calories and protect you against cold weather conditions.

Another major cause of dry and oily skin is down to commercial skin care products which are often full of harsh chemicals that disrupts the skin natural oil balance.

If you have really oily skin it’s a good idea to use oil absorbing sheets to remove the excess oil on your face. Tissue paper can work just as well but some people find it too harsh or that it just ruins their makeup. Go for a natural sheet such as Jane Iredales blotting paper. Products such as clean and clear or Neutrogena tend to use harsh chemicals which in the long run will do more harm than good to your skin.

Click here for a recommended list of natural oil absorbing sheets. They work wonders for people that don’t always have time to wash their face with a cleanser and water regularly because of hectic lifestyles.

Having oily skin does not mean you should avoid moisturising. Using a 100% natural moisturiser that is oil free will remove the flakes, soothe the skin and help maintain a good oil balance. Click here for a list of recommended moisturisers for the face and body all 100% natural.

As the disorder progresses, facial redness becomes more intense, taking on the appearance of mild sunburn or windburn. In areas of facial redness, tiny broken blood vessels and red bumps may also become visible.

In the moderate to severe stages, facial inflammation usually intensifies, resulting in permanent redness, swelling, and burning sensations. In the most advanced cases, rosacea can cause facial disfigurement and disabling burning sensations.

Symptoms and signs of rosacea include:

• Areas of redness on your face looking like a flush or blush
• Small red bumps or pustules on your nose, cheeks, forehead, and/or chin
• Small blood vessels on your nose and/or cheeks (called telangiectasia)
• Red swollen nose or burning itchy sensation in the eyes

Because it generally strikes later on in life, usually between the ages of 30 to 50, this skin condition is often referred to as adult acne rosacea. Rosacea differs from acne but pimples often form as a result of the inflammation and irritation caused by the red skin flushing.

A natural acne rosacea treatment is by far the most effective and safest. The treatment will begin from the inside by following a very powerful acne diet. The acne diet will go through a process of detoxification, replenishment and maintenance. Results may be visible within just a few weeks.

Since those who suffer from rosacea already have red, irritated skin, certain products should be avoided at all costs as they will only cause further damage to skin health. Opt for natural acne remedies to treat your skin, and natural acne products to maintain optimal skin care.

Dermatologists and doctors recommend a variety of treatment products for cystic acne but what they don’t tell you about is how these products impact your body over time.

Accutane is one of many dangerous drugs prescribed by doctors for severe acne cases such as cystic acne. Quite often these drugs relieve the symptom temporarily and are therefore regarded by many as ineffective and not worth the risk.

There is so much information on the net about different types of acne, ranging from mild to severe, identifying which type of acne you have is really pointless when you have so many other thigns you should be doing first to get rid of acne. Understanding the fundamental difference between acne symptoms and causes is a good place to start. Following that you need to take the necessary measures to clear your acne from the inside out using safe and natural methods.

Dermotologists and doctors have come up with various names for severe acne with a corresponding set of drugs, including the following:

• Acne conglobata
• Acne fulminans
• Gram negative folliculitis
• Nodulocystic acne

Whichever category you think your acne falls in, the fact of the matter is severe acne is severe acne and there’s only one safe way to get rid of acne permanently. Remember that the generations before us didn’t have pharmacies, dermatologists or the Internet to help with their health problems – they relied on natural remedies.

“Water the roots and not the leaves”

This ancient saying in Chinese Medicine says that we must treat the cause (the root) and the symptoms (the leaves) will resolve themselves. But, if the symptoms (acne) are suppressed, then one day those annoying symptoms will resurface, but this time as a more serious illness. The Chinese and the Indians have known this for thousands of years. Their healing systems have always been focused on supporting nature instead of fighting it.

It becomes apparent that the only way to treat severe acne is to begin by educating yourself about the fundamental difference between symptoms and causes of acne no matter how severe it is. Learning this difference is your first step towards healthy acne free skin.

To make a sick person well, you have to give their cells all the things they need to function normally; a single prescription drug can disrupt multiple cell functions causing thousands of biochemical changes.

Accutane is not capable of precisely targeting only the cells or DNA codes that cause acne, this acne medication can also affect other non related cells and DNA strands of your body causing potentially dangerous side effects, this is why Accutane is prescribed by doctors as a last resort.

Severe side effects of Accutane include:

• Ulcerative colitis
• Crohn’s Disease
• Inflammatory Bowel Disease
• Severe depression
• Suicidal thoughts
• Birth defects
• Liver damage, with symptoms of nausea, loss of appetite, weight loss, and jaundice (yellowing of the eyes or skin)
• Allergic reaction to isotretinoin, resulting in liver disease and other health complications

Additional side effects of Accutane include:

• Acne flare-ups
• Severe skin dryness, especially on the lips, nostrils, genitals, and eyes
• Hair thinning / hair loss
• Headache
• Impaired night vision
• Thinning of the skin, making bruising and cuts more likely and slower to heal
• Fatigue
• Brittle nails
• Increased sensitivity to sunlight
• Menstrual problems, including irregular or heavier period
• Gastrointestinal problems, including diarrhea
• Muscle pain
• Skin conditions and infections, including impetigo, paronychia, and pyogenic granuloma and eczema

Did you know?

The makers of accutane (Roche pharmaceuticals) are listed in the top 10 of worldwide fraudulent companies (1999 Multi National Monitor) and they have been directly accused of seriously under-playing the potential side effects of accutane.

There are more than 500,000 different prescription medications sold via pharmacists and doctors in the U.S. and other countries. The FDA indicate that Accutane is number 4 on the top ten list of medications attracting serious reports of side effects and is number 5 on the FDA top ten list of medications attracting severe psychiatric side effects.

Make a homemade acne treatment using natural ingredients that focus on dealing with the causes of acne, most of which center around the toxins we feed and apply to our bodies. Things like eating processed and sugar-laden foods, drinking alcohol, breathing contaminated air, using chemical-rich skin products and taking drugs that combine to create an overabundance of toxins our bodies cannot efficiently process. The end result? Acne and poor skin health!

The majority of commercial acne products burn or will completely dry out your skin. Homemade acne treatments are natural inexpensive and do not have the potentially harmful side effects that some acne medications and products have.

You can get back to basics and you can be totally confident about what ingredients go into your home made natural acne remedies.

1 – Use detox supplements

Detox supplements help to cleanse and purify the blood, liver, kidneys, and digestive system. They work at a cellular level helping the digestive system to repair and rebuild itself. There are many on the market, just be sure to take a natural, organic formula.

2 – Replenish friendly bacteria.

Probiotics make it easy to kill off bad bacteria and replace them with good bacteria, throughout the digestive system. In a healthy person, the balance of good bacteria to bad should be around 80:20. These days, most people have the opposite balance. There are many types of probiotics on the market, most of which simply aren’t powerful enough to make a difference.

• Choose a probiotic that has at least 1 billion organisms per gram
• The most important types of bacteria to take therapeutically are: – L. acidophillus – B. bifidum – L. bulgaricus – S. thermophilus L. bulgaricus and S. thermophilus
• Make sure the product hasn’t been processed using centrifuging. If it doesn’t say so on the label you may want to do some extra homework on the product
• Powered forms are usually the best

3 – Supplement with a superfood

They are packed with wild grasses, algae, and other living plant forms that are bursting with ‘life fuel’. In case you are wondering about mass marketed multi-vitamins, their effectiveness is questionable. Why? Because they are isolated using manufacturing processes that strip the vitamins of their nutritional value. It’s always best to stick with things the way they’re provided in nature.

4 – Cut down on junk food

Buy organic foods whenever possible. Non-organic fruits and vegetables are sprayed with toxic chemicals hundreds of times during their short life time, so avoid these as much as possible. Keep consumption of junk to a minimum and eat lots of fruit and vegetables. Some of the most toxic foods to avoid include sodas, candy, sugar, white bread, white rice, dairy products, and alcohol.

5 – Eat more raw foods

Due to the influence of cooking, protein molecules in food become altered. This process is called “the Maillard reaction”. When you cook an egg or fry potato slices, you can clearly see those molecular changes. The egg white turns white, and fried potato slices are crunchy and are locally browned. These altered protiens are extremely difficult for the body to process and cause lymph congesiton, place burden on the liver, and weaken the immune system. The idea is to cut down on cooked foods and eat more raw foods, particlaurly fruits which contain vitmains, minerals, enzymes and good fats. Supplementing with enzymes can be very useful in the fight against acne as they help to break down damaged proteins.

6 – Cut down on animal products – meat and dairy

Cutting down your consumption of meat can have real health benefits. Beef and other animal products including chicken, dairy, and eggs are not always safe for human consumption. Modern animals consume pesticides, fertilizers, genetically engineered foods, antibiotics, growth hormones and other chemicals, thus making their flesh toxic. The same is true for most dairy products including milk and cheese.

7 – Always drink lots of water

Tap water is often highly chlorinated and if  used on a regular basis it can kill beneficial bacteria in the intestines. Drink bottled mineral water or filtered tap water.

8 – Use organic natural skin care products

Throw out all your cosmetic and acne products and replace them with 100% natural ones.

If you suffer from severe acne it is even more crucial for you to follow these steps.

Oil glands also know as sebaceous glands are located deep in the skin and are responsible for keeping hair follicles and skin well lubricated. The rate at which oil glands produce oil depends on a male hormone called androgen. Females also have these hormones but in fewer quantities than males do. During times of increased stress or hormonal disturbances (such as puberty) the amount of androgens circulating around the body are elevated and this causes the oil glands to produce more oil than is needed causing the skin to erupt with hormonal acne.

A well known androgen hormone is called testosterone. After puberty, boys produce 10 times as much androgen as girls. Therefore, more boys tend to develop more severe cases of teenage acne but that does not mean that some girls won’t develop a severe case of teenage acne.

It’s important to remember that Acne is not a disease nor can it be cured. You must also understand that acne is sign of a deeper problem within your body causing an overproduction of oils that get trapped inside pores as the body tries to eliminate them.

Don’t spend your teenage years wasting money on all sorts of cosmetic products that claim to cure acne and constantly trying to wash away the greasiness won’t work either. Instead discover how to safely restore balance to your body’s hormonal system through good diet and stress management techniques. By doing so, you’ll also be protecting yourself against a whole range of hormone related disorders later on in life.

Finding the answer to the question of which acne scar treatment is best without resorting to laser acne treatment takes time and plenty of research. Many factors are involved – factors such as how badly the person’s skin has been scarred, how deep the acne scars are and the skin type of the affected person. Oftentimes, the best acne scar removal method is a combination of different treatments, including the prevention of future outbreaks.

There is absolutely no point in treating acne scars, unless you’re going to stop more acne from developing in the first place. Doing that would be similar to a cat chasing its tail and running around in circles!

Dermabrasion, laser resurfacing, collagen injections, laser peels, punch techniques and augmentation are the most common acne laser treatment procedures. However, most people prefer not to resort to these methods as they seem un-natural and are expensive.

The medical industry has come up with a number of ways to remove acne scars, apart form being very expensive there’s been too many horror stories of what these chemicals actually do to your face.

Natural acne scar treatments including herbs and oils are available and can be just as effective, if not more. It’s important to do your research and select an acne scar treatment that’s appropriate for your type of scar damage.

It’s obvious that these methods of removing scars come with a risk involved and that’s the reason a lot of people like to try acne scar home remedies to fade acne scars.

Below are a few natural acne remedies that are great for acne scar treatments.

• Cucumber and tomato juice are highly rich in anti oxidants. Anti oxidants clear up highly reactive free radicals which can cause damage to the body’s cells including the skin cells. Apply it to acne affected areas and within a month your acne scars will begin to fade out. You can also apply lemon juice directly on your scars and get the same effect.

• Crush garlic cloves into fine pieces and leave it on your skin for about 10 minutes before washing it off. The properties of garlic are antiviral, antifungal, antiseptic and antioxidant agent. Never leave on over night since it is so strong it may burn your skin!

• You can also apply a paste mixed with sandalwood powder and a little rosewater or make a paste out of oatmeal and apply that to your face. Sandalwood can kill germs, soothe inflamed skin, and clear blemishes due to it’s antimicrobial properties.

• Honey is a great and inexpensive moisturiser it can also treat acne scars. Raw honey has natural antibiotic and cleansing agents that kill bacteria without harming the skin. It also has exfoliating properties.Warm it up and massage into your face.

• You can also apply egg white to your acne scars. the film of the egg whites tighten your skin and will help narrow pores. Whilst there is no real long term benefit the temporary benefits can go a long way so it’s definitely worth giving it a go.

Acne prevention methods are better than finding a single acne cure. By maintaining an acne diet and treating the acne scars using a natural acne scar treatment could well be your ticket to healthy skin.