Danny's Weblog

Acne: interesting blog page with suggestions on self-help

I've *always* had some acne. It was never really terrible, but it was often embarrassing. Doctors were useless and punitive: "Here, put on this cream three times a day although a single time makes your face raw, itchy, painful and swollen! Oh, you don't want to eh! Well get lost, loser!"

I never had acne rosacea so my comments relate basically to acne vulgaris.

If I had the chance to give my younger self some advice, I think I'd say this:

1. Benzol peroxide works. It does exfoliate the skin, but for me almost without irritation. It was wonderful when I discovered it.

2. Change sheets and pillows frequently.

3. Use small, cheap face towels so you can use them only once before washing them.

4. Never use soap on the skin, or shampoo. That sounds pretty off-the-wall, but I think now that soap is just too harsh and drying, and is the direct cause of excessive oil production. Shampoo contains many weird ingredients, including in most cases sugar; if you must use shampoo, avoid allowing the rinse water to flow across the face and back, and rinse *very throughly*. Water is sufficient to make the skin clean and fresh-smelling: my own skin smells much better (and less) when I use no soap.

If you think that sounds nuts, take a look at this mainstream guide to skin health and *think* about what it says: www.cnn.com [http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/library/SN/00003.html] Clearly making the skin too dry harms the skin. But we are told acne is caused by excessive oil production. So people with acne must simultaneously avoid drying the skin *and* making it oily (I have found that moisturising soaps are absolutely disastrous for my skin!). So what *can* you do? The only thing is to remove *dirt* with water and let your *skin* deal with the oil balance.

It is conceivable that water in some areas may be bad for the skin, eg hard water. I think it's the other way around: soap makes the hardness in the water form particles which can irritate the skin.

5. Toothpaste also often contains sugar. (Hint: it's a "natural sweetener".) If you sleep face down your spit will cover the pillow... so rinse your mouth several times after brushing your teeth. That also helps remove fluoride, which has also been implicated in industrial acne.

Blog article with many interesting responses about people's attempts to find personal answers: www.freakonomics.com [http://www.freakonomics.com/2005/09/seth-roberts-on-acne-guest-blog-pt-iv.html]

Several posters make the point – which I have to agree with – that all such self-experimentation, including my own, is unscientific because it has a sample size of one and no double-blind. But what is one supposed to do when the medical profession is insultingly useless?

Incidentally, if my ideas are true, soap manufacturers are selling products which cause acne, as well as (much more expensive) products which purport to heal it. Would they want to pay dermatologists to test what their products do?

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