Best Treatments for Acne Scar Removal

Ray, How Do Get Rid of My Acne Scars? I’ve gotten this question hundreds of times since I started this website a several months ago, I’ve finally decided to write an in-depth article about the how to remove acne scarring.

What I think really sucks about acne scarring is, obviously, not only the fact that isn’t permanently there on your face but also the fact that when you have serious acne scars, you can’t help but feel people judging you because of it.

It’s not like a personality where you can just keep quiet and maybe no one will really know who you are. Or like a demeanor where you can be loud and obnoxious one day and sophisticated the next. When you have acne scarring it stays pretty much the same day to day. And it’s not something that can be easily concealed either because well.. it’s on your face.

So what do we do about it?

What are your options?

I’m about to tell you.

If you reading this article, you’re either ahead of the gang in that you’ve already cleared your acne or you’re just curious.  Either way, it’s fine with me.  But if you’re still struggling with acne, I’d suggesting first curing yourself of upcoming pimples before dealing with the scars in the [intlink id=”81″ type=”post”]first step to clearing your acne[/intlink].

Why?

You’ll want to first stop breaking out before you heal your acne scars because let’s not forget where those acne scars came from: most likely from the zits and pimples that you were dealing with in the past.  So even if you heal your scars now but you’re still continuing to break out over and over again, chances are that you’re just going to form new acne scars and all the hard work, time, and money you put into healing those scars in the first place will probably put you back at square one.

Therefore, the first thing that we all need to be aware of when it comes to acne scars is…

THE FIRST STEP TO REMOVING YOUR ACNE SCARS IS: CURE YOUR ACNE!

For some of you, I know it’s hard to be patient and go through the whole process of becoming healthy and clearing your acne because if you were like me in the past, you’ve probably suffered from acne long enough.  And any help, any improvement, anything would be great because you’re probably so tired at looking at those pimples, scars, pop marks, blemishes that if you could remove your acne scars you DEFINITELY would.

Believe me, I know exactly how you feel.

Been there, done that, and I never want to go back.

However, think about this…

VIDEO GAME EXAMPLE

I’m going to try to use a different analogy this time.  For those of you who play video games, let’s just say you had a character that you were playing as and he kept getting hurt.  Say… for example… he was getting shot by an enemy in the video game..

Would you just stand there and continue to heal yourself while you were being shot by the other teammate?

Probably not.  Because what you would probably do is go over there and “settle” that problem.  And in the video game world it’s most likely killing the enemy character who’s annoyingly shooting at you.

For those of you who are being smarty pants’ right now, yes you would probably heal yourself too. But that’s not the point.  The point is that you wouldn’t concentrate on dealing with the symptom if the core issue is that someone is still shooting at you, right?  You know that if you kept healing yourself but didn’t kill off the guy who kept shooting at you, you would just keep getting hurt because that guy would still just keep shooting at you!

Now, for my favorite car example.

CAR EXAMPLE

For those of you that have a car, great.  For those of you that don’t, let’s just pretend for a moment that you do, your parents gave you a car for Christmas or your birthday or… whatever.  I’m going to imagine my dream car: a black Porsche…

Got your car?  Sweet.

You have a car and you love it.  It’s your dream car.  Now there are these pesky little kids who throw rocks at it every day when they walk home from school and chipping the paint and basically ruining your car.

Do you take your car to get fixed first or do you chase off those little kids and make sure they don’t mess with your prize possession?

Sure you could park your car in your garage but that’s not the point, lol.

MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO FIRST

For the sake of this example, I want to drive home the fact that we should deal with the CORE ISSUE and not the side issues and symptoms first.

So I hope all of you get the point now.

CAN I CURE MY ACNE AND REMOVE MY SCARRING AT THE SAME TIME?

Sure you could probably do both at the same time.  And that’s what this next part is about.

Lesson 2: Give Your Body the Proper Resources to Do It’s Job.

Your body will heal itself when given the proper environment, resources, and nutrients.  That’s what it’s engineering to do, it’s designed specifically to keep you alive whether or not you want it to, whether or not you feed it good foods or bad foods, whether or not you’re trying to poison yourself with alcohol on that Friday night out with your friends at the club.

What?  Club?  Me and alcohol?  Junk food?  Nooo…. don’t deny it, you know who you are. =)

If you give your body the proper nutrients and set up an environment that promotes health and cleansiness, your body will automatically do it’s job and heal that acne scarring for you.

SMOKING EXAMPLE

Let me give you example with a friend of mine who was recently talking about quitting smoking.  We started out talking about how we should follow our own advice and that many times in life we just didn’t listen to ourselves and the conversation somehow went over to how my friend has quit smoking… 3 times already.

“So Ray… it’s amazing how you can actually feel your lungs cleaning themselves out when you quit smoking,” he said.

By the 3rd day, I could actually feel my lungs repairing itself.  It’s actually a really weird feeling,” he went on.

I asked him, “So what was it like the first day?”

He replied, “Well… the first night I couldn’t even sleep.  I couldn’t breathe.  I wanted a cigarette so bad.  But I didn’t do it.  And by the third day I could feel a difference.”

“So let’s just say that first night, had you gotten up and gotten a cigarette because you couldn’t sleep, what do you think would’ve happened?” I was curious.

And to this he responded something that I thought was pretty amusing, “I probably would’ve been able to breathe fine.  But my body wouldn’t have repaired itself.  It’s like your body automatically knows when you’re smoking another cigarette and says to you, ‘Smoking again?  Well… forget it.  I’m not helping you anymore.’  It’s like your says forget it and just goes back to smoking mode.”

Of course, he didn’t actually use the words “forget it” but to keep this blog relatively PG-13 that’s what I’m going to say he said. =)

Your body knows when is an opportune time to do work and if you help create that environment for it, it will definitely get right to work because IT WANTS TO KEEP YOU AND ITSELF ALIVE.  But if you’re putting all sorts of junk food, fried foods, not sleeping much, stressing out, indulging in sweets and unknowingly eating foods that are bad for you, you can be sure that your body is going to be helpless because whether you know it or not, YOU’RE CAUSING THE ACNE YOURSELF!

SO HOW DO I NATURALLY TREAT MY ACNE SCARS?

Simple.

Eat a healthy and balanced diet full of all the nutrients your body needs to heal itself.

The goal here today is to heal acne scarring that is caused by acne damaged pores.  According to the a study conducted in the Journal of Orthromolecular Medicine Vol. 12 Number 2, 1997, Coenzyme-A is noted as an essential missing link to acne vulgaris.  When you give your body the right nutrients, for example Pantothenic Acid or Vitamin B5, you are giving your body and skin the nutrients it needs to have Coenzyme-A properly function and aid in damage reparations that acne and inflammation normally causes.

Alright, so I could go on and on about Coenzyme-A and it’s relation to lipid metabolism but I understand we’re not here for that.  We’re here to talk about what to do about acne scarring, right?

Well, here’s the thing…

I still AM talking about acne scarring because if you take a look at the big picture, eating right will allow your body to shrink your pores and therefore HEAL those acne scars that we all want to get rid of.

I’m living proof, and I’ll talk a little bit about my scars later on in this article.

Therefore, when you notice that you’ve found the right formula for clear skin, you’re not only curing yourself of acne but you’re actually CLEARING YOUR ACNE SCARS at the same time!

That’s right folks, it’s the same formula.

When you notice that you’ve found the right combination to start healing your complexion the natural way, through diet, then you’re most likely also giving your body the best tools in order to set things straight and conquer all the acne bacteria that’s living both on the inside and outside of your body.

WHAT’S A HEALTHY ACNE FREE DIET?

I cover eating a balanced diet in my My Acne Coach DVD Program that you can find in the How To Clear Your Acne Store but essentially, you’re going follow basic principles such as:

• Fresh fruits and vegetables
• Low glycemic diet
• Whole grains
• Proper vitamins and nutrients
• Probiotic Prone Foods
• The list goes on…

HOW DOES ACNE SCARRING HAPPEN?

Let’s look at the diagram to the right.  When you a pimple, the hair follicle or pore is clogged with sebum, dead skin cells, bacteria and an infection happens.

If you’ve ever tried to pop your pimples, you might have been putting yourself at risk for acne scarring.  Because every person is going to have dirt and bacteria underneath their nails no matter how much they wash and scrub, when you go and try to pop your pimple, you are exposing your damaged to a certain amount of dirt and bacteria.

In the end, your skin tissue is damaged by both the digging (you popping your pimple), and the bacteria that was under your nails.

The bacteria that was under your nails or in the environment can hinder or stop the pimple from healing properly.

The so the result is often something “pitted skin” or what we know as an acne scar.  Sometimes acne scars can look like dark stains on our skin, but the various kinds of skin damage actually depend on the kind of acne that the person originally had.

Am I saying never to pop a pimple?

Well basically, if you can.  That’s what I’m saying.  There are exceptions to this rule when an infection is so large that the body may need manual aid in order to deal with it.  But for most of it, this usually isn’t the case.

But if you are going to pop a pimple…

We all know there’s going to be that temptation and if you can get away with it, you’re probably going to try and pop that pimple.  So if you do decide to do it, make sure you do it right and minimize the chances of acne scarring from popping a pimple the wrong way.  You might want to start by watching this video that I created exclusively on How to Pop a Pimple the Right Way.

And don’t peel scabs, even if you think they’re just about to fall off, it’s better to be safe or you might really hurt your skin.

As you can see from the picture below of my upper right cheek, up close I have some permanent scarring from my younger days before I really understood how to handle my acne. Eventually, these scars will shrink but like they say at the doctor’s office…

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

HOW TO REMOVE ACNE SCARRING

NATURAL ACNE SCAR REMOVAL TREATMENTS

So I understand that not everyone is as psyched as me about healing acne scars organically through natural diet when in the truth, it is actually your best, most long term, and healthiest bet.  Not only are you going to improve every aspect of your mind and body by living a better lifestyle, you’re also choosing to maximize your life.

I can’t stress enough that if you take anything away from this article, choosing to eat healthy IS BETTER THAN any of these other methods below.  If you learn anything while reading this article, it’s that building health and wellness will serve you in more places than one, just not just having acne free clear skin but also more energy, brighter eyes, hair, nails, mental alertness, and the list goes on.

But for those of you who want something more hands-on, here you go:

Remove Acne Scars with Water

Step 1: Drink plenty of clean water on a daily basis. Most health advocates recommend drinking at least six 8-ounce glasses of water a day. Remember that this doesn’t mean drinking all 6 glasses in one sitting! Water provides your body with the hydration that it needs to form new collagen and build healthy skin while also cleansing the body of unnecessary toxins.

Step 2: Place a warm washcloth on your face for 5 minutes. You can do this before washing your face because the warm water will open up your pores and make it easier for oils and dirt to be removed when you wash your face afterwards.

Step 3: Splash your face with cold water. You’ll want to do this after washing your face with warm water because the cold water closes your pores thereby making it more difficult for dirt to clog your pores.

Step 4: Lemon Water Wash. You can use the slight citric acid in lemon juice as a mild ex foliating agent once a week to help shed old dead skin cells. This will encourage skin growth and renewal by manually stimulating new skin cells to emerge. When you ex foliate, you increase the speed of the acne scar removal process. In order to make the lemon water face wash, combine one tablespoon of fresh lemon juice with one cup of water. And of course, be careful with your eyes when it comes to the lemon water because nobody likes the sting citric juice in their eyes.

Baking Soda Scrub

You can use regular baking soda that you find at the store as a scrub wash in order to exfoliate and promote new skin to form. It can slough off discolored areas on your face. You can use it up to two times a day, preferably once in a morning and once at night. Due to the fact that baking soda is an alkaline based product, you can help exfoliate dead skin, unclog pores, remove scarring all without irritating the skin as bad.

On top of being a great exfoliant, it also helps kill off acne causing bacteria to further prevent future breakouts. To make a backing soda scrub, simply combine one tablespoon of baking soda with one teaspoon of water and massage the mixture into your skin for roughly 25-35 seconds. Then rinse well with water.

Again, be careful of washing your face too harshly with a scrub if you still have acne because you can end up damaging your skin and causing bacteria to get inside of the pimple if you still have not cured your acne yet.

Vitamin E Oil Massage

Vitamin E oil or rosehip seed oil can also be used when it comes to dealing with acne marks and scars. Not only can it be eaten and serves as a great antioxidant, it can be used to hydrate your skin and remove discoloration on the outside.

To use it, dip your fingers into the vitamin E oil and massage the areas where you have acne scarring. Use small, circular like motions for about two to three minutes. Then wipe off the excess oil or wash it off with water. You can use this method up to three times a day to reduce and eventually eliminate acne scarring.

IMPORTANT: EXFOLIATING TO REMOVE ACNE SCARRING

What is exfoliating? This is basically the process of shedding off the outside layer of skin to allow new skin underneath to come out and replace the existing old layer. Now, our bodies already do this naturally but it’s usually a lot slower and not as obvious as opposed to a snake shedding its outer layer of scales. So in order to “help” our bodies out a little bit, sometimes we can do certain things to speed up the shedding of our skin, or ex foliating, up a little bit.

These methods range all the way from acid peels that will burn away at the outside layer and disintegrate it to scrubs that use little tiny rocks to ex foliate the skin, to creams that do the same thing. The ultimate goal is basically to speed up the body’s normal process of exfoliating so that we can get the new layer of skin to replace the old damaged and acne scarred skin.

Spa/Salon Treatment

If you don’t want to do it yourself, you could always go to a spa to do an acne scar removal treatment. While they sometimes specialize in acne scarring and sometimes they don’t, this kind of treatment can be used in general because it’s just sloughing off that outer damaged layer and encouraging the new layer ot emerge.

Spas typically offer a wide variety of facials, scrubs and masks that will help in the treatment of acne and post-acne marks, blemishes, and scarring. One of the most effective acne scar reducing treatments that spas usually offer are chemical peels.

These peels are usually topical solutions that are applied to the skin and may contain enzymes, alpha-hydroxyl acid or salicylic acid ingredients. Its these ingredients in the chemical peels that penetrate your pores in order to clean up all the gunk and debris from inside the inside of the pore. The reason why it’s called a chemical peel is because this treatment removes the top layers of debris and dead skin cells, or “peels” them away.

Laser Treatment

Sometimes the scarring is so deep that it’s gone past normal reparable standards.

For example, if a person has been so horribly disfigured from a fire or car accident that there is permanent damage on their… say… left arm, the body may not be able to repair that arm all the way to normal because everything in that arm is so damaged or damaged to a point where only so much can be done.

The same applies to acne pop marks and scarring. If an acne scar is too deep or serious enough that the body cannot fully repair it or can only partially repair it, you might want to look into laser treatment.

Now, I highly recommend though, if you’re looking at laser treatment that you first solve and cure yourself of acne before. If you do end up removing all your scars and then break out again and end up having more scars, that’s going to be mighty disappointing.

Laser treatment is something that we can do in today’s age due to highly developed technology. Among the types of lasers used are

• The pulsed carbon dioxide laser. It’s used for tightening collagen fibers and the erbium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet laser, used on small, irregular-shaped scars. Laser treatment for such scars is often effective after just one treatment.
• Dermabrasion is the use of a high-speed brush to wipe away the outer layers of skin. This treatment is effective in reducing scars but does not eliminate them. Several treatments may be necessary.
• Microdermabrasion. The use of aluminum oxide crystals through a vacuum tube to remove the outer layers of skin, a lot like that of regular dermabrasion. It doesn’t completely remove acne scars and may require several visits.
• Collagen.  Injection of your acne scars with collagen can be temporarily effective, but requires repeated injections every three to six months.
• Your own fat.  Another alternative is to inject your scarred area with fat from other parts of your body.  This procedure usually is repeated because the body eventually ends up absorbing that fat (which was once on another part of your body but now is on your face) every year.

Microdermabrasion is basically just a milder form of a dermabrasion while dermabrasion is very harsh and extreme form of exfoliation. Dermabrasion can require a more significant recovery time because it involves numbing the area to be treated and then using a tool that looks very much like a mini sander on the scarred area of the face. Your skin is going to be very sensitive and sore after the dermabrasion treatment and is definitely going to require that you take extra care of it with creams and protection from light so that new scars don’t form.

So let me break this down for you a little. “Micro” means small. “Derm” means skin. And “Abrasion” is the process of wearing down by scraping or rubbing. So Microdermabrasion and dermabrasion are surgeries where the dermatologist will SAND your face. Remember that before you make a decision. Not to scare you but it’s no joke.

And in this part I have to tell you that if you have a history of autoimmune disease or any allergic reaction to collagen, then some of these methods are not a recommended options for you and… might end up making the problem worse.

ICE PICK SCARS

What are ice pick scars?

Well… they’re sort of what they sound like.

Imagine if you had a giant ice block and you chipped away at it with a giant ice tooth pick.  You would probably leave little triangles and inverted pyramids inside it, right?  Sometimes, two or three of these little ice pick scars can be combined and it looks like a tiny little part of your skin that’s been cut out.  That’s sort of what ice pick scars are like.

And… it’s what I have.  I have ice pick scars around my cheek area close to my nose.

If you have ice pick scars, then you may want to look into a surgical procedure called “punch excision.”  What punch excision is is excising the scar down to the skin’s subcutaneous fat and suturing the hole together or applying a skin graft.  Basically, the dermatologist is going to sew up this ice pick scar by sewing both edges of the scar together.

WHAT ARE CHEMICAL PEELS?

Essentially, this is what those spa and salon treatments are doing. Chemical peels are usually used on milder forms of acne scars, but they can be a good place to start to even the skin’s texture and remove impurities that may be stuck in the skin.

A standard chemical peel procedures usually involves application of an mild to moderate acid to the skin, letting it sit, then removing it. What this is supposed to do is remove the top layer of skin and reveals healthier, smoother skin beneath. Basically, it’s just like exfoliating except your using an acid to help exfoliate. There are many different kinds of acid peels out on the market and this type of acne scar removal treatment usually works well for smoothing the edges of deep acne scars and fading red marks.

So if you have atrophic or hypertrophic acne scarring, this will smooth the corners so that the texture of your skin will look smoother.

And yeah, because it’s acid, it burns. Trust me on this one. And don’t let it get into your eyes.

Ultimately though, this is hard to do at home because… it’s acid. If you’re going to exfoliate, there are creams and gels that are a lot easier to use and safer, in my opinion… than using… acid. It just sounds dangerous, doesn’t it?

WHAT ARE FILLERS?

Acne scars usually form by two different processes, hypertrophic and atrophic scarring. Hypertrophic scars are caused by an overgrowth of collagen in the skin and usually look like raised sections above the skin’s surface while atrophic scars are caused by a loss of underlying tissue and look like pits and depressions.

This usually applies towards atrophic scarring that are wide acne scars that cover a significant area. When it comes to these, a variety of substances are used as fillers to effectively fill in depressions in the skin such as collagen, Restylane, Cosmoderm, Fasciian and Cymetra. Sometimes, like mentioned above, even fat from another part of your body can removed and injected into the depressed part of your acne scar. The only real problem with this method of treatment is that it’s not long lasting and usually patients have to come back every six months or so.

WHAT’S A SUBCISION?

According to Sadie Bell from eHow.com, “Subcision is another form of acne scar treatment that aims to stimulate new tissue growth and help the scar heal on its own. The area beneath the scar is infiltrated with a needle to help break out the scar tissue that pulls the top layer of skin or epidermis tight against the other layers of skin thus creating a scar. This also boosts collagen production, which keeps skin plump and youthful.”

HOW TO MAKE AN APPOINTMENT WITH A DERMATOLOGIST: EXAMPLE WITH MICRODERMABRASION

So let’s just say you decide to take the microdermabrasion route. Here’s an example of what you should do, which pretty much is the same across the board should you decide to see another dermatologist and seek laser treatment.

Step 1: Figure out what kind of acne scarring you have. Acne scars usually form by two different processes, hypertrophic and atrophic scarring. Hypertrophic scars are caused by an overgrowth of collagen in the skin and usually look like raised sections above the skin’s surface while atrophic scars are caused by a loss of underlying tissue and look like pits and depressions.

Step 2: Find a cosmetic dermatologist. Find one of these guys that you trust and set up an appointment for consultation. Seems simple enough, right? Just make sure he’s good because this is your face we’re talking about! =)

Step 3: Consult with your cosmetic dermatologist. Ask him/her what’s the best treatment for you. He or she may know better than you and me (that’s what they went to dermatology school for) and it’s always good to get a second or third opinion before you decide what to do.

Step 4: The procedure. So let’s just say you find your dermatologist and you decide to go through with the procedure. It usually takes half an hour to an hour depending on the severity of your acne scarring. Microdermabrasion can be done right in the physician’s office. Whoever is performing the microdermabrasion treatment will use a handpiece to simultaneously massage a continuous, high-pressure stream zinc or aluminum oxide into your skin in order to vacuum the dead cells and debris that are clogging your pores.

Step 5: Expect to experience a little discomfort. It’s funny how people say that. Basically, it’s going to hurt. Remember, this is laser treatment. LASER, not soft rubbing soft bunnies on your face treatment so you are going to experience “discomfort” during and after microdermabrasion. Supposedly, you’re going to feel “slightly wind-burned” and your face may be red for the next couple of days..

Step 6: Multiple Treatments. That’s right, you’re going to have to come back for approximately every 2 weeks for up to 3 months. The number of treatments that you need in order to remove your acne scars will vary, depending on the severity and depth of scarring. And on top of that, your dermatologist may recommend other treatments to be used in conjunction with the microdermabrasion that you’re currently doing in order to “maximize results.”

IT’S IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER WHEN IT COMES TO LASER TREATMENT…

Here’s the thing, of course he/she’s going to want to you to do multiple treatments and other treatments in conjunction! The more treatments you do, the more money they make! Now I’m not saying that all dermatologists are money hungry fiends that just want to make a buck. What I am saying is that it’s important to be informed and make decisions logically.

Make sure get a second and third opinion.

Make sure it’s working!

And make sure you’re making the right decision. If it’s smarter to eat right and spend your time and money on overall health then maybe you should save your thousands of dollars and do that instead of instant gratification that only improves your skin a little bit but costs practically an arm and a leg just to get one or two treatments.

SO YOUR OPTIONS ARE…

So ultimately it comes down to:

Organic.  You can do things such as washing your face with baking soda or lemon juice.

Pros: Inexpensive, Easy for average person

Cons: Takes longer, might not get as dramatic results, may not work for already existing severe scarring

Exfoliating.  You can exfoliate with mild creams or acid peels depending on how aggressive you want to be with your acne scars.

Pros: Inexpensive, Easy to do for the average person

Cons: Takes longer, might not get as dramatic results, may not work for already existing severe scarring

Surgery.  You can visit the dermatologist and he/she will recommend that you receive a certain type of surgery for a certain amount of money.

Pros: Instant results, powerful difference.

Cons: Expensive, may need multiple treatments, “mild” discomfort, doesn’t really solve anything in terms of health or future skin problems

Eat Healthy.  You can give your body the proper nutrients for it to repair itself automatically by following The Acne Regimen

Pros: Solves problem, inexpensive, promotes all aspects of health not just skin

Cons: Takes longer, might not get as dramatic results, may not work for already existing severe scarring

MY ACNE SCARS

Well, I have permanent scars because I used to be impatient with my acne and decided to handle it myself with my own bare hands. The only problem was that I didn’t know how to correctly pop a pimple. This resulted in, sometimes, permanently scarring my skin (I have a picture of this further down this article).

As you can, I don’t have acne anymore, but I have scarring because I used to get frustrated and attack every pimple on my face while I was in junior high and high school.

I have some ice pick scars on my cheek area close to my nose and some atrophic scarring in the middle of my cheeks closer to the side of my face (the depressions in the skin).  They were really apparent when I had acne or at least I thought they were extremely obvious when I had acne.  It could partially have to do with the fact that I was looking at my skin every day and extremely in tuned with everything that was going on, borderline consumed with acne both on the outside and on the inside of my head.

Or it could also have to do with the fact that I had dozens of pimples everywhere, I had really bad redness and bumps all over my face.  My face was constantly oily and I was an emotional wreck when it came to my self esteem and confidence.

I couldn’t wait for it to all go way.

And sometimes, still, when I look in the mirror I can’t believe that I acne isn’t a problem anymore.

However, I never went and did anything like surgery or laser treatment when it came to my scars.

I just exfoliated little by little and ate healthy.

I use only one product right now: an exfoliating cream. The exfoliating cream is a tube that contains 200 grams of the cream, supposedly it was around $9.00. I can’t read Chinese that well so I can’t translate the name of this item. You don’t have to use the same exact product as I do, just make sure that you exfoliate once every 3-4 days or even once a week depending on your skin.

Apparently, the company went out of business in Taiwan so I’m going to have to come up with another exfoliating product soon…

I don’t really do the acid peels anymore because they’re kind of hard to do yourself and a little bit more of a hassle (being that it’s ACID and all). These two products seem to work pretty well for me and speeding of up darks spots, etc… I find it usually takes about a week at the most for a scab to fall off (if I do have to pop the occasional pimple) and usually about another 1-2 weeks before the dark spot is completely gone where the scab used to be.

I want to stress how much I really proactively concentrated on my health (no, not with the ProActiv solution but with a healthy diet) but never sought out ways to improve my acne scars.  Eventually, the discoloration of my face cleared up, my acne went away, those little bumps disappeared, my face stop becoming so oily.  I went from using those oily face mini napkins every hour and a half to never having to use them at all.  I don’t even have to wash my face anymore.

And I have to say, if you’re staring at your mirror and worrying about those acne scars, I used to be just like that!

I used to be one of those people who hated my skin.  I couldn’t stand looking at myself in the mirror, I hated going out, I hated confronting people that I thought were good looking or girls that I had a crush on, and if I did go out I would always be conscious of the perfect lighting to make  myself look better.

It was emotionally draining.

So I know how you feel.  I was there in that place once upon a time.  Standing where you may have been standing.

And I’m here telling today this…

DON’T WORRY…

Your skin will improve.

The redness that you have right now will go away.

Your pores will shrink.

Your skin will flatten.

Your pimples will fade.

That is… if you follow what I’m trying to teach you right now.

BE CAREFUL, WHAT NO ACNE SUFFERER HAS EVER TOLD YOU AFTERWARDS…

When you finally stop breaking out and having pimples and acne as a problem, it’s definitely a great time to start focusing on the left over scars, if you have any. I mean, why not clean up the last little bit of remains from your old acne and make yourself as good as new?

Let’s not forget what why you’re trying to get perfect skin though.

I think a lot of people forget about the very reason why they started on this journey for clear skin in the first place. Yeah, I know that it happened because of having acne. But I think a lot of people, after having suffered from acne for a number of years, get so caught up in this picture of themselves with super clear and amazing skin that they’re not going to be satisfied with anything else.

For the longest time, I was one of those people who became so driven with having flawless skin that I was aiming for perfection. I was striving for something that was probably beyond what my skin would have looked like even if I didn’t have acne. And I forgot that, in the beginning, I just wanted to look “normal.”

Are you infatuated with the idea of having perfect skin?

I don’t think I ever really wanted to have skin as great as one of those models on Clearasil commercials or ProActiv commercials, I just wanted to… well… “not look like I had an illness.” And that’s really the way of how I used to think of it.

See, that’s the thing. Even after my acne started clearing up, I spent a lot of time and money with the finishing touches. I wanted to shrink my pores and remove my scars. But then I realized that it doesn’t really matter. Actually, I was planning on getting surgery done and removing my ice pick scars. But I still haven’t. In fact, they’re barely noticeable unless you specifically focus on it.

And if you start looking around, most people have faces that aren’t flawless. They’re skin is not perfect. What I’m trying to say here is that, when I had acne, my thought process was that I wanted to make myself have beyond average looking skin, beyond good looking skin, I wanted skin of PERFECTION.

And I’m not sure if it was because I had such bad skin that I wanted perfect skin EVEN MORE than I probably would have had I just had a little bit of acne when I was in high school or just average skin. I think acne psychologically scarred me so bad that it created a false idea that great could give me happiness and therefore I HAD to achieve this unrealistic goal of having an impeccable complexion.

DON’T OVER COMPENSATE FOR YOUR ACNE: IN THE END, IT DOESN’T REALLY MATTER

We’ve all heard that Bohemian Rhapsody song with this line.

Now this may sound corny, but in the end, it still comes down to what happens after all the acne, what I like to call post acne. It’s still all about personality, intelligence, charm, wittiness, ambition, and maybe even a hot body… =)

Am I saying that skin isn’t important? That’s not what I’m saying at all. I still think that if you have really terrible skin but a great personality or if you were really smart but your complexion was ruined, that’s still a less than desirable deal.  So if you do have a lot of deep acne scarring and you wish to seek treatment, you should definitely do it.

I’m just saying is that if you can get yourself to having “normal” skin, you know, the kind that most people have. The kind of skin where you look at someone and it’s just skin on their face. You don’t think to yourself, “Wow, that’s bad skin” or “Wow, that’s great skin.” You just think of well… nothing because you’re not even thinking about the skin on their face. You’re not paying attention to it because it’s just… there. I think that it’s OKAY to be in that position.

NOW, if you look at my cheek closely and then you look at the first picture that I have of myself in this article, are you thinking, “Wow, look at his acne scars?”

And it took me forever to realize just that.  And I’ll talk more about this in my articles in the future because I think that many of us have suffered from acne for so long that it’s not easy to just snap back to normal even when we don’t have acne anymore.

That when I got my skin to a certain point of healthy, no one was really paying attention to my acne scars anymore, it was just me.  I was the only one.

That’s when I could move on.

Just remember not to be brainwashed by your previous case of acne to a point where you now become obsessed with over compensating for previously having bad skin.

Because in the end, at least for most of us, just having absolutely perfect and obsessively flawless skin won’t get you that job, that girl of your dreams, or that boy of your dreams.

You will. Not just your skin.

And in the end, it doesn’t really matter.

LEARN ABOUT CLEARING YOUR ACNE SCARS NATURALLY THROUGH DIET

The solution to curing your acne is to not focus on improving your health in the commonly accepted way.   Now, what I’m NOT saying is to not work out, not eat healthy, and not wash your skin.  That is NOT what I’m saying.  However, what I am saying is that what we believe now to be “taking care” of our bodies needs to be tweaked a little bit, especially if you have acne.  And that “tweak” that you’re looking for is exactly what How To Clear Your Acne is about.

What every acne sufferer must learn, especially the ones that are really fit and health conscious yet still can’t figure out why they still have acne, is that there is a DIFFERENT KIND OF TAKING CARE OF YOUR BODY ROUTINE for us.  Our bodies are different than the “average” person who eats whatever they want and just gains weight.  Sometimes our bodies, which you’ve probably already noticed, doesn’t even gain weight.  Sometimes, when we neglect our bodies, we just end up breaking out instead.  And it sucks.

It doesn’t make any sense that we’re eating “right,” working out, getting a good sweat, going to a sauna, washing our face, and then doing a facial mask yet we STILL breakout.  WHY?!

So whatever you do, don’t just keep working out and trying to eat “healthy” thinking that something’s going to change and that your acne is suddenly going to start clearing up if you just try harder.

I know this doesn’t work.  Because that’s what I used to do.  I would just redouble my efforts thinking that I wasn’t trying hard enough.  But that’s not the answer and it’s not going to cure your acne.

You need to stop and think.  Reformulate a new plan.  Really try and understand what’s going on.  Figure out the WHY.

It’s questions just like these that I racked my brain for years!   I’ve been in your shoes before and it’s hard to really know what works and what doesn’t.  It just seems like there are so many acne products out there, it’s hard to really find out with ones are telling the truth and which ones are lying. I’ve bought a lot of them too, Clearasil, Murad, ProActiv, those are just to name a few that I’ve tried.  I used to have use a lot of acne products such as aloe vera, benzoyl peroxide, face creams, masks, etc… But these days, I barely even wash my face once a day sometimes, and I’m still clear. I’m proof that clearing your acne the healthy and natural way works. And it’s permanent too, I still have clear skin and I have no problems maintaining acne free, clear skin.

And I finally figured out the perfect routine and way to care for our bodies and our skin if you have acne.  The true causes of acne are really dirty blood and an overwhelmed system. And I talk a lot about these two causes in my website and more in detail about how to deal with them in my products.

For anybody reading this article, if you’re serious about clearing your acne for good, the logical next step for you would be to learn about your body. It doesn’t matter if you choose me or someone else, I would highly recommend you to start learning about how to clear your acne from the inside instead of concentrating on the outside. Make sure you know that outside acne treatments are only short term, and that you really want to focus on clearing acne from the inside out.

I don’t hold back in this program, I’m telling you all of my experience, my stories, what I went through, what I learned, how I cleared my acne, and I’m teaching you exactly as if I were standing right next to you coaching you through the way. I WISH that I had something like this when I had acne. It would’ve saved me so much TIME, MONEY, and ENERGY.

I, and thousands of other people, have spent years of our lives suffering from acne.  And I mean REALLY SUFFERING from having acne.  And it’s just a handful of us that finally found the secret to be able to free ourselves from those dark days when we hated the reflections of ourselves in the mirror.

There are those people out there that look at their old pictures and remember the days when they USED TO HAVE acne.

Some of them now have moved on with their lives and forgotten about the nights that they were ashamed of meeting new people because of their acne.

The question I have for you is…

WILL THAT BE YOU?

Or are you going to just be another one of the dozens and hundreds and thousands of guys that just stand and wait… or hopes that whatever you’re doing now will somehow magically start working?

If you want to know all the steps, top to bottom and front to back for how to clear your acne once in for all, then I have a hint for you …

Go get my eBook “10 Things Every Acne Sufferer Must Know for Clear Skin”, which can you can download and be reading in just a few minutes…

It’s time for you to stop sitting on the sidelines and missing out on the acne free life you should be living. I’ll show you how.

NEXT STEP:

10 Steps to Cure Acne 10 Things Every Acne Sufferer Must Know for Clear Skin. A must have basic foundation for any beginner. Regular Price: $110 Your Price: $19.97 10 Acne Free Principles Magic Formula for Clear Skin Every Acne Sufferer Needs This Buy Package Now »