I feel this subject is so important for women to know about. Apparently up to 90% of young people get acne, though to different levels and one in three women in the UK take the pill. I wonder how many of them started because of bad skin…

“…synthetic hormones alter the menstrual cycle, so women taking birth control pills aren’t making their own estrogen, progesterone or testosterone, or ovulating. Over time, suppressing the brain from making its own chemicals can lead to a permanent loss of hormone functioning. Some women who go off birth control pills can be extremely hormone deficient for weeks or months, sometimes years.”

16 October 2012 – I’ve decided to go off my pill that I’ve been on for over 8 years. It was a hardcore pill too, one made especially to combat the bad acne I had as a teenager. Why did I do it? I’m just honestly sick of all the pills modern humans take nowadays, for absolutely everything and anything! I believe that we have the power to cure ourselves. Ok so regulating periods is very comfortable, but our bodies have been doing it naturally for thousands of years! I’ve been wanting to do this for a while now but was always scared that by acne would come back (also it’s best to do it in the winter since you get hot and your skin is more likely to get irritated/red during summer), but now I’ve learned to love myself a lot more, so I’m hoping I wont freak out in a few weeks and go back on it as I’ve done before. So I made this diary, partly to help keep myself on track and partly to help people who are going through the same thing…lets see how it goes!

26 October 2012 – I met someone who also had bad skin as a teenager. This reminded me of all the things I’ve done to combat this annoying issue. It’s actually quite incredible, I think I’ve tried EVERYTHING on the market, even the dermatologist ran out of pills and creams to give me. The worst by far was something called accutane (or roacutan, racutan) – if you ever get offered this stuff – RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!! Seriously, don’t ever try it, it just kills you from the inside and out (not to mention you can say goodbye to your savings). It has a mile-long side-effects list, its basically like having mini-chemotherapy and often people have problems later in life that they can even pass to their kids! I took only TWO pills and my lips were painfully dry for weeks, but worst of all I went totally stupid, like honestly I didn’t understand the simplest things. The guy I met today said he took 2 sessions of it and it gave him asthma and lactose intolerance! Gosh what people do to make themselves look good! Though now his face looks great, and when I asked about it, he said it was the vegan diet that helped him! That sure made me happy, I’ve been on a high-raw vegan diet for a while now, and even though I allow myself something bad once in a while, it’s nowhere near the diet I had as a teenager! Though I also know that usually all the bad stuff comes out before settling, so I’ll try to stay strong!

29 October 2012 – Aah I have a massive spot! *its ok…I can do this…breathe..*

I spent the day researching how to combat spots naturally since everyone says that after you go off the pill your body kinda goes into shock and takes it out on your skin – kinda seems like withdrawal symptoms! No more pills and creams, I know from personal experience that they don’t work – time to take out the big guns: nutrition and natural masks!!

So what natural methods have I discovered that help?

✽ Masks made of pure honey, left on your face for 20 mins, several times a week. Please dont buy cheap supermarket honey, it’s full of sugar that will just make your skin worse.
✽ Tea tree oil (but the real stuff, not crappy bottles that have a tiny amount of tea tree and the rest filled with SLS, peroxide and who knows what else).
✽ Garlic is supposedly really great to use externally and internally. I remember when I was 11 I took an infusion of alcohol and garlic everyday. It didn’t help, but my diet back then consisted mainly of pizza breads…
✽ Lemon used externally will kill the bacteria in the spot. You can also do mixtures of lemon with other things, like cinnamon or aloe vera.
✽ Witch hazel
✽ Don’t play with your face or have hair hang down over it.
✽ Drink lots of water – I’ve been half dehydrated my whole life, I’m getting better now though after I’ve started getting into food combining.
✽ Thinly sliced tomatoes placed on your face – supposedly it works similar to the lemon, where the acids kelp kill bacteria.
✽ Maca powder – I’ve been taking a tea spoon every morning with breakfast to regulate my hormones. It’s helped incredibly with period pains and the evil spirit that takes over during PMS (it obviously can’t be me!). So I’m going to continue taking it, hopefully that will help.

✽ Hmm I just realised, my mum recently gave me a bottle of colloidal silver, so instinctively I put it on my face just before going to bed. In the morning I researched it and it seems that this may well be the cure! Ok I’ve decided, for at least 2 weeks I’m going to do nothing to my skin appart from applying honey and colloidal silver. Lets see what happens.

I will keep you updated if it worked!!