Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Acne Home Remedies

Health and wellbeing do not depend on the pharmaceutical corporations, and the bothersome issue of acne and its treatment are no different. Not surprisingly, acne home remedies are actually much more effective for all types of people than chemical-laden pharmaceutical 'remedies'. As with many commercially prepared medicines, most acne treatments at the store treat only the outermost symptoms, leaving the underlying imbalance to effect more acne breakouts in the future.

Just like light bulbs and house building materials, commercial acne medicines are geared for a disposable culture. "Why treat acne", the bigwig pharmaceutical companies ponder, "when we can secure lifelong customers with an acne product that will proffer enough promising results that they'll keep buying the stuff their entire lives?"

If that sounds far fetched to you, consider the fact that ever since the modern light bulb has been around we've been able to make them to last several years, but decided that more money can be made off of disposable bulbs that only last a couple of months. And humans have been building living structures that last hundreds and hundreds of years, but only more recently has consumer culture decided that disposable housing materials are preferable.

Not only are all of these products parts of an unsustainable system that cannot replenish the world and the resources used, but they have the same unsustainable effects upon our own individual systems. When we treat symptoms instead of taking the time to determine the underlying imbalance or deficiency, not only can we not expect the problem to go away for very long, but we run the risk of exacerbating the issue.

With acne, the underlying cause is typically associated with bacteria that become trapped in the skin's pores. Naturally, one of the primary parts of an acne home remedy, or any type, is to effectively cleanse the area in order to remove the bacteria before an acne breakout can occur.

The problem with most commercial acne remedies is that they dry the skin to a degree that sebaceous glands produce even more oil in which the bacteria can grow. It's not that the oil is bad, per se, simply that bacteria can breed in areas where oil is allowed to build up and remain trapped below the surface of the skin.

One can combine cleansing and light exfoliation to get underneath the layer of dead surface skin cells simply using an exfoliating cleanser. Now, these types of cleansers are available commercially as well. Though some are almost natural, nearly all of them have alcohol and other unnecessary components. Borax, on the other hand, is an extremely gentle soap in granular form that can be used to exfoliate and cleanse the skin simultaneously.



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