Some of this advice is backed by research, some is purely anecdotal. The nerd shit first and the exiting stuff at the very end:
START EATING DRIED BARBERRIES IMMEDIATELY! If you like sour things you will love them and if you don't you can get them as extracts or just suck it up because double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial says: 43(!!) percent drop in the number of zits and about a 45(!!) percent drop in the number of inflamed zits for people with moderate to severe acne after a month
(If you want to reproduce the dosage mentioned in the study with dried barberries you would have to eat one teaspoon three times a day. Since there are no side effects I would recommend eating more if you have the money)
Stop eating sugar and refined grains and fast food. Essentially get off the western diet: study about glycemic load from NY baybeeh; study about glycemic factors, insulin resistance and acne; the more western ( :haram: ) the diet of these Chinese ( :halal: ) kids, the worse the acne; more burgers and sausages = more acne
Stop consuming dairy products. Large scale meta analysis says: shit's bad for your skin
If you lift and take whey protein you should also consider to take another (preferably plant based) protein powder instead. Small studies but there is a wealth of other anecdotal "evidence" out there: 1 ; 2 ; 3
And while we are on the topic; start exercising. It improves blood circulation and oxygen saturation, it cleans pores with sweat (no sweat will likely not make you break out (yes I'm aware that N is 23)) and most importantly it reduces stress. This ones so self evident that I'm not gonna source it.
Since we are getting into shit that everyone that suffers from acne is most likely already aware of we will now transition :trans-heart: into the anecdotal stuff:
I also believe that you should stop eating animal products all together. All the fucking hormones and antibiotics residues and endtoxins fuck up your gut health and inflame the shit out of you. I experienced improvements in my skin when I went vegetarian and even bigger ones when I went vegan.
And maybe most controversially: throw away all your cleansers and toners and moisturisers and scrubs and exfoliators. You don't need them anymore. For the next 30 days you don't let anything touch your face. And by anything I mean anything: no fingers, no makeup and not even water. It's going to be nasty. But maybe this is going to be the only upside of this pandemic: if you don't have to work, far fewer people will have to witness you in that one month. After the 30 days you start scrubbing away the grime with cold water and from that day on you only use cold water to clean your face once or twice a day and let it air dry. This regiment is supposed to rebuild your natural layer of protection and oils so it is essential that you don't start to use oils or moisturisers or makeup or warm/hot water again because these will destroy the protective layers.
This approach is very radical and since I started it around the same time that I became vegan and started inhaling barberries it could very well be that I had a case of irritative acne paired with some dietary problems and a fucked up gut. Either way, at the very least: it saves a lot of money, you don't have to agonise over how you will keep up your skincare routine if you aren't at home and it gets you in the mindset that less is more when it comes to acne treatment, even if you don't stick to the cave man regiment.
For more testimonials: https://www.acne.org/not-washing-or-water-only-reviews-1202/
For more info (yeah i know it's some hippy trying to sell you an e-book but you don't have to buy anything to get everything you need): http://thelovevitamin.com/3135/caveman-regimen/
The only thing that helps my acne is not masturbating. I know it sounds crazy. I was incredibly skeptical but I tried it out of pure desperation. In the 6+ years I’ve been dealing with adult acne it’s the only thing that consistently helps. After around day 10 I don’t get any new blemishes, and then if I can go longer my skin just gets clearer.
I’ve got high testosterone so it’s probably related to that somehow. So if you’re a guy and have hormonal acne it’s worth a try. I wish I had done it sooner but all the nofap crazies made me dismiss it.
My understanding is that masturbating decreases testosterone so I'm not sure this makes sense.
There was a study that looked at abstinence and testosterone levels in men. It basically found that testosterone nearly doubled over the course of a week before returning to baseline. But the real culprit for acne is DHT, which is made from testosterone, and masturbation does cause DHT spikes. In most people this isn’t an issue as it’s a short lived spike, but if you’re an addict or already hormonal imbalanced then it could feasibly cause problems. Unfortunately there is very little quality research on the subject.