10 natural ways to make a spot go away faster

By Siobhan O’Connor for NoMoreDirtyLooks.com

You can’t really make a spot do anything it doesn’t want to do, as anyone who’s ever had one knows. Since neither of us is a stranger to bad skin days (or like, years), and there are some things we have tried that seem to work, we wanted to share. Here, 10 road-tested ways to make acne cysts go away faster.

1. For the love of god, do NOT try to pop it. You know this, but you do it anyway. Please stop?

2. Don’t try to dry out a deep cyst. The problem is too deep for drying topicals. What you want to do instead is contain it (which means no popping), stop it from spreading (ditto), calm inflammation, and as it gets closer to the surface, THEN you want to dry (or draw) out the sucker. More on that below. If you are still using benzoyl peroxide you need to a) read our book; b) stop; and c) stop. It’s toxic, and it doesn’t work on cysts. If it did, none of us would get them or they’d be gone in a day. Since we know none of this is true, just trust us and ditch your BP. And yes, even your tea tree oil will likely fail you when you have an undergrounder, resulting in flakiness, which is hard to hide with makeup and produces a whole other problem that needs to be fixed.

3. Load up on omegas. Omegas are your best friend. They help with hormonal balance and beat out inflammation like nobody’s business. We know this because we’ve read the scientific studies proving it, and because we credit these fatty acids as being the single best thing we’ve ever done for our skin. If you are good about taking them every day, awesome. You still should double your dose during a breakout. If you do not take them every day, you should, and then you should also double your dose for a day or two. In a pinch, take some Advil, but omegas are the healthier choice.

4. Eat cooling foods. According to the Indian tradition ayurveda, which we talk a lot about in the book, red, inflamed spots are often caused by aggravated pitta. If you’re like me, you already have a lot of pitta (well, and vata), which is characterized by hating the heat, being of medium build, and being a bit of a firecracker. This sounds a little out-there, but consider this: Would you throw gasoline on a fire to put it out? If you have inflammation and irritation in your skin, you don’t want to eat foods that cause you to flush and get really hot. Hot plus hot equals more hot. Instead, eat cooling foods, like the ones listed here.

5. Sleep with green tea clay on your spot(s). We’ve mentioned it before: we are devotees of Evan Healy’s green tea clay. It comes dry and powdery and a jar will last you many months if not a whole half-year. You can use this as an all-over mask, or put a small amount in your hand, add water to make a paste and put it on the sucker. The green tea is calming and cooling without drying out your skin, and the clay helps gently detoxify your pores. I swear up and down that this stuff heals things MUCH faster than normal and that it has stopped cysts dead in their tracks. Not kidding!

Keep reading for 5 more ways…