The No Bull Guide to Keep Pimples Away
How to Keep Pimples/Acne Away and at Bay

by An Independent Longtime Sufferer of Acne
I have noticed that this page is visited frequently by acne sufferers. So I have created a forum. Please visit the forum for further questions about this process. If you so choose to follow this process, please use the forum to update your progress, to let me know if it is working or not, if you are having trouble, whatever.
HERE IS THE FORUM
Purpose: This is meant to save many people the time and effort of the long process of trial and error to figure out what works.
Intended Audience: This guide is meant for people who have acne, pimples all over the place, severe acne, NOT for people that have just one or two little pimples. If you have one or two little pimples, then you don't have a problem, just put some calamine on them and they will go away.

Pictures showing my progress


Steps
1. First of all, the rate at which you get pimples is dependent upon the rate at which you produce oil, so the process is different for everyone.

2. Preferrable to keep your hair short, because regardless of how or what you use to keep you face clear, if your hair is oily and getting in your face, it won't matter.

3. Wash your hair 2 times, preferrably 3 times a day. If you put your dry finger in your hair, and it comes out pretty oily, you need to wash your hair. Likewise, if you put your dry finger on your forehead (if you touch it with your nail and see glistening oil shine) and see that it is oily, you need to wash your face. It is especially important to wash your hair and face in the morning, shortly after you wake up, and then at night, shortly before you go to sleep, if you wash your hair three times then wash once in the middle of the day too.

4. Wash your face (and/or neck, wherever the oil infested areas are) as often as it gets oily. Meaning if you wash your face, then 1-1/2 to 2 hours later put your finger on your forehead, and your finger is all oily, it is time to wash your face again. Also, use your fingernail, if your forehead is oily, you can clearly see the oil on your fingernail.

5. Washing the face. Wash it with soap once, then wash again with calamine lotion. Use the calamine like the soap: squirt a dab into hand, rub on skin, and rinse. Also, if you have not washed your face in a long while, wash it twice in a row with soap, you should notice the difference between washing just once, and after the second time.

6. It is especially important to do the hair / face washing routine just when you wake up and just before you go to bed.

7. This whole process is tedious and annoying, especially if you choose to keep long hair, but it should work, and you should notice results within 3 days or less, by strictly adhering to this process.

This process was learned by trial and error over the course of over 13 years.

(if you go for a while without washing your face and/or hair, if you wash your face and/or hair twice, you should notice the difference the second time)

FYI: The work involved is proportional to how bad your acne is.

WARNING If you are doing real good and the pimples seem to be going away, then you get lazy for a little bit, let the skin get oily a little bit, and stay oily for a while, the pimples will come back like a swarm, then it will be that much more of a pain in the ass to make them all go away again.


Conditions that affect acne
Environmental conditions along with others will affect the rate at which you tend to produce acne.
  • your hair (shorter the better)
  • temperature of the water you wash with (colder is better, ice cold water is good)
  • humidity (less humidity is better, dry air is good, humid air tends to exacerbate the acne)
  • sun (don't burn your skin off, but sun can help fight acne)
  • salt water (salt dries out the skin, so more would be better, but too much will dry you out like an old prune, but for example if you live by the ocean then jump in once in a while!)
  • diluted bleach in water (as in pool water, if you have a pool, use it)
  • certain foods (what they say is some foods help and others exacerbate)
  • cleanliness of bedding, towels, and clothes (obviously the cleaner the better, the longer you go without washing them, they trap more and more bacteria)
  • whether you have hard or softened water (i think it is with the softened water it takes longer to wash away all the soap residue, it doesn't help your acne any when soap residue is left on your skin)


    • So if you are an acne prone person, but you have short hair, live along an ocean coast and like to surf, live in an area where it is dry, warm, and have a pool, and get sun once in a while, then you probably don't have to worry about treating acne with conventional methods.


    What Works and What Not Works

    List of the two items that work
    List of the many other items that don't work


    How to Do It, Plan of Attack

    Mild Areas
    Wash your face. If after an hour or two you touch your face and it is oily, wash it again. The main way to get pimples to go away and stay away is by continually washing the oil away. Sometimes I wash my face eight times a day or more. I used to get pimples pretty bad on my face, but don't really get any any more, maybe one or two per week, at the worst, three or four. It doesn't really matter what soap you use, as long as you wash the oil away. Given this process, it can be a little more challenging for an area like your back. Sometimes you have to wash your face once, then wash it again right away. You have to make sure when you wash your face that all the soap residue is washed away. It doesn't help when soap residue is left on your face. The type of water you have will make a difference in how easy it is to wash the soap away. Usually if you have your water going through a water softener it will take longer to wash the soap away.

    Heavily Infested Areas
    But, for relentless, violent acne, washing alone isn't enough, you have to use calamine lotion. For example, pimple clusters made their way to the back of my head, it was simply hideous there were so many pimples. The hair on your head does not help one bit. The longer your hair, the worse it will be for your acne. So first I shaved all the hair on my head. And don't let the hair get too long, (1/2 inch or more) it will make the zitz harder to keep away!! Then just like for mild areas, I keep washing the pimple infected area, maybe more frequently. I don't worry about any pimples that might pop. Then pat the area dry, try to avoid rubbing it dry. Keep dabbing any pimples that do pus, wait for them to stop, usually takes approximately five to ten minutes. Then wash the area again. While the area is slightly wet, spread on calamine lotion over the whole area. You can mix it with water to dilute it somewhat and spread it so it is light so people can't really notice, you don't want it too heavy anyway. Put the calamine lotion on about three times per day, wash it even more. Make sure you put calamine lotion on before you go to sleep also.

    How Long Do I Have To *&$%ing Do This!?
    For heavily infested areas, it may take two to three weeks for them to all go away and for your skin too look normal again. But even if you slack a day or too, they can come back quick and heavy, and you may have to start all over again. But if you get the heavy areas to come back to normal, then you can move to the mild area routine. But if you are an acne prone person, to keep the acne away, you have to WASH!!! Unless you think meds or that other shit will work, but it probably won't. And there really is nothing that you can just take, and then it will make it go away forever, acne doesn't work that way. You just have to keep fighting it, and let it run it's course, however long that may take. Unfortunately, I've spoken to some people who have had it until their early 30s, then after the acne went away, they started to get wrinkles!! Good luck!



    My Background
    I am not associated with anything, I'm just an ordinary person trying to help. I learned essentially by trial and error over many years. I am an acne prone person. I've had pimples everywhere, eyelids, in the nose, in the ear (pimple in the ear hurt like hell!!), on my groin, on my forearms, on my legs, etc. I get pimples widespread on my face, back, neck, upper arms if proper care is not taken. I've tried most every pimple product, the're all the same essentially, and I have found none to work. Clearisil, pills, pads, topicals, witch hazel, rubbing alcohol, soaps, creams, cleansers, head and shoulders (cause of the zinc), hydrochloric acid, (just kidding about the hydrochloric acid) none of it works. Your body will keep going right on producing pimples. Eventually, your body becomes resistant to a lot of crap, that's why some stuff might work in the beginning, but the effectiveness may wane over time.


    Endnote
    Unfortunately, if you are not around a water and soap source for a good portion of the day, or work around a lot of oil, like at a refinery or Burger King, you're kinda screwed.