Acne can be embarrassing and you may not want to seek help from anybody at first. Even purchasing chemicals or medications from the store might prove to be embarrassing. Here are some ways that you can use commonly found items around your house to safely and effectively treat and prevent acne.

To properly treat acne, look for a face wash or exfoliator with salicylic acid in it. Salicylic acid, while it may dry out your skin slightly, avoids oil from building up in your pores, which is the cause of acne. To reduce the incidence of dry skin, choose an oil-free moisturizer.

To prevent acne breakup make sure you are healthy. Many times acne can be caused by some kind of emotional or physical stress. The stress can cause breakouts or flare-ups of varying severity. One way to rid yourself of this kind of acne is by avoiding or reducing stress. Try things like meditating, exercising or just relaxing when things get stressful.

If you’re having acne problems, make sure you are not scrubbing your face too hard when washing. Since acne is caused by a build up of oils, not dirt and grime, you do not need to scrub your face. Rather, if you scrub your face all you do is irritate the skin and make problems worse.

Don’t overdo the commercially “proven” acne treatments. Some of the creams that have been used for years can prevent acne also. A great and effective old-fashioned remedy to prevent acne is using soap and water. Washing your face in the morning and at night will keep your skin clear and helps fight acne and clogged pores.

To keep your skin healthy and control your acne, be sure to get enough sunshine. Sunshine is what stimulates the production of vitamin D, which is essential for maintaining healthy skin. Spending just ten minutes outside every day, even when it is cloudy, can increase your vitamin D production and help clear up your skin.

If you want to reduce the amount of acne you have, you should avoid any stressful situations. Calm yourself down, and relax a little! The stress will cause more acne breakouts, and these will probably make you even more stressed! Try to find your happy place. Try to stay in a calm environment.

If you have clogged pores, oily skin or blemish-prone facial skin, then you should exfoliate regularly. Exfoliation helps oily skin by sloughing off sebum, dead skin cells and other surface impurities. By keeping the pores unclogged, you are preventing buildups of debris and bacteria. This, in turn, helps to avoid inflammation or acne lesions.

When you have breakouts or acne, you want to get it gone – fast. Be careful, however, of going overboard with either facial scrubs or drying agents such as products containing AHAs. Many a face has suffered from irritation, dryness, redness, and eventual wrinkling by a too-aggressive approach to controlling what were, in retrospect, minor facial issues.

As stated at the beginning of this article, you do not always wish to make your acne issues known to even your closest friends or family. As long as you stick to the methods mentioned in this article, you will have much clearer skin simply by taking advantage of items that were already likely to be laying around the house.