Now that I’m not pregnant anymore, my hormonal acne is back. Good times.

Being on oral antibiotics from the dermatologist does clear things up, but I can’t go on those until after I’m not breastfeeding anymore. Also I hate the idea of being on pills forever and ever. The minute I go off them it comes back.

Let me veer off topic for a moment and tell you about 2 new ways that I am making myself even more neurotic online. I promise we’ll come back to my skin.

First, the CSA co-op we joined has an online message board where the members exchange natural recipes and solutions for health and wellness. These people are way more crunchy than me. They make me look like I drive a Hummer and eat McDonald’s every day, they are so freaking green and organic. They are the kind of people who drink nothing but raw goat milk that they drove 2 hours to buy and make their own laundry soap. I am not making either of those examples up. I would love to be as holistic and organic and green as they are, but most of the time I just feel crappy about how I still use Cascade dishwasher detergent and shave my legs. Still, every day I wake up and read all the posts from the day before on the message board and try to figure out how I can be more like them.

Secondly, I joined the Natural Parents Network on Facebook. This is the most fascinating group. People submit questions about their kids – behavior, illness, ways they are diapering or things they are doing with them… and other people in the group answer. It can be really helpful. My daughter was doing this weird thing where she screams for an hour every night for no reason and the people in the group suggested Hyland’s colic tablets, wearing her in a wrap, and bouncing on an exercise ball. I did those things and she STOPPED. It was amazing. I feel good when I can also sometimes answer other people’s questions from my experience. However, this group also makes me paranoid. Because there are a lot of people on there saying everyone should cosleep forever, you should breastfeed until your kids are like 3 years old, all antibiotics are bad, anti-vaccination, anti-circumcision, and any other thing that I would normally consider just a tad bit extreme. It makes me feel like I’M the crazy one for making the decisions we’ve made so far with our kids.

Back to my skin.

I really wanted to find something amazingly natural to get rid of the acne. I checked the co-op discussion board. According to them, I should wash my face with raw honey and use food-grade hydrogen peroxide as a toner and spot treatment.

I went to the health food store and got both.

In case you haven’t seen raw honey, it’s not like regular honey – it’s semi-solid. It looks like this:

So I’ve been washing my face with raw honey twice a day and following it by a toner of food-grade hydrogen peroxide.

People on the health discussion board had great things to say about these two treatments.
“It made the skin really soft and the pores diminish (flatten out).”
“My friend who just turned 40 who has spent thousands on her cystic acne finally “resorted” to the raw honey as she knew I’d been pleased with it for years.  It cleared her up and she says her skin has only ever been that clear when on antibiotics.  She now tells people “I’ve spent thousands of dollars trying to cure my deep acne but now, I”ll stick with my $9 bottle of raw honey”.”

But how did it work for me?

I am sad to say, it didn’t.
I have been doing this for 2 weeks and I have to admit, my face is actually a bit worse.

I’m totally bummed because not only is my acne getting worse, but now I have failed at being green and organic. These people are over there making green smoothies and baking their kids homemade bread and I can’t get my acne to go away without medication.

The good news is, I have been working with The Body Shop recently.
Part II of my Skincare/Makeup posts will be about the makeover I received last weekend. While I was there getting my makeup done, one of the skincare specialists took a look at my acne and said she can clear it right up with their products in only a few weeks! I am optimistic. Stay tuned for Part II, The Body Shop : makeup.  I hope to follow it soon with Part III, The Body Shop: skincare.
Fingers crossed!