Steps to start clearing your acne today.

To clear acne it takes hitting it at every angle. This means diet changes, lifestyle changes, using herbs and supplements for imbalances in the body, and good products used in the right way. But these are some steps you can start implementing today to get you on the right path. 

Reduce your stress and get some sleep. When you are under stress your adrenal glands go into a “fight or flight” response. When this happens they pump up your testosterone. Elevated testosterone triggers acne. When you don’t sleep you stress out easier.

Start limiting iodine and dairy in your diet. Switch iodized table salt to sea salt, limit how much seafood you eat, stay away from supplements containing iodine, and get into the habit of reading labels for iodine. Switch cow milk to almond milk, choose dairy free ice cream, switch to an alternative to cow milk in your coffee.

Stay clear of androgenic foods. Avoid foods like peanuts, peanut oil, peanut butter, corn oil, canola oil, and organ meats.

Don’t pick! If you feel the urge hold a piece of ice on the pimple for 2 minutes. This reduces inflammation relieving pain and discomfort, and also allows better product absorption to the area. Picking can lead to post inflammatory hyperpigmentation (the dark or red marks) and these can take a while to fade.

Wash all your pillow cases, towels, clothes, anything that comes in contact with your skin for pore clogging ingredients. And while you’re at it ditch the fabric softener.

Avoid lo-dose birth control. Refer to my blog post “birth control and acne” for more information.

Do not use ANY makeup or hair products containing pore clogging ingredients. I’m serious ladies! To have clear skin you’re gonna have to breakup with some of your favorite products. Please refer to my blog post about pore clogging ingredients to see exactly what they are.

Use SPF every single day!    

Coconut Oil. One of social media’s favorite ways to ruin your skin.

You’re told over and over again on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Youtube, and other platforms that this miracle oil is a cure all. We cook with it, clean with it, moisturize with it, remove makeup with it, whiten teeth with it, all kinds of stuff that the internet says to do.

But what is coconut oil? Why is this oil being shoved down our throats? Is it really all that beneficial? What’s it really doing?

In recent years coconut oil has grown vastly in popularity. There’s been claims that it can do everything from clearing skin, supporting weight loss, and even slowing the progressions of Alzheimer’s disease. It’s beneficial to use as a hair treatment because the small molecules better penetrate your hair follicles. The antioxidant properties can be beneficial in a multitude of ways. It even reversed hepatosteatosis, a type of fatty liver disease in rodents.

Coconut oil can be great! But it can also be bad....

A survey published in July 2016 shows that 72% of people think coconut oil is healthy. Only 37% of nutritionist agree. Why is that? Because coconut oil has a saturated fat content of 90%. Saturated fats have been found to increase cardiovascular and other diseases.

But Mackenzie, what does this have to do with my skin?

Well! A coconut oil molecule is very small, this means that it easily passes through your skin’s pores. Coconut oil is extremely pore clogging, or comedogenic. So all these sources that say to use it as a moisturizer, makeup remover, cleanser, etc, are basically encouraging you to clog your pores!

But remember, only someone with the pre-existing hereditary condition of acne would be victim to coconut oil. So when you see somebody with perfect skin slathering it on, the acne has either not yet shown itself (since it takes 90 days to form and show), or they just don’t have the hereditary condition of acne.

***To clear your acne you need a healthy body, and a program of the right products used in the right way. Kempz programs are designed to fit exactly what your body and skin needs. The amount of education you receive through your clear skin journey will stay with you for life.***

What is acne?

What exactly are we up against here?

Acne is a hereditary condition of your skin’s pores. An acneic pore sheds too many layers of skin in a day, about 5 layers. A healthy pore sheds about 1 layer of skin in a day. All these dead layers of skin then accumulate inside of your pore creating a pustule or papule (acne). This is known as retention hyperkeratosis.

So why doesn’t my sister, brother, mom, dad, whoever, have acne?

Well there has to be a trigger. Something happening internally or externally that is triggering the acne to appear on the skin’s surface.

Commonly these would be:

• Imbalanced hormones

• Stress

• Poor gut health

• Too much iodine in your diet

• Poor clogging ingredients

• Certain medications

When your pore starts accumulating these extra dead skin cells a microcomedone starts to form. You can’t see them but they’re lurking below the surface. In fact these start forming as far as 90 days before they ever show on your skin. This is why my programs are designed to be 3-4 months long, and why I won’t be having you spot treating your acne, rather we will be treating your entire face, back, shoulders, any acneic skin.

There’s different kinds of acne, that need to be treated different. This depends on if the pore becomes inflamed or not. This again is also inherited. If the pore doesn’t become inflamed a white head or bump will form. This is called a closed comedone, or non-inflamed acne. In inflamed acne as the dead skin cells and excess oil build up inside your pore, the bacteria inside will start to spill out of that pore into surrounding pores. This causes an infection which you know as a “pimple”.

***We have to know what acne is in order to treat it. With the knowledge I have, I can successfully treat your acne guaranteed.***