When you first mention to someone extra virgin olive oil can be a cure for acne, you’ll usually get a blank stare followed by “What? Put oil on my already oily and zit-infested face. No thank you.” But, once someone with moderate to severe acne tries olive oil as an acne cure, it’s amazing how fast they become converted.
I was doing research on extra virgin olive oil for several writing projects recently, along with research for myself on the benefits of washing your face with olive oil. I was looking for proof extra virgin olive oil cleared up blackheads (it does, I use it), but also kept coming across testament after testament from men and women all over the world who swear using extra virgin olive oil on their face caused their acne to disappear. In many cases, within days.
Then when I passed this new-found knowledge around to most of my friends (I believe in giving friends new beauty tips, if they’re cheap and they work), I was amazed to find, not only had two of my friends cured their acne completely with extra virgin olive oil, but that their Spanish mothers and grandmothers along with generations of other Spanish women had used it for decades too.
After talking to my friends, it seems their way of using olive oil to cure acne is similar to how I used it to rid myself of blackheads, with one slight difference.
Steps to Take to Cure Yourself of Acne with Olive Oil
1. Pour a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil into a bowl. Dipping your fingers in it, rub the olive oil all over your face in circular motions, massaging it into your skin and taking particular care with your problem areas.
2. Soak a clean wash cloth in piping hot water, wring it out, and then place it on your face and let it sit for a moment, opening up your pores as well as blotting up the excess olive oil from your face.
3. Rinse out the washcloth and repeat with the hot water, but this time instead of simply placing the cloth on your face, rub it slowly over your face, making sure you are removing as much of the olive oil as you can.
4. Pat your skin dry with a clean paper towel.
5. Dip your fingers into the small bowl of olive oil one more time and rub it into your face again. Leave for 30 seconds, then blot off the excess with a paper towel. Within 5-10 minutes, you’ll notice all the olive oil has completely soaked into your skin and you can go ahead and put on foundation, or other make-up as normal. Just avoid the moisturizer.
According to my friends, they noticed a drastic improvement of their acne within five days of beginning their olive oil cleansing. They cleansed twice a day with the olive oil (morning and night) and, other than that, did nothing different whatsoever.
Within two weeks, both said their acne had completely vanished and, over the years since they’ve continued to use olive oil to cleanse their faces, it has never come back.
Warnings
There are however two things you should not do.
1. Don’t use cheap olive oil, it doesn’t work. Only buy extra virgin olive oil from Spain. It’s the purest olive oil, with no blends of different oils and no additives, so there’s nothing in it to irritate your skin. It’s slightly higher priced than olive oil from Italy or Greece, but well worth the extra dollar.
2. Some people make the mistake of cleaning their face with olive oil and then washing it off with soap. If you do that, you have just defeated the object of the exercise and, likely, your skin will remain acne-ridden and poor.
Olive oil not only cleanses, it moisturizes and protects. The antioxidants in it improve your skin, help to fade old acne scars, and the oil balances your skin perfectly so, eventually, what was once ‘oily skin’ will be normal like almost everyone else’s.
Using soap destroys that balance and destroys all the positive effects of the olive oil. Don’t use it. Your skin does not need it.
More Information:
Olive Oil Benefits – Grandma’s Wisdom