Herbal Apothecary: Blemish Spot Treatment

First, a bit of insight into my blogging process. I often start drafts of posts and keep them saved to flesh out later. Typically these "drafts" consist only of a title and maybe a photo or two I took on the fly — just enough to remind me of what I was thinking about. Sometimes it takes a few days (or more) to gather the information and photos that document a process from start to finish; sometimes I just get busy and can't finish a post the same day that I did something interesting in the garden or the kitchen.

Anyway, I was looking through my draft folder tonight and came across a post I haven't touched since March 24. (I mean, just look at how long ago March 2013 was!) Back then I was refining a lot of skin treatments and soap recipes in a series of Herbal Apothecary posts. One item that I made but never finished writing about was a spot treatment for occasional acne.

You know the sporadic breakouts you might get on a monthly basis? For me, this was usually one or two red, swollen pimples around my chin as a pretty reliable PMS indicator. That was annoying, so I worked up a little treatment to dab on breakouts to try to dispatch with them more quickly.

My ingredients were some herb-infused cider vinegar, rosewater, and French green clay (which I ordered from Mountain Rose Herbs): 

I also have a small spoon and a little travel-size cream container. My idea was to make a paste of the clay by adding a bit of rosewater and herb vinegar--just enough to make a thick paste, which I mixed together with a tiny plastic spatula:

Then you just apply where needed with a finger and let dry, as you would a face mask. The idea here is that green clay draws impurities out of the skin, and the vinegar/rosewater combo is astringent and mildly disinfecting. 

The thing is, I only got to try it once, and that really wasn't enough of a test to know if it was effective or not. I can say that I think I made it too thick, so it was hard to apply it exactly where I wanted to without dragging it right off of my face. In the future, I'd use just a bit more rosewater for a thinner paste. I would also think about giving raw honey a try in the paste as well.

But here's the thing: I haven't had a single breakout since March.

Not one.

And that's why I haven't been able to test this, and it's why this post has been sitting around in my draft folder. 

I have to attribute this nearly seven-month stretch of clear skin to my soap-free scrubs and cleansers, and my homemade lotion. No chemicals = happy skin for me, and I'm very happy about it!

But ... I can't confidently vouch for how well this blemish treatment will work. (I can say, though, that it will not last as a paste for six months. Mine dried into a hard lump long ago, so it's definitely something to prepare in small batches.) If you try it, please let me know if you have success with it as-is, or if you made some helpful adjustments to the ingredients.

Or ... you could skip the spot treatment and whip up some cleanser and lotion, then replace your toner with straight rosewater, which is my current recipe for clear-as-a-bell skin!