Here’s another money saving tip for you. Actually two acne books you should avoid. One pure and simple money-making scam and other an honest attempt to help acne victims but still not worth the money.
Let’s start with the scam.
It’s a book called Understanding Acne: Causes, Cures and Myths. The cover is on the left. If you see that, run.
So why it’s so bad.
First, Understanding Acne gives you no useful information on curing acne. None. It just repeats the same old and tired myths and information you can find on any average acne website.
Second, this book is written by marketers with the sole purpose of making money. They have no interest in helping you to cure your acne.
In short, don’t make the marketers who are just out there to make money any richer.
And now for the second acne ebook you should avoid.
It’s called… well… I don’t even know the name of the book. So I just call it Acne Guide: by Sufferers for Sufferers. John Dunne stands behind this book.
Acne Guide is actually an honest attempt to help acne victims. I do believe Mr. Dunne’s intentions are good.
It’s just that the execution falls short on intentions.
I liked the fact that Acne Guide emphasized the connection between health and acne. There’s even something on detoxing.
So it’s pointing to the right direction.
The problem is that the advice is too simple to be useful for anyone. Diet advice is at the level of ‘eat more fruits and vegetables and avoid greasy foods’.
Unfortunately most of the acne books in the market suck. Acne is such a big market that money-hungry scammers gravitate to it like flies on manure. You can see it in the quality of these ebooks.
Besides my own book Clear for Life, I’ve only found one good ebook that I can honestly recommend to people with severe acne.
Acne No More outlines a rigorous fasting and detoxing regimen that, if followed, will cure your acne - no matter how severe it is. Of course the problem is that following such a regimen is no walk in the park. It takes lots of discipline. For my liking Acne No More relies too much on supplements, so following it is going to cost a bit.
Still, despite these limitation Acne No More is a good book and gets you clear. I’d even go so far that it’s going to get you clear faster than Clear for Life. So in that sense it’s better than my book.
On the other hand, Clear for Life is not so difficult to follow. It focuses more on building diet and lifestyle habits that get and keep you clear for the rest of your life. There’s less detoxing so it’s much easier and more practical to follow.
Anyway, if you are looking for a surefire way to cure your acne both Acne No More and Clear for Life will show you how.
I got this email from one of my readers. I think this might be relevant for you too.
She wrote:
“I subscribed to a free newsletter about acne and now get emails from someone named Bob Grant about his CBS System. Just wondering if you heard of this system (he’s promising that he’ll clear you in just 7 days).”
First I want to say that when you subscribe to Acne 101 the system offers you additional newsletters. I don’t like it at all, but there’s nothing I can do to it. I use a third-party service to deliver these emails. All of them have something like this.
Those other emails are not from me, and I have nothing to do with them. Better just click the ‘unsubscribe’ link at the end of them.
I looked at the CBS (Clear, Beautiful, Smooth Skin) System and here are my two cents.
Save your money.
I don’t mean to bash a competitor here, just to offer you friendly advice.
Here’s why I think you should hold on to your wallet and skip this CBS System.
First, I have to admit that I haven’t bought it. I only read the sales letter. But once you understand how to write sales letters and know a bit about getting clear and natural health, it’s easy to ‘decode’ the whole program from the sales letter alone.
I think it’s little more than a glorified ‘Acne Free in 3 Days’.
The CBS System starts you off with a ‘3-Day Cleanse’ (you already learned this from Acne 101 lesson 6) and then continues with some type of herbal cleanse in what they call ‘A Personalized System For Your Skin’. The rest of the program concerns itself with keeping you acne free and eliminating acne scars.
The CBS System is based on the idea that toxins cause acne. While it’s true that toxins play a role clear skin and health is much more than simply toxins.
I have no doubt that by following the CBS System some people get clear. It’s a step to the right direction. I’m just warning you that don’t buy into the delusion that you can permanently cure acne in 7 days.
It doesn’t work that way.
It took years, or decades, to develop acne. It’s going to take more than 7 days to cure it. Even if you fast 7 days with pure water and follow it up with 100% raw food diet your acne most likely comes back after the fast.
The healing process simply takes longer.
Yes, by combining a detox and medicating yourself with herbs it may be possible to get clear. But please don’t delude yourself into thinking this is real healing.
Please keep in mind there are no secrets to clear skin. Just like weightloss it comes down to the same old and boring story: healthy lifestyle. In both markets there’s no shortage of people who want you to believe they have finally, after years of backbreaking research and testing, and interviewing hundreds of experts discovered the elusive and long-hidden secret that gives you what you want easily and quickly.
They all play to the same human ‘flaw’ that we all want a quick and easy solution to our problems. Simply walk away when you see these kinds of offers.
Finally remember that clear skin and health is more about how you live your day-to-day life than what you do once in a while.
Because Clear for Life teaches you the nuts and bolts of day-to-day life that gets and keep you clear, I believe into it so strongly. And, sometimes shamelessly, promote it to you. I know it’s going to rock your world and skin.
I often bash acne treatments that are ‘quick-fixes’. Meaning this pill, powder, cream, flush or whatever cures your acne and solves your health problems. Just like the duck in this cartoon does:
Still, there’s a way you can use these quick-fixes intelligently. And this posts explains how.
I just saw one woman at an acne.org forum saying hormonal balancing is the key to acne. Her doctor prescribed her bioidentical (is that an oxymoron or what) hormones to ‘balance’ her hormones.
This is part of my reply to her, which explains one of the problems with these quick-fixes. I’ll get to how to use them the smart way after this.
And by the way, the same principles in my reply applies to any and all so-called imbalances (such as blood sugar, inflammation) that lead to acne, and pretty much to every cause of acne.
So this helps even if your acne is not hormonal.
– clip –
I feel I have to stick my dirty fingers here.
I feel happy for you that this is helping you. And I really don’t mean to rain on your parade. Just want to give you heads up.
Taking artificial hormones won’t ‘balance’ your hormones. You are just plugging a leaky hole and temporarily fixing the problem.
Your hormones are never ‘unbalanced’. They are the way they are for a reason. The body regulates hormones and it’s always based on your ‘internal environment’. In other words state of health.
Just because a doctor tells you your hormones are unbalanced doesn’t mean anything. He’s just comparing them to some number the medical community cooked up and agreed on. Those number don’t reflect your unique situation and condition.
Given your internal environment the body regulates hormones in a way that’s best for the entire body. Your hormones are always in perfect balance. Granted that balance will not always give you the results you want.
By taking artificial hormones you upset the balance the body thinks is the best. So you UNbalance them. That may give you the result you want, but in the long term it’s probably bad for your health.
Anytime you stick your fingers in and mess with your body you make things worse (regarding your overall health).
The body regulates hormones based on the internal environment. You can affect that with the foods you eat and the way you live your life.
That’s the only way to ‘balance’ your hormones in a way that also gives you the results you want.
– clip –
So far Clear for Life is the only acne book in the market that shows you how to do that. Acne No More is also good for getting you clear. But it’s not so good for long term because it’s mostly based on fasting and that doesn’t keep you clear for long time. All the supplements you need to buy also makes it quite expensive.
Ok, that’s all fine and dandy.
But I bet my crystal ball tells me your goal is to get clear as soon as possible. Unfortunately it may take some time before your body has gained enough vitality to cure your acne.
That doesn’t gel with your goal very well, does it.
The trick is to combine these two approached.
Start rebuilding your health (fixing the internal environment) right now. That’s the only thing that’s going to keep you clear in the long term. At the same time try some quick-fixes that can get you clear quickly.
That way you can have your cake and eat it too.
You get clear quickly, well at least have a chance to, and get to keep your clear skin for life.
The reason I often bash quick-fixes is because they kill your motivation to make the real changes. If you already are clear then why would you change your diet and lifestyle?
Plus quick-fixes give you a bag full of excuses. Instead of kicking yourself on the arse and making the change you think ‘maybe this new pill or product can fix the problems’.
Your motivation to change drains away and you stay stuck.
But as long as you don’t let this happen and actually make the changes quick-fixes are ok.
Keep that in mind because quick-fixes have as much chance of giving you the permanent freedom you are looking for as a disfigured chimpanzee in a beauty contest.
It just doesn’t happen.
Strictly speaking, this is not the best for your overall health. Because most quick-fixes throw the body off balance. Some more and some less. So it’s probably going to take you longer to regain perfect health (and skin).
Still, you have a good chance to cure acne, or at least significantly reduce it, quickly.
And somehow I feel that’s worth it for you.
Some quick-fixes are better than others. Meaning they don’t throw your body off balance so much.
Here are some ’safe’ quick-fixes (in my opinion):
Topicals without any products (such as steaming).
Homemade topical treatments, topicals with only natural ingredients are good also, but homemade are better.
Supplements; this is a bit tricky because some supplements can create nutritional imbalances. I’d stay away from vitamins and other single nutrition supplements. Probiotics, enzymes, HCL and such are pretty safe.
Homeopathy
Laser and light treatments; this is a bit so-and-so. Although these don’t use chemicals (and as such are safe) they do cause free radical damage in the skin and that way can be harmful.
Here’s the blacklist of quick-fixes:
Topicals with chemicals.
Herbs; this includes Chinese medicine, Ayurveda and similar medicines. Herbs are nothing but mild form of drugs. They are inert substances and have no healing effect whatsoever. They only irritate the body and force the body into throwing the offending substances out.
Cleanses and flushes of any kind.
Drugs; antibiotics, Accutane and the entire gang.
Those are not exhaustive lists. Just something I had on top of my mind now.
I think Mr. X Acne Says is one of the best quick-fix solutions. Mr. X Acne Says is based on the idea that inflammation causes acne. I agree fully with that.
Mr. X Acne Says then offers a combined dietary and supplement based solution to reduce inflammation. The dietary changes are simple and easy to implement to anyone who is at least a bit health conscious. If you eat at McDonald’s every day it can be bit of a challenge.
The supplements cost you a bit, around $50 a month. But when you combine it with diet and lifestyle changes, you need the supplements only for 2 to 3 months.
I’m in touch with ‘Mr. X’ (this sounds like some blind dating program) regularly. He’s a good and reliable fellow. If the program doesn’t work for you he will give you a refund. And if, for any reason, you have problems just contact me and I’ll email him.
Of course I can’t promise Mr. X Acne solution gets you clear, but combined with lifestyle changes in Clear for Life it’s the best solution for getting clear quickly and permanently I can think of.
It’s a book called Understanding Acne: Causes, Cures and Myths. The cover is on the left. If you see that, run.