On August 19, 2016 at 10:02 AM, Simzy125 said:

Hormonal acne is the WORST. I have gone through many acne treatments in my 18, almost 19, years. Two different antibiotics, three different topicals, chemical peels, the works. As of right now I have mild-moderate acne with my current regimen of Epiduo at night and doxycycline. I am currently weaning off of my doxycycline and I only take 50 mg every other night and will continue to wean myself off of it completely over the next few months.

Now, I call my acne mild-moderate because of my hormonal acne. On good days (usually days 8-24 of my cycle) my skin will have 1-2 blemishes, which I consider to be not that bad, or mild. Around day 25, as my period approaches, my skin gets oily and pimples start popping up. These usually come in the form of medium-sized pustules but occasionally I'll get a cyst. And most of these pimples surface on my chin, jawline, and around my mouth.

My derm has noticed that I get this hormonal acne and has offered to put me on birth control or spironolactone. I turned down birth control pills because I am not interested in putting hormones into my body unnaturally and I don't want to replace my doxy with another prescription pill like spironolactone. Before I try either of those methods, I want to try something a little more natural: mint tea.

There have been plenty of studies done showing that in females, mint tea can reduce androgen levels, and therefore help skin (you can find some posts relating to that on this website). I will be commencing a regimen of 2 cups of spearmint tea a day (actually I already started 2 days ago) and will update this post with results.

I am currently on Day 3 of my mint tea experiment and on Day 4 of my cycle. My skin, therefore, is not that great. I've got a cyst on my lower left cheek, 2 pustules on my chin, and an inflamed whitehead right above my lip. My skin tends to be on the oily side as well. I'll update within a week and will continue to do so for 3 months at which point I'll decide to stop the regiment or keep going!

Sounds very promising. Let us know how it goes! Interested in trying spearmint tea myself

It is now day 10 of my mint tea regimen! Before I give some skin updates, I must warn everyone of some things that might have messed with the appearance of my skin. For example, on Day 7 of this experiment, I ran out of Epiduo and didn't have my refill in time, so I missed one day of using my Epiduo. Also, I just began my second day of university so my stress levels are super high. Lastly, my cycle has ended so my hormone levels are back to "normal" whatever that means. So now, for the skin updates:
1 large pustule on my left jawline
1 small pustule on my right jawline
Normal oil levels

And that's it!! Like I said before, usually on my period I break out a lot and then when it ends my skin returns to 1-2 blemishes. So this isn't very surprising to me, HOWEVER given that I missed a day of epiduo and my stress levels are high, the mint tea may be working. I'll give another update in a week, feel free to leave any questions or comments!

Alright. So it's been a little over 2 weeks on the regimen. Here are some thoughts:
1) I've hit the point where i've started to be a little dismayed that my skin isn't magically wonderful yet. i know this isn't fair considering it's only been two weeks and even strong prescriptions take a 2-3 months but.....patience isn't easy for me
2) I just had a rough couples skin days (maybe the last 4 days I've had 7 different pimples with an average of 4 on my face each day). This is usually what my face looks like on my period minus a cyst or two. So not as bad as period skin, but still not good. At all.
3) The taste of this tea is actually really growing on me lol. I don't mind sipping it at all anymore. HOWEVER, it can be annoying carrying around a mug or brewing strong tea etc, so I decided to invest in some Swanson spearmint capsules. They'll be arriving on Tuesday, September 6 and I'm planning to use those when I'm not in the mood to sit and sip.
4) I've been hating on my skin A LOT lately and I just want to remind anyone else starting a new regimen that PATIENCE IS KEY!! I learned this when i was going through my new epiduo regimen and it seems that I need to reteach myself this.
I'll notify you guys soon!

Okay so 4 weeks have passed and my skin is......eh.
Right now on my face I have two medium sized pustules. Where? My chin of course. So as far as reducing the amount of acne, no miracles yet HOWEVER I am noticing that most of these new pimples I get are just old comedones coming to the surface..AKA purging  So my skin feels a lot softer than before considering I have the usual number of inflammatory acne lesions but considerably less noninflammatory acne (because most of them have turned inflammatory and healed). I ALSO have noticed that my skin is way less oily. I definitely have to use a full pump of moisturizer in the morning (I use Cetaphil Oil Control Moisturizer for Acne-Prone Skin) and I find that when I spot-treat with salicylic acid during the day, my skin gets way drier than it used to. I'm gonna take these things as good signs and movement in the right direction and i'm just going to keep chugging along with these capsules. It takes other hormonal acne treatments like Spiro or Birth Control 6-12 weeks to show results so I can't let myself get too dismayed at the 4 week mark. I'll update again soon!

Hi guys, it's been awhile. Just thought I'd let you guys know that a week ago I gave up the spearmint regimen. Why? 1) it wasn't doing anything for my acne. 2) it was giving me stomach pains. It was not worth it for me to endure the stomach pains if it wasn't doing anything for my skin. So for that reason I have decided to add a new topical to my regimen: Aczone. I will be creating a new post to track that journey as well!