I'll start with a little back story before I tell you how I figured it was the water that was causing my acne.

Since I hit puberty at about age 11-12 I developed my first hormonal acne and had it pretty bad during my teens like anyone else. However it persisted after puberty and all the way until now (I'm 26).

I started proactiv at about 16/17 and it worked for the very short period of time and it lost effectiveness and I stopped. Then at about early 20's I got fed up with acne and decided to try literally every method I could possibly think of.

It wasn't until this year when I moved to a different area that it got worse, I was on a lot of benzoyl peroxide and I was fighting oily skin. It was bad and I was using all sorts of peels. It seemed to have made my skin more sensitive to acne. It got me thinking more deeper as to the root of the cause.

I eventually believed it was my diet and started eliminating popular suspects. The moment I stopped gluten I found that I dramatically decreased the inflammation so for a brief period I thought I was gluten intolerant. However I still broke out. Then it dawned on me that the only thing possible is either the water or the fact that I don't rinse out the sodium fluoride(toothpaste) completely.

Now here is where my anecdotal evidence is slightly flawed. I decided to buy some distilled water and I completely rinsed out all traces of sodium fluoride (mouthwash toothpaste). Immediately after washing my face with the gallon of distilled water I instantly felt my face refreshed.

Within those 2-3 days I saw a dramatic decrease in inflammation. I decided that it must be the mineral content in the tap water and bought a good shower filter from amazon and continued to wash my face with distilled water until it arrived.

Its been a week currently and I have not had a single break out for the first time in the 14 years that I've always had consistent acne week by week.

This is strongly profound, I'll continue to update this thread to see how it goes, but the worst that happened so far was a tiny white head that did not get a chance to even begin to inflame.

My hypothesis is that due to the overwhelming products I used to battle acne during my hormonal youth and added to the fact I was constantly bathing in hard(high mineral) water that didn't thoroughly wash my face. My face became highly sensitive.

I haven't used any acne products during the entire week I was washing with soft(filtered) water other than a simple Men's dove face wash to make sure it was the water. I've also reintroduced normal foods (dairy, gluten, sugar) and all signs point to hard water being the culprit.

For anyone who's battling acne and has thoroughly tried all alternatives, try seeing if washing your face with distilled water will help.

I'm using a peel today to combat the scarring and we'll see how things go from here on out, but I feel like a gigantic weight is off my shoulder and my confidence has sky-rocketed. I could care less that people see the scarring on my face because I know they'll eventually fade away.

I will continue to post in here to report my progress.

and feel free to ask any questions.