Baking Soda

It can seriously damage your skin - try and avoid this method ( based on personal experience )

When I get a horrendous breakout I use a baking soda face mask for 5 minutes, before bed, and when I wake up in the morning the spots are virtually gone! Despite this I would be careful because baking soda is gritty it can irritate the skin causing greater oil production. Because of this, I only save it for extreme breakouts.

Baking soda works wonders for whitening your teeth and cleaning household appliances...but for your face... I am not so sure. I used it in the past to exfoliate my skin -- it did exfoliate, but my goodness, I think it took over the first layer of my skin that's how harsh it was! My skin did look a lot brighter the next day, but it was followed up with a decent size break out... I think baking soda could work for some people with very strong (leathery) skin... but at the end of the day I think BS... is clearly "BS" pardon the pun.

Have tried this a few times over the years. It's cheap so maybe it's worth trying for you but my skin didn't respond to it at all, by any method of application, except just getting a little pink. If my skin is itchy for some reason I'll soak in a tub with some baking soda and epsom salts but it never helped my acne. The only reason I'd recommend it is because it does help with my itchy legs when I throw some in a bath, so I'm sure there are possibly benefits with other skin issues, and it's probably in your kitchen somewhere already and you don't have anything to lose.

I used baking soda for a while and I believed it was doing wonders, it left my skin smooth and it didn't make my face feel too dry. But unfortunately baking soda just isn't the right pH for our skin. Our skin is slightly acidic, and baking soda is much too alkaline, which leaves our skin defenceless against bacteria. Now, I know for some people baking soda works great as an exfoliant, and it is much better to use baking soda than a harsh apricot scrub, for example, and if you are switching from a harsh acne scrub to baking soda, you will certainly see some improvement. But, my experiences have lead me to believe that any "scrubbing" product is bad for acne prone skin. For a long time I was an over-exfoliator, I would use baking soda twice a week, I thought it was great, but eventually it broke me out horribly. By scrubbing at your skin you are creating lots of tiny microscopic cuts on the surface and huge amounts of irritation, which is detrimental to acne. At the end of the day, you cannot scrub your acne off your face, contrary to popular belief. Your skin will be much happier, and healthier if it is kept at the correct pH, using a gentle and nourishing skincare routine. Please, please be careful if you decide to scrub at your skin!

Works for a day in drying out pimples but they come back and the stuff is (eventually) very irritating to the skin. Not a long term solution.

I tried it once as a mask, i fins it's more mess than i want, read a lot that makes skin dry and did not work for me, i have tried other treatments that i can see at least a slight result within the first application. This wasnt one of them.

I have a lot of cysts, and when I tried this on my skin, it burned quite a lot but I tried to withstand the pain. When I washed the baking soda off, my skin was red and screaming. I immediately applied some kind of moisturizer. It didn't help my acne at all, but it kind of stopped some acne growing for a day. How to do this: Baking Powder Water Place a little bit of baking powder (as much as you need) and mix it with a similar amount of water. Mix together until it gets a consistency that you want. If you want a more pasty consistency, add more baking powder. If not, add water. x

It seems to be exfoliating but doesn't affect clogged pores for me

First time I tried it it burned my skin a lot. But my skin adjusted to it and it worked for about 3 days, but then it stopped working. Might work for you though!