When searching online for natural treatments for acne which involve no chemicals at all, one of the most common recommendations I came across was using lemon juice. It seems to work for most of the people, but not for everybody. So I went off searching for the truth about lemon juice and these are my findings.So how does lemon juice really act on the skin?

The citric acid in the lemon is what makes this work. When applied on the skin, it will help act like an acid peel but totally naturally. It will exfoliate the outer layers and cause new skin to move toward the surface. Being a natural astringent and disinfectant, it helps kill the p. acnes bacteria, which means it helps dry excess oil formed.

What are the pros:

-    Natural, contains no chemicals
-    Widely available and cheap
-    Helps acne in relatively short period

What are the cons:

-    Quote here as I can’t put it any better “stings like a bitch”. To alleviate this problem it has been recommended to dilute it with water. However after the initial reaction, within 2 minutes the sting is gone
-    Does not seem to work on acne scars. You will need a professional treatment for that, best recommended is dermabrasion
-    Might increase sun sensitivity, so if you are using it on your face, use sunscreen if you are going outside

Finally how to use it:

1.    Cut a fresh lemon and rub it over your face.
2.    Cut a fresh lemon and squeeze it into a small bowl. Take a cotton ball and apply it on the face or affected are of the skin. Repeat soaking the cotton ball in lemon juice and apply it on the skin. Make sure your fingers are clean! If you have sensitive skin (to pain), dilute it with water first. Leave it for about 10 minutes and then rinse with cool water.

If you’ve read so far, this is what you will find on most of the webpages that swear by using lemon juice as the top choice acne natural treatment. However, what about when it does not work at all, or having little to no effect?

Although generally it seems to be quite an ok home remedy for acne, there are many cases when it simply does not work - or makes the skin worse. Why?

Because lemon is all about acid, if you rub the lemon all over your face, i.e. not only on the actual pimples, it tends to dry out your skin. So at some point, you might end up worse than before, as the lemon will irritate the skin if used directly. Also because of the light sensitivity, if you forget to put sunscreen on your face and go out right after applying the lemon, you might end up with quite interesting dark (or lighter) spots on your skin, which will take months to clear.

My advice?

Use lemon on your acne, but either use a cotton tip (you know, those qtips) dipped in lemon juice and clean directly the acne areas - without touching the regular, healthy skin, or use it diluted with water, in which case you can used it on all your face, due to its disinfectant properties. But the best advice I can give you, use it in a mask, combined to other things, to give a combined healing effect on your acne.

One of the masks I can recommend:

2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup dry oatmeal
1 tbsp honey (has antibiotic properties)
2 tbsp fresh aloe (just squeeze the juice right out of the leaves)
1 tbsp sea salt
Place everything into a food processor and add a little bit of water at a time till you get a thick but spreadable paste. Put this on for about 15 min once a week. It will keep your skin glowing, and it’s cheap.