A skincare routine with too many steps is hard to judge. With a shelf of eight products, half of them barely used, you can't tell which one is helping. That shelf often starts with buying on labels like "all-natural" and no plan for how the products fit together.
Is all-natural the best type of acne therapy?
The research doesn't say so. A Cochrane review of complementary therapies for acne (Cao et al., 2015) included 35 randomised trials with 3,227 participants. The therapies covered herbal medicine, acupuncture, cupping, diet, purified bee venom and tea tree oil. The authors found "some low-quality evidence from single trials" that a low-glycaemic-load diet, tea tree oil and bee venom may reduce total skin lesions. They found a lack of evidence for herbal medicine, acupuncture or wet-cupping.
Natural doesn't mean free of side effects either. In the same review, some trials reported mild adverse effects from herbal medicines, wet-cupping and tea tree oil gel, and the authors noted a potential for adverse effects from herbal medicines.
The NHS starts somewhere much plainer (NHS: Acne). Wash your skin twice a day with a gentle cleanser, take make-up off at the end of the day, and use products labelled non-comedogenic, meaning they won't clog pores. For treatments you put on your skin, it names salicylic acid and benzoyl peroxide, and a pharmacist can advise. Don't pick or squeeze spots, because that can cause scars, and don't scrub, since scrubbing can irritate the skin and make acne worse.
See a GP if you've tried treating acne yourself and it isn't getting better, if the spots are deep, painful or scarring, or if it's affecting your mental health. Prescription treatments are stronger than shop products and, the NHS says, can be very effective for more severe acne.
Keep the routine short
Following that NHS advice, the base is short: a gentle cleanser twice a day, plus any moisturiser or make-up chosen from non-comedogenic products. Extra steps such as toners, essences and multiple serums aren't wrong, but they're additions to a working base, not the base itself. Starting small and adding one product at a time, weeks apart, makes it obvious which one is actually doing something and which one is just sitting in the cabinet.
When comparing two products, one marketed as natural and one not, look at the ingredient list and at how your own skin responds over a few weeks. Don't go by the label claim. A marketing angle won't tell you whether a product suits your skin.
Buying smaller sizes first is worth it even if the price per ml is higher. A full-size bottle of something that irritates your skin is wasted money either way. A trial size limits the loss, and the routine gets built on things that actually stayed in rotation, not things bought once and abandoned.
this contact form is another place to send a question if you're trying to find out where a product or ingredient comes from, which tells you more than the word printed on the front of the bottle.
Keep a simple note, even just a phone note, of what you've tried and how your skin responded. Six months in, that list will tell you more than any label claim, natural or otherwise. If diet is part of your thinking, our posts on the nutritional value of dates and on the medicinal claims made about dates are about food, not acne treatment. Background on this site is on the about us page, and contact us for anything specific.
This article is general information, not medical advice. Speak to a pharmacist or doctor about your own skin.
References
- Cao H, Yang G, Wang Y, Liu JP, Smith CA, Luo H, Liu Y. Complementary therapies for acne vulgaris. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2015;1:CD009436. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD009436.pub2. PubMed 25597924
- NHS. Acne. Page last reviewed 22 September 2026. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/acne/