Home remedies · Skin, wounds & stings
No home remedy here replaces treatment, and none is talked down. What has done good for generations does good — even if no one ever measured it. Where something is well studied, it says so. Where it is only experience, it says that too.
Five per cent tea tree oil — one part oil to nineteen parts carrier oil, or a ready-made gel — dabbed onto the spot with a cotton bud, once or twice a day. Not over large areas, not undiluted. Judged after six to twelve weeks, not after three days.
The substance is called terpinen-4-ol and makes up thirty to forty-five per cent depending on the oil; it is the part credited with the effect on bacteria. In one trial a five per cent tea tree gel was compared with five per cent benzoyl peroxide: both lowered the number of inflamed spots to a similar degree, the tea tree gel more slowly but with less dryness and scaling. Two things stand beside that: the trials are small, and the price is time — it takes weeks longer.
Undiluted it irritates and can itself set off a contact eczema — the older and longer open the bottle, the more so, because the oil reacts with air. It is a remedy for single spots, not for a whole acne: where there are many inflamed nodules or scarring, the route is a different one. Not in the eye, not on mucous membranes, do not swallow.
Deep, painful nodules, scarring, acne spreading to the back, or a rash that appears suddenly without blackheads — that is something other than a spot.
See a doctor: wounds that gape, bleed heavily or are deep, bite wounds, burns larger than your own palm or with blisters on the face and joints. Likewise redness spreading quickly, especially with fever. And any mole that changes.