This Teen Swears Green Tea and Honey Cleared Her Cystic Acne
For the past week, thousands of people on Twitter have been begging (yes, begging) a teen from Las Vegas to spill her skin-care secrets. The level of requests could only be compared to that of a K-pop star. Seventeen-year-old Hilda Paz Robles garnered such attention after posting before-and-after photos of her cystic acne clearing up. Unlike most before-and-after skin-care threads, Robles didn't follow up her photos with detailed tweets breaking down her skin-care routine. All she wrote in her caption was "Came a long way .. before and after ✨ trust the process."
What is the process, though? Hundreds of people wanted to know. Robles replied back to someone saying, "girl green tea with honey is all it was 😌 I will be doing a video soon all about it so stay tuned." Unable to wait for the video to drop, I called up Robles to find out what she really used to clear up her skin. Turns out, she wasn't exaggerating about the whole green tea thing.
Robles tells Allure that sometime around April 2017, her skin began to break out. "To this day, I'm not exactly sure what caused it," she says. "Lots of people tried to tell me it was hormones. Lots of people tried to tell me it was an infection. During her summer break, Robles visited her aunt, who recommended she drink parsley tea. "I've never, ever liked tea, though," Robles says. "I just don't like it." Instead, her aunt told her to try green tea.
When Robles went back home, she bought a box of green tea at her local 99-cent store. She brewed some up and added raw honey. Since then, she's been drinking the tea three times a week. Robles also whips up her own face mask with the stuff by emptying a couple green tea bags into a bowl and mixing the leaves together with the raw honey. "I'd leave it on for at least 30 minutes," she says. "The max is probably two hours. I was just chilling around the house like that." She did this for about three times a week for a couple months before cutting back to once a week.
"A lot of people don't believe me," Robles says of the response she's gotten. "I'm not saying it's going to work for everybody because I tried so many different things before that, and nothing was working." From a dermatologist's perspective, green tea and honey can be effective acne treatments. Green tea, in particular, is packed with antioxidants that help brighten skin and protect from free radicals. "Green tea is an amazing anti-inflammatory agent, so it helps treat rosacea and even acne," dermatologist Judith Hellman has told Allure. A 2013 study done in South Korea also found that green tea has the potential to be more effective than other acne medications. Since then, dozens of matcha skin-care products have sprung up on the market.
Raw honey, on the other hand, is great for reducing redness, soothing inflammation, and killing acne-causing bacteria. "It works to make inflammatory acne look less angry because it has an osmotic effect on the skin," Kavita Mariwalla, a dermatologist in West Islip, New York, once told Allure. "It can draw out [excess fluid] and help reduce inflammation." See, Robles' aunt was onto something.
When she's not masking, Robles washes her face with the Bioré Pore Penetrating Charcoal Bar, which is another key to her skin-care success. "I believe that's how I got my blackheads out because I used to have bad blackheads everywhere," she says. After cleansing, she moisturizes with Pond's Nourishing Moisturizing Cream.
before and after photos of teen cystic acne
Hilda Paz Robles/TwitterOnce her skin started to clear up, she incorporated toner and face mists into her routine to help with scarring. She likes to spritz on the Mario Badescu Facial Spray with Aloe, Cucumber, and Green Tea and the Facial Spray With Aloe, Herb, and Rosewater. For toner, she uses a witch hazel-based one like the Thayers Orignal Witch Hazel Toner. "I should've started using them from the beginning," Robles says.
Robles says she's still working on clearing her skin, but so far, so good. Now, excuse me while I go chug some green tea.
Related Video:
More skin-care routines taking off on social media:
E.L.F.'s $8 Moisturizer Is Going Viral Thanks to This Teen's Skin-Care Routine
Here's Why This Woman's Cystic Acne Routine Is So Controversial
Now, learn some beauty hacks using a tea bag:
