Collection: Natural Skincare for Acne-Prone Skin

Finding the right skincare for acne-prone skin can feel like a cycle of ever-stronger washes, scrubs and treatments that leave your skin oilier, sorer or more broken out than before. Our approach is the opposite: gentle, water-free products that clean and protect your skin without stripping it, and a simple routine you can stick to.

Skincare is only part of the picture, though. For what causes acne, conditions that are easily mistaken for it, and natural remedies beyond skincare, from zinc to diet and gut health, see our Natural Acne Treatment page.

The Lyonsleaf Approach to Acne-Prone Skin

• Cleanse without stripping. It can sound counterintuitive to use a balm cleanser for acne, but the Oil Cleansing Method, using Beauty Balm or Unfragranced Beauty Balm, works with your skin’s oil rather than against it, lifting away excess sebum and grime without the rebound oiliness that harsh cleansers cause. Babassu oil, one of our key ingredients, has a similar feel to coconut oil but is far less likely to clog pores.
• Add Sulphur Soap once or twice a week, no more. Our Sulphur Soap, a traditional Aleppo soap made with olive and laurel oils and 5% sulphur, can help keep pores clear on oily, blemish-prone skin. Sulphur is very drying, though, and soap is alkaline, so used too often it can undo the good work of oil cleansing. Use it in place of your usual cleanse once or twice a week at most: lather with warm water, massage in gently, rinse promptly, then carry on with the rest of your routine. Don’t combine it with other actives such as retinol or acids, and if your skin starts to feel tight, flaky or sore, stop and give your barrier time to recover.
• Follow a simple routine. See our Natural Skincare Routine for Oily, Combination & Blemish-Prone Skin for the full morning and evening steps.
• Target individual spots. Zinc and Calendula Cream is a key product here, combining zinc with soothing calendula. See our Spot and Blemish Treatment page for how to use it on an individual spot overnight, and Using Zinc and Calendula Cream with Dry Skin if your skin is dry or sensitive.
• Keep hair and hair products away from breakout-prone areas. Hair products can transfer onto skin, particularly around the hairline, and switching to gentler products can help if that’s a pattern you notice.
• For teenagers, our Teenage Natural Skin Care Bundle brings together everything needed without overcomplicating things.

Does Repairing Your Skin Barrier Help Acne?

Often, yes. It’s tempting to fight oily, breakout-prone skin with stronger cleansers, more frequent washing, scrubs, and layered actives like retinol or exfoliating acids. This tends to backfire: you can’t strip away oil and bacteria without also stripping the lipids holding your barrier together, and a damaged barrier often shows up as new or unusual breakouts alongside dryness, redness or stinging, which makes it easy to mistake for skin that just needs something stronger.

Skin can be oily and barrier-damaged at the same time, a shiny T-zone next to dry, tight cheeks is a common pattern. If your skin has changed a lot after introducing several new products, or after a lot of scrubbing, peels or actives, your barrier may simply need repairing. See How to Repair a Damaged Skin Barrier Naturally if that sounds familiar.

This is particularly worth knowing for teenagers, whose skin is often encouraged towards elaborate, adult-oriented routines on social media. Simplicity and consistency serve acne-prone skin far better than more products.

Covering Breakouts

If you want to wear make-up over active breakouts, Zinc and Calendula Cream underneath, with our mineral foundation on top, gives you coverage alongside the cream’s soothing, non-comedogenic benefits, rather than working against them the way much conventional make-up does. If redness is your main concern rather than texture, our Mineral Colour Corrector is designed to neutralise it before foundation.

Why Our Natural Facial Products Suit Acne-Prone Skin

Our skincare is water-free, so it needs no preservatives or emulsifiers, and contains no artificial chemicals. That matters for acne-prone skin, because preservatives don’t just stop products going off, they also disrupt the microbiome that helps keep acne-associated bacteria in check. Many of our products are rich in calendula, which we grow ourselves in Somerset for its soothing properties.

Many customers with acne-prone and oily skin tell us our products have helped rebalance their skin. You can read their reviews on Beauty Balm, Unfragranced Beauty Balm and Zinc and Calendula Cream.

Please don’t use our oil-based products if you think you may have fungal acne (small, uniform, itchy bumps), see our Natural Acne Treatment page for why. As with any skincare, always patch test first, see Patch Testing and Potential Reactions. Samples are available if you’d like to try before committing to a full size.