There’s an old doctor joke that goes like this. A patient got his appendix removed, and the doctor sends him a bill of $1000. The patient goes, “Wow, that’s expensive for such a simple surgery!”. The doctor replies, “You are right!” and sends him another bill: $1 for the surgery and $999 for knowing which part to take out.

I’ve tried to do something similar here. This course is built around the idea of acne types. We’ll talk more about acne-types soon, but in a nutshell, acne types refers to the idea that different internal and external causes show up on the skin as acne. They all look the same on the skin, but because the causes are different, each needs to be treated differently.

Instead of throwing hundreds of things for you to try (and hope one of them works), we are going to start by identifying your dominant acne type(s), and then I’ll give you a handful of suggestions specific to that type. This way we are doing the things that are the most likely to work.

How to go through the course

This course contains a lot of information (roughly 650 pages if you were to print all of it out). But my purpose is not to have you read it all. The aim is for you to take action today. That’s right. Today. And that’s the way I structured this course.

This is not a book, and you aren’t meant to go through this linearly page after page.

This course is divided into action and information (or in-depth) sections. In most cases, the action sections give you a summary of what you need to know and then link to the in-depth sections for a more detailed explanation. If you aren’t interested in reading the in-depth explanations, feel free to ignore them.

Here’s the order you should follow:

1. Start with the what causes acne section to get a general understanding of how acne happens.
2. Go through the acne types section and identify your dominant acne type(s).
3. Go through the ‘Recommendations for everyone’ section.
4. Go through the treatment plan specific to your acne type(s) identified in step 1.
5. Read the topical treatment suggestions for acne-relevant conditions in the ‘Topical treatments‘ section.

Acne is a very complicated condition. That’s why this course contains a lot of material, but I’ve tried to organize it in a way that makes it easy to absorb and doesn’t overwhelm you.

Best of luck on your road to permanently clear skin!