I am not acne-prone in general, but when I do break out, it’s big and cyst-y and within a half-inch of my jaw. It’s been that way pretty much since puberty. It’s like a fun game of whack-a-mole where I know more or less where it’s going to come up but not exactly where.
My hormonal acne story
For about a zillion years I thought this was a cleanliness issue, because it only happened in one spot. I wiped my phone down daily, put my shirt sleeve between my chin and hands when I sat at a desk (this looks as weird as you’re picturing) and rested my head on my now-husband’s sleeve, not his shoulder. The acne persisted, though, and always in that same general area.
A few years ago, pre-pregnancy, I came to the realization that it was hormonal acne! It ebbed and flowed (though there was almost always at least one cyst on my face), it improved slightly with the birth control pill, and it didn’t respond to any changes in cleansing, hydration or exfoliation. I read that the dermatological solution for hormonal acne is spironalactone, a medication that regulates the hormone androgen. I also read that spiro could have some rough side effects, especially if excess androgen isn’t the cause of your acne.
This is about where I fell down a Google hole. Turns out excess androgen is also the cause of one type of PCOS, and some women find that spiro regulates symptoms of PCOS–weight, excess face and body hair, and, yes, acne. I also read that spearmint tea or capsules can accomplish the same thing, and that many women whose health insurance wouldn’t cover spiro or who couldn’t swing the expensive derm visit chose to self-treat PCOS with spearmint.
Why spearmint?
To be very clear: I’m not a “natural cures” person at all. But, I started experimenting with the spearmint because I wasn’t sure if it was excess androgen or some other hormonal imbalance causing my hormonal acne, and testing out a box of spearmint tea seemed a lot easier than going to the doctor, getting the blood test, the prescription, and the follow-up blood tests. It seemed like a cheap experiment to see if it was worthwhile to even try the spiro.
And that was that! For me, the spearmint tea was enough. I expected to see my acne slightly improve, indicating that it was a too-weak concentration of the correct solution and suggesting that spiro, presumably stronger, would solve it completely. But in actuality, the spearmint tea cleared my hormonal acne completely! At 25, I had a fully clear face for the first time in my life.
How to test spearmint tea for your hormonal acne
My trial period went like this:
- I drank one mug-sized cup of spearmint tea every day for one month, in which time my hormonal acne disappeared.
- Once the acne resolved, I dropped down to every school day (so five days a week) for about two months. I was trying to figure out how often I really needed the tea, but I was afraid that if I decreased too much the acne would come back!
- Then, I dropped down to three days a week to see if my results would continue and they did. I’m still drinking the tea about three days a week at this point. When I forget or run out, it usually takes about two weeks for a cyst to return.
Update 2024: I now put about a teaspoon of loose leaf spearmint tea into my pot of chamomile tea almost every night, and that has been a great way to keep my acne in check.
I can’t guess whether I would have experienced the same speedy results if I had started at three days a week, but I can say for sure that I didn’t experience any increase in acne as I slowly dropped doses.
(I dropped the doses, really, because the tea is on the expensive side! It doesn’t taste bad or anything, comparable to any other mint tea, but I wanted the box to last longer.)
Spearmint tea for acne over the years
So, obviously a lot has happened since 2015!
I stopped drinking the tea during my pregnancies because I did not want anything messing with my hormones during that time (and I had beautiful pregnancy skin–wish that had lasted!).
Two kids and two years of nursing later, I’m actually writing this post because I just started to get hormonal acne again after weaning my kiddos in September. Just the same as it ever was, it pops up just above the jawline or chin, big and conspicuous, often without a white head on it. Turning 30 hasn’t done me any good in this department!
So, I restarted the spearmint tea about a month ago. I use a mix of the Traditional Medicinals spearmint tea (it can be kind of hard to find, but my local natural foods store stocks it) and spearmint that I grew in my herb garden and dried in the microwave. I have never been able to find it in stores, even in a specialty tea shop, either neighborhood or one of the large chains. Spearmint capsules are readily available online as well, if you’re not into the tea.
It’s still working for me when I stay on top of it–the difference for me right now is that my life has changed pretty dramatically! Before my kids, I was working as a teacher and would pour myself a cup of spearmint tea right before starting my afternoon classes, like clockwork. It fit very easily into my life that way. As a stay-at-home mom of two toddlers, there’s much less predictability and I haven’t been very successful in staying on top of the tea. I’ll remember it for a few days, and then I won’t think about it again until a couple weeks later I’m reminded by a big old cyst popping up on my chin. It definitely works for me–it’s just a matter of staying on top of it.
Okay, which tea?
It’s not super easy to find straight spearmint tea in the grocery store. Bigelow’s Mint Medley will be in most grocery stores, and it has spearmint in it but it’s mostly peppermint. Depending on how significant your imbalance is, it might be enough but probably won’t be–I’ll use it in a pinch but I don’t prefer it.
Usually I use Traditional Medicinal’s straight spearmint tea:
This tea is more expensive than your average grocery store box, but much cheaper than David’s Tea or Teavana, both of which also carry spearmint.
The cheapest option is almost certainly to grow your own: last summer, I bought a spearmint plant at my local plant nursery and used the fresh leaves! But any of these options is a pretty cheap solution, all things considered.
Update 2024: About a year ago I switched to buying loose leaf tea for sustainability reasons. Currently I use the Frontier brand and I like that a lot.
Frequently Asked Questions About Spearmint Tea for Hormonal Acne
Will spearmint work for my hormonal acne?
Visually, androgenic hormonal acne tends to be cyst-y and clustered around the jawline or mouth. It will typically follow your hormonal cycle, and appear or get worse right before your period. Excess androgen is also associated with body hair, so if you have thicker than average body hair, that may be a sign that your acne is from excess androgen. (It may still be worth a try if you don’t have excess body hair — I don’t.)
However: there are a bunch of different causes of hormonal acne, and spearmint only works for hormonal acne caused by excess androgen. So, really, you won’t know for sure that it’s going to work until you’ve tried it.
I tried it and I’m not satisfied with the results. What now?
If you tried the tea daily for a month and it didn’t help at all, your hormonal acne probably isn’t caused by excess androgen, and this probably isn’t the right strategy for you. I’m sorry!
If you tried it daily and saw some improvement but not as much as you would like, you have a couple options.
- You can add a second cup or capsule of spearmint to your day or
- You can go see a dermatologist and ask for spironolactone in the knowledge that it will work for you.
I wouldn’t recommend adding more than two cups of spearmint tea per day–even if it’s helping, more is not necessarily better and you don’t want to mess with your hormones too much on your own. Even though it’s a natural treatment for PCOS and hormonal acne, it’s still changing the balance in your body.
If spearmint tea worked for you a little, spironolactone will help more. You’ve proved that the mechanism will work in your body, so at least you aren’t wasting time and money on treatments that might not be right for you.
Does spearmint tea work for PCOS?
I can’t speak to this from experience myself, but there are a lot of first-person accounts online of people writing about using this same strategy to manage PCOS. The PCOS subreddit has lots of positive stories. PCOS is a multifaceted condition and there are a lot of moving parts, but this is a strategy that might help out some PCOS sufferers.
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