Green Tea And Acne – Does It Hurt Or Help?

Tea has been consumed by humans for thousands of years and many varieties of tea, such as green tea, have been touted for their supposed health benefits. Some will say that green tea has extraordinary health and healing benefits, while others will say it’s all bunk and there’s little benefit in ancient herbal remedies.

So what’s the real story on the connection between green tea and acne? Let’s take a closer look at green tea and try to figure whether it causes acne breakouts, helps clear them up, or does nothing whatsoever.

The most common way to use green tea is obviously to drink it, so we’ll first look at the effects that drinking green tea can have on acne.

Unfortunately, I can find no scientific studies ever performed on the effects of drinking green tea on acne. This means that all we have to go on it what we do know about what’s in green tea, and also what other people are saying about what drinking green tea has done for their acne.

All tea leaves contain something known as catechins, which is a type of antioxidant. Green tea has an especially high concentration of these antioxidants, and it’s one of the primary reasons why it’s so healthy for you.

Tea also contains something called theanine, which is known to boost the immune system and fight off infections. While it is unknown whether this is true or not, it is possible that drinking green tea could help your body fight off the P. acnes bacteria which causes acne.

One negative of green tea is that it contains caffeine. While for most people it’s not going to make much of a difference, caffeine is known to trigger acne breakouts in some people.

Other people’s opinions on what green tea does for their acne seem to be split right down the middle. About half of the people I see commenting about it seem to suggest that it makes them breakout, while the other half of people will swear that green tea help clear up their acne.

Until more scientific research is done on the effects that drinking green tea can have on acne, it’s really impossible to know what it’s going to do for you.

The other method of using green tea for health benefits is with a green tea extract. With this method, rather than brewing the tea leaves into a drink, the leaves (camellia sinensis) are infused into an herbal extract which can either be taken as a supplement, or added to a topical cream to be applied directly to the skin.

Let’s take a look at both of those uses of green tea extracts.

Green tea extract, when taken as a supplement, is known to have extraordinary health benefits.

One health benefits of green tea extract is that is has incredible anti-inflammatory properties, which can help to reduce the occurrence of inflammatory acne lesions such as papules and pustules.

Also, green tea extract has approximately 20-times the antioxidant effects of vitamin C. This could possibly help with getting rid of the P. acnes bacteria which contributes to the formation of acne lesions.

This is an area where there has been scientific research performed.

Both 2% and 3% concentrations of green tea extract have been shown to be effective at treating mild-to-moderate acne vulgaris (read about these studies here and here).

Unfortunately, topicals with green tea extract are rather expensive, and don’t appear to be as effective as some cheaper alternatives, such as benzoyl peroxide.

Unfortunately, I can’t draw a meaningful conclusion about the effects of drinking green tea on acne. There simply isn’t enough scientific data out there for anyone to know anything.

But, we can conclude that topically applied green tea extract is very good for the skin, and can reduce the occurrence of acne lesions.