Since everything medical checked out, I decided it was a topical issue, and flipped over all of my products to check the ingredients. After a little detective work, I realized that there are a lot of irritating (read: acne-causing) ingredients in my products.

I used the website cosDNA.com (you can also find specific products on the Environmental Working Group's website) to pinpoint products that won't break me out. I bought only natural products (and spent a lot of time in Whole Foods). But despite my product detective work and ingredient scanning, I was (you guessed it!) still breaking out.

Finally, I was fed up with everything. I decided to give up products of any kind. No makeup, no moisturizer, no spot treatments — nothing.

I have naturally dry skin (proof that you can be non-oily and acne-prone, regardless of what skin care commercials might have you believe), so a couple of days into my newest experiment my skin was dry and flaky. I was actually afraid of using moisturizer because I associated it with breakouts. I figured my natural face oils would do their job.

They didn't, though, and I kept getting new pimples. I tried a makeup and product-free lifestyle for two months, and my skin didn't change. Since my skin felt better (less tight) when I used products, I decided to try a gentle cleanser and moisturizer, but to leave out the acne treatments since they seem to make my skin angry.

With the cleanser and moisturizer, my skin felt calmer, but I still had acne. Since some of my blemishes were of the cystic, lurking-under-the-skin type, I realized (after some research) that my acne might be related to my hormones. Since I didn't want to go to extreme measures yet, like Accutane or birth control, I decided to take a holistic approach.

First, I tried "Acne Free in Three Days," a popular e-book. It claimed that my acne would be eliminated by just eating apple for three days. Sounds crazy, but if you've had acne, you know that you'll try anything to get rid of it. I tried to eat just apples for a few days, but my energy levels were so low I caved and had real food. I also tried cucumbers, since people (i.e., the Internet) said that they're supposed to be cleansing and cooling to the body. I also tried eating chicken butts (seriously), which some people believe help heal the skin due to the hormones. I even rubbed garlic on my acne, since people say it's antimicrobial and claim it helps kill the bacteria.

When that didn't work, I took the opposite tack and started cutting things out. My sister cut dairy out of her diet and noticed an improvement in her skin, so I decided to nix dairy, too, along with sugar and processed foods. However, it didn't really make a difference for me.

A whole lot of weird grocery lists later, I still had acne.

Eventually, I noticed that my picking habit was doing the most harm. I kept a diary of my breakouts, and every time I picked my skin, my notes showed that I got more pimples in that area a week later. I adopted a no-pick policy. Whiteheads were incredibly hard for me to keep my hands off of, but I resisted the urge to pop with a few tactics.

When I decided not to pick, I stopped picking everything. Even if a pimple was nasty, yellow, and about to pop, I would let it pop on its own when I washed my face. I also put little Band-Aids or DuoDerm over my pimples. Out of sight, out of mind was what I was aiming for. So, I also threw away any small mirrors, extractors, tweezers and anything else that could potentially trip me up.. When washing my face or using the restroom, I'd even take off my glasses so I wouldn't see anything to pick. Besides not over-analyzing my skin, I also took a hands-free approach. My hands were no longer allowed to even graze my face.

You won't really see the results of not picking overnight, so it does take willpower and patience. But with the basic skin care routine and my hands-off policy I adopted, I noticed that my skin looked a little better — and that's the best motivation I could ask for.

Since my acne seemed to be mainly hormonal (and is especially bad around my chin, where most dermatologists say hormonal acne pops up), I kept going back to it being related to an internal imbalance.

I read that fish oil (around $9 at the drugstore) and spearmint tea ($3.50 for a box) can help balance your hormones. As demonstrated by my track record, I was game for anything. About three weeks into fish oil supplements and daily spearmint tea, I noticed that my inflamed pimples were slowly decreasing.

I cut out spearmint tea, just to see if that was behind the sudden control over my acne I was experiencing. Three months later, I still hadn't gotten one of those deep cysts, so I knew the spearmint tea wasn't a magic brew keeping my acne at bay.

Then, because I was trying to approach this scientifically, I decided to cut out the fish oil, too. Bad idea. I started to get a lot of pimples right around my menstrual cycle. Back to popping fish oil!

The combination of the no-pick policy and fish oil supplements seemed to be a recipe my skin likes. Finally, I had made some headway.

Even though I wanted to cheer because I finally did something my skin seems okay with, it was hard to be excited when I still had so many clogged pores, blackheads and red marks. I was afraid of using too many products, so I decided to just use a beta-hydroxy acid (BHA) to treat the clogged pores — no other harsh products. I tried Paula's Choice Skin Perfecting 2% BHA Liquid ($18) and Paula's Choice 8% AHA Gel ($19.20).

The BHA refined my skin and helped to smooth it. It doesn't work (for me) on bigger, hormone-related acne, but it did a lot for my topical, bacteria-based spots.

The red marks were (and still are) trickier to deal with. Time really is the best healer for these, but I've found that using BHAs, gentle exfoliation, a vitamin C serum and always wearing sunscreen help (red marks will get darker in the sun if unprotected).