8 Natural Remedies That May Help Reduce Rosacea (2024)

By

Reviewed by

Board-Certified Dermatologist

• Athena Ellen is a San Francisco–based esthetician, aromatherapist, and founder of the Monastery Skincare Line.
• Lori Sprester is a skin therapist, esthetician, and owner of the Good Face Spa.
• Nichola Weir is a holistic esthetician and founder of Pacific Touch NYC.

Consider Cleansing Oils

Your face-washing routine is essential in managing rosacea: "Using the wrong cleanser will deplete vital lipids and generate inflammation in the skin, which spells disaster for rosacea sufferers," says Weir. Instead, Ellen suggests using mild cleansers, such as cleansing oils and products high in rosehip seed oil, sea buckthorn oil, tamanu oil, and evening primrose. "These ingredients are highly nutritious and anti-inflammatory," she says.

Not only do oils help reduce inflammation, but they're great for hydration, too. Just be extra careful when it comes to certain subtypes of rosacea like acne rosacea, for which Sprester says she doesn't recommend using any oil at all. What she does recommend, however, are carrot seed oil and blue tansy. "Just remember less is more and no rubbing/massage on rosacea skin," she instructs.

Your Diet

You've heard it before: You are what you eat. That's why our experts encourage incorporating health-promoting foods (read: good fats, high-fiber foods, veggies, turmeric, and ginger) into your diet. Since the gut regulates inflammation in the body, introducing foods that are high in fiber and low in sugar and hydrogenated oils reduces inflammation throughout the whole body, they explain.

This might explain why they often see improvements in their clients with rosacea who have overhauled their diets or recently participated in a cleanse. Plus, who doesn't love another excuse to hit up your local farmers market? You can make going out to get fresh veggies and other foods part of a relaxing weekly ritual.

Drink Aloe Vera Water

Applying aloe vera topically is nothing new, but ingesting it? "Drinking aloe vera water is like drinking water with extra antioxidants and vitamins," Ellen says. "It helps increase the water content in the intestines and helps to eliminate toxins in the body, thus helping inflammation in the body and lessening rosacea."

You can buy aloe vera water at the store, or you can make your own. To do it at home, take a few cubes of aloe (cut fresh out of an aloe stem, beneath the green part) and add them to a blender. Add water to the aloe cubes in the blender and blend until the two are totally mixed. If you want, you can add a bit of lemon or juice for some extra flavor.

Avoid Potential Irritants

Always check the ingredients of your skincare products. "Most skincare is loaded with preservatives and irritants. Avoid gel cleansers, acidic exfoliating cleansers, and any products with salicylic acid or benzoyl peroxide," advises Ellen, as well as scrubs, retinol, and glycolic acid.

Weir explains, "Rosacea does not respond well to acne-fighting actives like salicylic acid or benzoyl peroxide and using the more conventional stripping ingredients found in OTC acne products can be disastrous for a barrier that is already highly inflamed and impaired." Sometimes, it's a matter of do-no-harm, which means that relying on simple and non-irritating ingredients.

Choose Products With Anti-Inflammatories

Because the skin barrier is compromised when it comes to rosacea, it can be even easier to irritate. The best course of action is to strengthen and calm this skin barrier as much as possible, which Weir says should be the priority when it comes to rosacea.

This is why you tend to see certain ingredients in sensitive-skincare products. We're talking: lavender, oatmeal, chamomile, and licorice. These ingredients are known to have calming properties, according to Sprester.

Try Cosmeceutical Skincare

Sprester suggests using cosmeceutical-grade products for sensitive to hypersensitive skin, as they will have certain irritants removed. "Omega fatty acids are great at restoring the skin, and hyaluronic acid in combination with calming botanicals," she says. "You can take these things as supplements and find them in products which is a powerful way to get results with your skin."

Make a DIY Face Mask

DIY face masks are easier to make than ever. First, there's aloe vera, which works wonders for redness—it contains skin-enhancing vitamins C and E and amino acids for a soothing effect. And although aloe vera works perfectly well by itself, combining other calming products (like cucumbers) helps to create the perfect natural mask to combat irritation.

"Applying pure aloe vera gel, a green tea compress, or a colloidal oatmeal maskwill temporarily relieve the skin, reducing redness and inflammation," says Ellen. Plus, there's a good chance you've got most of those ingredients in your house already.

Meditate

Keep calm and don't stress. Our experts tell us that stress affects skin and plays a big role in triggering inflammation. They suggest developing a daily meditation routine—even two minutes will do—to lower stress both in your mind and body.

Meditating in the morning is a calm way to start your day, and it's rather simple to incorporate into your routine. Even if meditation doesn't tend to cure rosacea, taking a couple of minutes to let your mind clear and focus on breathing deeply before starting your day happens to be quite helpful overall.

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3. Fox LT, du Plessis J, Gerber M, van Zyl S, Boneschans B, Hamman JH. In vivo skin hydration and anti-erythema effects of aloe vera, aloe ferox and aloe marlothii gel materials after single and multiple applications.Pharmacogn Mag. 2014;10(Suppl 2):S392-S403. doi:10.4103/0973-1296.133291