Acne Treatments - Oil Pulling

Oil pulling to clear your skin |


I had never even heard of this technique until I stumbled onto earth clinic's site. I was looking for some holistic acne remedies and discovered oil pulling. The idea behind oil pulling is that by gargling oil in your mouth, you pull out toxins in your body and clear your skin (one benefit amongst the numerous touted health benefits of oil pulling).


How to Oil Pull for Acne

What you do is brush your teeth and tongue and then gurgle with a few tablespoons of light, cold-pressed oil. Sunflower, sesame, and olive oil are all recommended oils.

With the oil in your mouth, you suck and pull it through your teeth. The oil moves back and forth from the front of your teeth to behind your teeth and into the back of your mouth. Hopefully that makes sense. Another way to think of it is, oil pulling is what you would do if you had something stuck between your teeth and used water to try to flush it out, only with your lips tightly sealed.

You "oil pull" for about 5-15 minutes and then spit the residue out. It's important to not swallow the post-pulled oil because apparently the oil pulling process pulls all sorts of toxins and nasty stuff out of your body through your tongue and into the oil. When you spit out the oil, it will be foamy and white and the foaminess and whiteness of it is supposedly all the bacteria and toxins the oil pulling has just gotten out of your body.


Really, Toxins?

It's probably fake though. I think the whiteness and frothiness of it comes from squishing the oil around in your mouth while it's being mixed with saliva. If you think about it, if you have oil, water, or some other salad dressing ingredients that you shake in a jar, it'll temporarily emulsify and do the same thing. I don't really think the whiteness or the frothiness of the pulled oil comes from actual bacteria and toxins, but rather simply from the mixing of oil, air, and saliva.

Some people claim that if you look at the oil pulling contents under a microscope you'll see all this "live bacteria" but, um, allow me to re-live my teenage years by saying, DUH! We all have bacteria in our mouths anyway. If you took a cotton swab of the inside of your mouth, you'd still see live bacteria. It doesn't take oil pulling to do that.

Nonetheless, oil pulling is supposed to be great for clearing your sinuses, tightening up any loose teeth, and improving acne. I oil pulled for about a week and I've got to tell you, it is a really disgusting experience. I had to hold my breath whenever I was doing it because the texture of the oil is nasty (it feels like oil curdling in your mouth) and plain oil does not taste good. I have since developed an aversion to olive oil. And to think I used to like dipping my bread in it!

Needless to say, oil pulling did not do a darn thing for my acne. However, it's probably doing something because lots of people on earth clinic claim that it works. If you want real proof, thatoneguyonline on YouTube conducted a two week experiment with oil pulling. Again, no results whatsoever.


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Last updated: January 31, 2011


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