An outburst of pimples can diminish your child's self-esteem to a great extent. How can you help? Babies, and children, have perfect skin: soft, velvety, smooth and blemish-free. So what happens to skin, when children enter their pre-teens and teens? Raging hormones, an unhealthy diet and pollution, all combine to play havoc on the skin's surface, and your child's face soon feels like sandpaper and resembles the surface of the moon. An outburst of pimples can diminish your child's self-esteem to a great extent. How can you, as a parent, help? Pimples A simple soap and water routine can help dry out pimples. Make sure your child washes her face at least three times a day, with soap and water. If your child's skin is very oily, she should apply soap before wetting her face. Camphor solution dries out pimples, and it soothes the skin. Keep a bottle handy so you can pat the solution onto the problem areas at regular intervals. If a pimple-head has already formed, put a hot towel on the pimple repeatedly until it comes out. Then pat on some camphor. Onions are also useful in dealing with pimples. Cut a few onions and cook them in lard until they become transparent. When they have cooled, tie the mixture in a muslin cloth and apply it to the pimples in the form of a poultice. Blackheads Soap and water combined with a steam routine seems to be the best approach. Add dried lime flowers to a pint of boiling water and steam the face in this solution for 10 minutes. As a result, pores will open up. Press the skin around the blackheads with cotton wool or tissue. Then close the pores with an astringent solution, and wash with soap and water. A steam face bath with Epsom salts added to it is also effective. If the blackheads are still clinging on stubbornly, pat some almond oil on them and gently squeeze them out. You can also try a solution made of 6 ounces of distilled water and 27 grains of soda bicarbonate. Rub this solution over the blackheads. Milk also helps treat blackheads. Wash the face with warm water and then sponge it for fifteen minutes with tepid milk every day. Apply a little warmed honey to the face, and wash off after fifteen minutes. Exfoliate your skin with a facial scrub, twice a week. Make your own homemade exfoliating scrub. Dissolve four ounces of powdered almonds, two ounces of glycerine soap and one ounce of multani mitti in a little water. Then rub this solution onto the blackhead-affected areas on your face. Large pores While there is no permanent remedy to close large pores, astringents do help to temporarily tighten and close them. Buttermilk has astringent qualities. Apply it on your face and leave it on for 15 minutes before washing off with cool water. Egg white also helps tighten skin. Beaten egg white should be applied on the face with cotton wool and washed off after 15 minutes. Tomato juice contains Vitamin C and potassium and works wonders on large pores. It can be used alone or mixed with curd or multani mitti to make an excellent pore-closing paste. Lettuce juice is another alternative. Pastes made of cornmeal or oatmeal have also been found to help closing pores. The paste should be made with hot water, applied and left on for about half an hour. It should then be washed off with cool water. Powdered alum mixed with hot water or rosewater and egg white is also good for tightening and closing large pores. You can also make a good skin tonic using equal parts of vinegar and water. As in the case of pimples, camphor works well towards tightening and closing open pores. A few drops of camphor spirit mixed with rose water or cool water makes a nice pore-tightening solution. The most important tip of all: start taking care of your child's complexion from the outset, so she never has to endure the pain associated with far-from-perfect skin. After all, prevention is better than cure.