You're told often to drink lots of water - it's good for you. But what you might not know that drinking water can get rid of acne and keep your skin clear. That's a real bonus outside of the day-to-day benefits of keeping your body well hydrated by drinking water regularly.

Water is an essential component of a healthy diet for every single person on this planet. It helps us to reduce our weight, our blood pressure and helps to flush toxins from the body. It's that last component (the flushing the toxins part) that helps us with your acne and skin problems.

Acne is caused by hormones that are a little out of control and as water helps to flush toxins, it also helps to flush those hormones from your body; or at least the extra amount of those hormones that you simply don't need.

Maybe that sounds a little odd. Here's how it works: Water is a detoxifier. It helps to flush out a variety of toxins from our body. Many hormones trigger the development of acne. They do this by triggering sebum production by the sebaceous glands that are just below the surface of the skin.

This sebum actually does serves a purpose (not just to cause acne of course!), which is to keep the skin moist and prevent it from cracking and drying out. But the mouth of the glands, which are skin pores, can get blocked with dead skin and dust, and it's all mixed with sebum.

Now completely blocked, the sebum can't escape and this causes red inflammatory heads called acne to form. To a certain extent this is normal, but for teens and others who have more active hormones, this can cause serious acne.

How can water help then? Water flushes away these hormones, which helps the sebum to do its job and not be trapped under the skin. When you drink a lot of water, you either sweat it out or you urinate it out. Either way, with the water comes a variety of toxins like hormones.

What if you don't like water? What if 8 glasses a day sounds like 7 too many? There are some solutions for people who don't like water. It's best to make the effort, since water is so good for our bodies. You will notice a difference in your skin and your overall energy level when you drink enough water.

Here's how to make water more palatable:

* Add a squeeze of lemon or lime to it.

* Add individual packets of flavoring to a bottle of water (only do this for up to about 16 ounces of water a day).

* Drink decaffeinated tea. Tea will act in much the same way as water, but caffeine makes you hang onto fluids, so drink decaf tea for a portion of your daily water allotment (up to half).

Carry a bottle of water around with you everyday. If you take a sip now and then, you'll find that it's easy to get your daily allowance of water without too much effort or thought going into it.