concentrated mediteranean oregano oil with high carvacrol percentage. pop a drop on a zit, and it kills it. hightly anti bacterial and antifungal. put it on toenail fungus, and its GONE. have food poison? take it when you are first starting to feel something's not right, and you wont be sick for days.

best stuff on the market:

http://www.se1.us/health/oregano/

On the recommendation of Korion and Peat I upped my daily retinol intake (which I get from dairy too, to some degree) from a 25,000 IU supplement to 100,000-125,000 IU. I also bought some OptiZinc and ate some of that too, as if I were feasting on oysters. It's been two days in a row now that not a single pimple or cyst has appeared and the active ones have rapidly shrank and closed. I'm getting really excited by this and will have to update about my progress.. Also note I regularly consume all of the fat soluble vitamins D, K2, A, and E almost entirely from food. I thus far haven't ate any liver or shellfish, hence the retinol and zinc supplements.

Green tea cream is fantastic. Some studies showed it to be as effective as benzoyl peroxide without the nasty side-effects. Other study showed it reduced sebum production by 70% after 8 weeks of use. It does that because it can block the action of androgens in the skin.

Check out oil cleansing method and no-poo for shampoo. I know that I can't use any sort of detergent on my face at all, they all break me out REALLY badly. And I've definitely dealt with the major cystic acne and was even on accutane. Nothing has cleared up my face like eating paleo and ditching soap/cleanser completely.

Another major plus is that oil cleansing method is really cheap! When I first switched I also used a true castile soap to wash my face/hair with (like dr. bronners, kiss my face olive oil soap, etc) and that worked really well. Putting oil on your face won't cause the problem. It might actually help you regulate the oil production.

I would stay away from mega doses of Vit. A as mentioned above. You can completely destroy your liver--there's a reason accutane is so regulated by doctors (it's a form of vit. A).

Well, best prevention is eating a super clean and nutritious Paleo diet.
But if you cheat on your grandma's apple pie...

Wash your face with warm water (no soap), and pat your face dry.
Take a cotton swab and dip it in alcohol. Now press it into each zit. Even the ugliest zit is gone in less than a day.

(I mean the alcohol in your medicine cabinet, not the alcohol you need an ID to buy :P )

I used to use tea tree oil when I was a teenager. Didn't work that well for me but I also never really took that much care to do a proper facial routine. I think it probably works as well as any other off the shelf blemish fixer. Recently, I realized that after I stopped taking vitamin D I got acne on my face. I bought some 5000iu capsules and take one a day and my acne has cleared up really well. My diet hasn't even been particularly clean lately, so this is interesting to me.

When we eat out and sometimes a rogue zit pops out then my husband and I use (and you don't need much):

Green Pastures Beauty Balm. Ingredients: Shea Butter, X-FACTOR Gold High Vitamin Butter Oil, Blue Breeze Organic Coconut Oil, Blue Ice Fermented Cod Liver Oil, Cranberry Oil, Organic Orange Oil, Lavender Oil.

Possible Applications: Rashes, acne, wrinkles, spots, absorption of nutrients through the skin.

I'm not sure what a "zit-zapper" is, but eating 1/4lb of beef liver weekly seems to completely eliminate my acne (although I'm still experimenting to rigorously establish cause and effect). If I forget to eat it, the acne comes back within a week.

Neem oil + tea tree oil combo.

Neem stinks like garlicky peanut butter but it's amazing stuff.

This will destroy any 'zit', any boil, any ringworm... any and ALL blemishes.

Slice the end off a raw garlic clove and squeeze it until the oils sweat to the surface. Rub the oils onto any blemish you might want to be rid of. Twice a day, whatever you're trying to get rid of will be gone after 2 days.

Best natural "zit zapper" I've EVER tried is topical propolis tincture (glycerine-based is easier to wash off than ethanol-based tincture while the ethanol one dries quicker, though they're both equally effective). Apply a drop to the area, let dry and sleep with this on overnight. (I've also tried turmeric, green clay, tea tree oil, lavender oil, nicotinamide, toothpaste, and all sorts of other lotions and potions over the years, but this one glorious natural substance rates as the most effective and quickest-acting spot treatment to date.)

Having said that - after an initial detox type reaction of sorts, my skin seemed to calm right down after going paleo/primal (particularly once I introduced a good probiotic plus cod liver oil and fish oils into the mix). Washing the skin with only raw honey (or honey mixed with rice flour if it needs extra exfoliation) also seems to have made it happier than it ever was in the cycle of stripping with cleansers and then having to rebuild the natural oils and acid mantle again from scratch each time.

To second Kashkillz' recommendation (though i haven't tried it on regular ole zits) - garlic works particularly well on any spots which get infected with staph - it explodes the cell wall to destroy it from within (and because of this mechanism there's no way for the bacteria to become resistant to it as they can with conventional antibiotics).

As with most things of course, what works may vary for different people. All the best with finding your personal zapping grail!

I've had great luck zapping chronic acne by washing my face with honey and moisturizing with coconut oil. A dab of coconut oil at night will zap most zits by morning. If I've got a really big/painful zit, I'll use some of my husband's (not at all natural) toothpaste to take care of it.