I found out many years after the fact that about 80% of my acne was from sugar, so that is something to take into consideration. I know of others who also get acne from dairy.
The most helpful OTC things for me were solutions with either benzoyl peroxide or salicylic acid. The benzoyl peroxide can be extremely drying, however, so I would probably start with a lower concentration first.
It might be helpful to find a cleanser that has fruit enzymes in it too, to help dissolve anything that might be clogging the pores.
Also, for moisturizers, you might want to avoid ones with dimethicone in them, since that causes problems for some people. There was a thread on YLF recently about people's skin reacting to dimethicone. I think that it can make it harder for your pores to do their job.
In the end, the only thing that got my skin cleared up was going to a dermatologist and taking oral antibiotics, unfortunately. I wish I had known about the sugar connection back then, because I'm curious as to whether cutting out white sugar (I can have honey and nonrefined sugars) would have made enough of a difference that I could have gotten by with OTC stuff.
