acv and jojoba oil are very tempting but im gonna stick this out

okay, quick update:

i began this little experiment with water only. after 2-3 days of that, i decided to make things a little more interesting. Now, no water touches my face at all. I said earlier that my skin became blotchy etc at day 3-4. That certainly happened.

Right now (day 7): blotchiness gone. havent yet broken out (had a couple of whiteheads on days 1-3). My skin is quite dead/flakey in some areas (which i have left alone!! No moisturiser/exfoliation..nothing!) but i have like no redness.

Irritation?? Havent experienced it for days now

I have a few redmarks but otherwise, im clear.

HOWEVER, i am not getting too excited yet. ive been excited about things in the past and have become disappointed soon after (havent we all??)

what's interesting is that i have eaten more junk this week than i have in months (for like 7 days!! - like did i just skip a breakout??) like my diet has been interesting...i'll eat a nice paleo lunch and then for arvo snack i'll enjoy some choc chip cookies, doritos with salsa, chocolate, heaps of great stuff..haha what a contrast eh?

yes, maybe i will breakout very soon and it will be nasty..so far so good however. I figured that whilst im not washing, i'd make this experiment even more interesting by getting off my strict diet..



i'll let you know how things turn out

adz

okay so if you find that your skin becomes easily irritated (even with water), it might be useful to investigate the quality of your water?? i just looked it up on an official website for my city (sydney - then looked up my area)

for my area, the pH of the water is 7.7-8.0 and the "hardness" of the water is in the slight-moderate hard range

previously, when my skin felt really irritated and dry, i would splash tap water on it to get that cool feeling..i think that it irritated by skin further (being without the my acid mantle and all). i no longer do that anymore and i think its making a big difference

So how fast did all the redness take to go away. Im asking because you said in a previous post you had signs of seb dermatitis so i want to know if you think this might have cured you. ....oh and what kind of acne do you have? is it like adult acne or is it hormonal.

i turned 20 a couple of weeks ago. i started breaking out at 16-17. prob considered hormonal acne BUT i have always been adamant that i should have never had this in the first place (drinking protein shakes - the milk - broke me out bad at 17 and i didnt realise this until 18. products, in my opinion, prolonged the condtion to now so in that sense, i would consider it adult.)

right now, im clear from any redness/irritation. yes, i experienced what appeared to be signs of seb derm on days 3/4 (and have had it a little bit in the past i think). blotchiness/redness/irritation completely gone. even that nasty red blotch (rash like) on the side of my nose

commmenting now, i would say that the "nothing (including no water) regimen" has cured me. HOWEVER!!!!! that is commenting NOW. like i said in a previous post, i hav been hopeful about things in the past but later things dont work out. im not getting too excited but remain optimistic

how fast did it take for the redness to go away? a few days (im currently at day 7). it got worse before it got better (not sure of the reason but it certainly did).

importantly, what i have noticed it that where redness was previously is where the skin has become dead/flakey (but no longer red!!) this is the difference: i have not used any moisturiser/exfoliator or even water to remove the flakes. Slowly, the flakes are falling off naturally and the skin underneath is clear as day.

my face is doing the job all by itself

oh and by the way, my skin is fair so when i say that there is no redness, there really is no redness

how do you expect to shave?

it's the caveman regimen. cavemen are hairy because they don't shave

i shaved today for the first time in 7 days..i used electric (yeh i know..cavemen didnt have electric razors but yeh) if my facial hair wasnt patchy, id consider not shaving

Using only water for like 2 weeks now, I've noticed a couple of things.

Any pimple I get is much smaller than what I used t get while using products or perscription meds on my face.

And, I enjoy using water because I never have to put on moisturizer!

I stopped using cleansers on my face a few months ago, and noticed my skin produced less oil. I gently wash my face in the shower in the morning using just my washcloth, to remove dirt from the day before and from physical training in the morning. I apply ACV topically in the morning and at night, and acne is almost non-existent for me, and oil is only a small concern now.

I approve of this regimen!

Hmm I wish I could try this but I get SOOOOO flaky, like ridiculously flaky and I'm a full-time student.. so I would look really bad..

Meh, just add a little bit of moisturizer then. Who knows, maybe some cavemen used some kind of natural moisturizers as well, like honey and coconut oil.

Where can this info be found?

I'm a full time student at a University, and I get REALLY flaky as well. With my flakiness personally, I've noticed that moisturizer helps to a degree and 2ndly, the flakiness will go away for the most part after a couple of hours following my morning shower.

yeh, at the moment im really flakey on my chin but i dont want to disturb it with anything so im gonna see how long i can wait it out for.




umm, i just went to "sydney water' and they provide the info in it..just googled my city and water..maybe your city doesnt produce details about water quality?? im not sure...



i just looked back to waterwater's thread (a masterpiece in my opinion haha) and he said that the dead/flakey skin went away after about 2 weeks...i reckon if i use moisturiser/anything (including water) it'll mess up my progress so im leaving it alone

im back on the paleo diet after a week of eating biscuits, pasta, rice, chocolate and other things. I still havent broken out BUT my energy levels are not good enough for some serious study...and plus i want to start exercising next week so i want my body to be kinda ready.

i guess i now appreciate paleo for my health in general which is kinda nice

Actually, that thread really convinced me that I'd been kinda messing up my skin all these years. It was either that thread, or the thread by the guy who claimed that in 8 months of only using water, his skin completely cleared up. In theory, it makes sense for people who have no family history of acne; consistently using chemicals on your face will do more harm then good.

Like I say, humans in the past generally did not get acne past a certain point, and I think the adult acne rate nowadays screams one of two things:
1. our diets are terrible or
2. people that get adult acne and compensate for it by using even more topicals stick themselves into a vicious cycle that they'll never be able to get out of

I haven't used anything but water for about 2 weeks now, and my face looks better now than it did when I used to use stuff on my face. Yeah, I still have red marks and stuff on my face, but the pimples I get now are nowhere near the size that they used to be. I realized that the only reason I got pimples on my chin was because I used to use apply chemicals on it. Since not using anything, I barely get pimples there (in grade 11, when I used to use things, I used to get HUMOUNGOUS cysts there), and the pimples I do get disappear after about a day or so.

I don't know about never washing my face, cuz I have a habit of running my face in the water in the morning (otherwise I'll never wake up) but between the morning shower and the end of the day water-splash, water doesn't come anywhere near my face....well unless I go to the gym then I just quickly rinse the sweat off.

Oops...everytime I come on this damn board and say my face has been looking better, it just randomly breaks out lol. I swear to god, that's happened TWICE now. I'll think I'm getting clear, post it on this board, and 3 days later breakout like mad. Although this time I'm pretty sure the alchohol is what caused it.

karma the key point in ur regimen is te binge eating that is waht probably caused the breakout or the aclohol u said its still considered binge eating. Drinking al that alcohol i think =O well its similaR!

Actually, this weekend, I was clear so I kinda got lazy.

I drank a shit load of milk (I never drink milk), I also really, REALLY binged on alchohol. I think I had around 6-10 bottles in a couple of hours, so I'm surprised my breakouts not even worse. Last week, I had evened out my portions much better, and had attempted to sleep properly.

The binge eating really seems to have an effect on even my LEVEL of inflammation. For example, on sunday I couldnt even eat any solid food until about 6 pm or so because I would puke out whatever I tried to eat prior to that time (hang over!). So basically, I didnt end up eating till like 6-7 pm and I ended up eating a huge meal to compensate for not eating the whole day. Here i am now, and my pimples just inflamed like crazy on spots on my face I normally DONT get inflamed pimples in.

So, it either could have been the milk (known for inflamation I think) or it was the binge eating. I would like to think its the alchohol.