924 replies to this topic

[Adam08]

Yep, no longer am i going to wash my face. I have had great success with the caveman diet in the past but my skin was still flakey/little dry at times..I think it was the water or something.

I'm now back on the diet and starting my new "regimen".

When i was clear, i NEVER washed my face (even with water!). It's time to make my skin normal again.

Let the healing begin!

Disclaimer (writing over a year later):

It appears that many people have had success with this approach. People have tinkered this approach in various ways (some with water, some without etc etc) with varying success.

Not washing with water at all, whilst liberating, did not work for ME. I am convinced that the use of steroid creams (years ago!) have damaged my skin to a degree whereby 'simply doing nothing' is not enough to heal my skin.

I don't have acne anymore. I haven't for ages. I do get zits from time to time but no big deal. At the moment, I am trying to heal my chin. It occurred to me that my skin has been flakey and dry for years and I havent touched a cream for years! Ridiculous.

I am a stubborn person. I have refused to use moisturizers in the past. And whenever I did use them, I found them difficult to apply. I think that this was because of the flakiness. Applying moisturizer when my skin was flakey created the biggest mess. However, I have read that it is best to exfoliate the skin prior to moisturizing (note: this is conventional wisdom so yes I am naturally skeptical). I think that moisturizers have been ineffective for me in the past because the new skin needed moisture, and the outer 'dead layer' of the skin was not allowing the cream to get where it needed to go.

I have learnt that manuel exfoliation of my skin does not give me acne (I have been doing this for months). However, it does give me temporary redness.

My current approach has been to gently exfoliate the outside layer of my skin then moisturize the new skin. I am hoping that this will heal my skin.

So yeh, there it goes. I still do believe in this 'caveman regimen' but only to an extent. In my case, I think that my skin has been damaged to a degree that it cannot simply heal on its own. I am now using chemicals to help my skin repair itself from chemical damage in the past. The irony hurts a little but whatever. I keep an open mind.

All the best,
Ads

Edited by Adam08, 13 November 2009 - 02:15 PM.

[I am Snow]

Would love to hear how this works out. I wonder if part of the reason I have acne is because I got one or two spots, went ape shit and started treating the hell out of it, and then ended up just making it worse.

[Listener]

Not washing my face was the biggest step to clearing my acne.
Make sure you don't use a shaving razor either. That strips the skin of the acid mantle just as much as washing with surfactants does (probably more).

I've been not washing my face for well over a year now and that's testament enough.
Make sure no water, no scrubbing with a towel. When you get oily blot it off by dabbing your face with toilet paper whenever you use the bathroom.

If your flakiness persists then you may have seborrhoeic dermatitis. If so then try topical ketoconazole (nizoral cream for example) to start off with. (don't wash face just apply cream twice daily)

If that doesn't work then ask your GP for doxycycline.

Just do it
-Nike

[Adam08]

my face has NEVER been oily. Yeh i know..may sound a little strange. Thats why i reckon this "nothing regimen" will be good for me.

currently on day 4 of this regimen. No new breakouts but my face is dryer/more blotchy than usual..i trust that my skin will be able to adapt

btw ive recently come off just cetaphil cleanser and cream..

[jbrown]

my face has NEVER been oily. Yeh i know..may sound a little strange. Thats why i reckon this "nothing regimen" will be good for me.

currently on day 4 of this regimen. No new breakouts but my face is dryer/more blotchy than usual..i trust that my skin will be able to adapt

btw ive recently come off just cetaphil cleanser and cream..

I was in the same boat. If it wasn't for problems with food, i would still be using only water. Works well, good luck.

[Mans]

wow i wish i could do this. hope it works for you though.

My face is super oily and not washing it would just be so unholy. I would feel so dirty.

Good luck mate!

Post pics and let us know how it goes

[Adam08]

hey mans, people who have had oily skin have had success with this regimen..

obviously, i cant empathise with you because my skin is not oily, BUT check out a thread in diet/holistic log by waterwater and an older one by alexalmighty (worked for them and others; they began with oily skin)

and yes, initially their skin became very oily but later subsided

[UFOrescue]

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Edited by UFOrescue, 10 January 2011 - 12:55 PM.

[Adam08]

generally meat (ideally lean), fish, fruit, veggies, nuts (the paleo diet)

at the moment though, i've eased up on the diet because im doubting whether im actually insulin resistant. I've been looking into the idea of the skin's acid mantle and how products can disrupt it..i don't think i've had an acid mantle on my face for 4 years!!! So right now im not washing to let my skin recover..

so far the progress has been interesting. I started this regimen with flakiness/dryness especially around the chin. I've probably let water touch my face in the shower for about 5 seconds on a couple of occasions (cold water at low pressure).

My skin is still dry but i think that some of the red blotches are beginning to go down. I have a rash like blotch next to my nose which is a bit sore....im yet to have a significant breakout

im going to consume HEAPS of water today (doesnt bother me that many in the medical profession bleieve that this has no impact on skin's hydration level - im doing it anyway). I already drink a fair bit of water but today im going to really step it up

[Glass Danse]

generally meat (ideally lean), fish, fruit, veggies, nuts (the paleo diet)

at the moment though, i've eased up on the diet because im doubting whether im actually insulin resistant. I've been looking into the idea of the skin's acid mantle and how products can disrupt it..i don't think i've had an acid mantle on my face for 4 years!!! So right now im not washing to let my skin recover..

so far the progress has been interesting. I started this regimen with flakiness/dryness especially around the chin. I've probably let water touch my face in the shower for about 5 seconds on a couple of occasions (cold water at low pressure).

My skin is still dry but i think that some of the red blotches are beginning to go down. I have a rash like blotch next to my nose which is a bit sore....im yet to have a significant breakout

im going to consume HEAPS of water today (doesnt bother me that many in the medical profession bleieve that this has no impact on skin's hydration level - im doing it anyway). I already drink a fair bit of water but today im going to really step it up

You could always try using Dove basic soaps, they have a pH of only 7 (within 1 point of skin pH) compared to some other soaps with pH's of 12 or so. Some natural soaps are like this as well, like goat's milk soap. I have never used this, but that Dove soap has worked out well for me in the past. You don't want to be washing your face with soaps with high pH's... the closer to the pH of your skin, the better.

I could never go without washing my face, personally. I have gone on short bouts of not washing it over the summer. I thought my acne was looking good, but it wasn't any better than before.

[Adam08]

thanks for your advice, glass dance. Yeh, i might consider a soap with a lower pH later but at the moment i want to stick by this and put some faith in my skin..as i said, ive just come off cetaphil products and whilst im not sure about the ph level, it does say pH balanced if thats anything to go by..

interestingly, my face doesnt seem to like being off them for the time being (due to the dryness/blotchiness at the moment).. i guess my face will have to get used to it

[Fiyero]

How do you know for certain that cavemen didn't have acne?

also - how do you know cavemen didn't wash their faces?

[Adam08]

from the movies haha.

nah, i dont know. But this is what i do know: when i was 16, my skin type was NORMAL. Not sensitive, not dry, not acne-prone. Even during winter, my skin was normal. When it was windy, my skin was normal. After being in the sun, my skin was normal.'..you get the point..

i have faith that my skin WILL become normal again if i give it the chance

oh and also,,i didnt really address your point about cavemen and acne becuase i was talking about skin type. At the moment, im trying to get my skin back to normal (primary goal) and if that means that my breakouts are reduced as a result, then great...otherwise im fed up with weak skin..time to harden up

[Adam08]

Something I didnt know:

How acid mantle is destroyed?

If you strip the skin of its acidic mantle by using strong alkaline soaps/cleansers, bacteria will find it easy to attack the skin. Moreover removing the acid mantle disturbs the distribution of dead cells on top of epidermis. This is called stratum corneum. The structure of cells in the dead skin cells layer gets disturbed and the bacteria find an easy passage through to the epidermis. Normally these dead cells protect the skin against such damages. The skin is a miracle. These dead cells if allowed to accumulate will make the skin look very bad, but if totally removed, the skin is left defenseless to an extent.

This is where i am at the moment..quite a bit of dead cells but this time im going to leave them and not use anything (including moisturizer). The healing process has begun

[RockstarNailbomb]

Wow i really hope this works out for you man. I have sebhorheic dermatitis and i think most of the excess oil and redness is because of the fact that i scrub my face on the daily to get rid of that dead skin on my skin. I might just stop completely washing my face if it means that it will heal and i will be back to normal. I first got Seb Derm because i used some soap that my mom got for me and it dried out my skin so bad. After that day my skin was really oily in the areas i washed it in and i used the soap again to try to reduce the oil. Anyways here i am 2 years later with not alot of acne but alot of facial redness and oily skin. If this caveman method really works maybe it can help cure my seb derm.

[Adam08]

i prob have seb derm as well (i'll look it up after i post and diagnose myself haha) and yeh, im pretty hopeful my skin will look after itself

[Adam08]

yeh i saw some pics of seb derm. im not a derm or a doc but it looks pretty close to what ive been getting..looks like a rash

[RockstarNailbomb]

Yeah seb derm really sucks man, ive managed to get it under control by washing my face with head and shoulders, but it sort of irritates the rest of my skin. If you have good results with the caveman regimen, then maybe it could be the answer to most of our problems. Just imagine that, curing acne by just letting your body do what its meant to do. It sounds really simple, but you know what they say; less is more.

[Adam08]

Okay. so day 6 and my skin is starting to heal from the temporary blotchiness (never really had it before - only came once i stopped using cetaphil cream). i used cetaphil cream as a night moisturiser..Yes, it was great. But i believe that the effect of the moisturiser was only temporary. I looked around and found this:

"Most cosmetic products on the market don't actually help the skin repair damage to the barrier or acid mantle. They act as emollients, reducing water loss from the skin by covering it with a protective layer. Effectively they keep water in the skin. Common emollient ingredients include butters, waxes and oils as well as products such as petroleum and lanolin. While emollients are helping to reduce the problem, they aren't actually remedying the underlying cause. The other issue with some emollient ingredients is that they may actually cause more problems'.

Then i read that on the cetaphil label that the cream contains "a unique system of emollients etc""

i think this explains somewhat why my skin became a little blotchy after coming off the cream. My skin is def changing though (it's like im uncovering what is underneath the temporary protective layer which was the cream)..im starting to appreciate why this regimen isnt for the faint-hearted

[JacJack]

Okay. so day 6 and my skin is starting to heal from the temporary blotchiness (never really had it before - only came once i stopped using cetaphil cream). i used cetaphil cream as a night moisturiser..Yes, it was great. But i believe that the effect of the moisturiser was only temporary. I looked around and found this:

"Most cosmetic products on the market don't actually help the skin repair damage to the barrier or acid mantle. They act as emollients, reducing water loss from the skin by covering it with a protective layer. Effectively they keep water in the skin. Common emollient ingredients include butters, waxes and oils as well as products such as petroleum and lanolin. While emollients are helping to reduce the problem, they aren't actually remedying the underlying cause. The other issue with some emollient ingredients is that they may actually cause more problems'.

Then i read that on the cetaphil label that the cream contains "a unique system of emollients etc""

i think this explains somewhat why my skin became a little blotchy after coming off the cream. My skin is def changing though (it's like im uncovering what is underneath the temporary protective layer which was the cream)..im starting to appreciate why this regimen isnt for the faint-hearted

spray with apple vinegar ( 1:1 vinegar and water) then apply jojoba oil
I always use this method but I add complex 15 in it too