696 replies to this topic

[Green_Vegetable_Man]

I think BP helps in the short term. But if you can slowly avoid BP completely you are doing fine.

Every medication has side effects and minimal use is always the best.

Having said that, I am using a after shave balm containing SA in areas I shave because I hate getting bumps/ pimples in that area which get cut with the razor blade and bleed.

I TRIED NOT SHAVING BECAUSE SEVERE ACNE DESTROYED NORMAL HAIR GROWTH IN CERTAIN PARTS OF MY FACE WHEN I WAS A TEENAGER MY BEARD IS NOT UNIFORM AND VERY THIN AND HAIR WILL NOT GROW IN CERTAIN PARTS.

SO IT LOOKS VERY BAD AND I HAVE TO SHAVE REGULARLY.

Twice a week at night I have started using BP in shaved parts of my face and forehead/ sides behind my ears etc.

I DO NOT LIKE BP BECAUSE IT HAS SUCH A STRONG EFFECT OF DRYING AND WILL NOT PUT IT ON TWICE A DAY.

ALEX IS PROBABLY ON THE RIGHT TRACK AND WILL SOON BE ACNE FREE.

[duluxdog]

Puberty does have to do with elevated sebum production,but severe acne sufferers have so much oil its just unnatural.Correct me if im wrong but the purpose of BP isnt to kill bacteria? it doesnt have to be "antibiotic" , alcohol and high temperatures kill bacteria too,so not only antibacterial solutions have these results.BP doesnt get less effective over time,i meant it just works temporarily => As soon as you stop using it you go back to where you started.
Now if you attribute acne to high sebum production and believe that doing nothing will contribute to that high production,then wouldnt he brake out badly immediatetly and not the other way around (lie you say)?Im sure he tried it for 12-72 hours which is not the point and he got the "initial brakeout" that i repeated in almost every damn post in this thread.Actually your skin will be crap for 7-10 days.His short term benefit was that his skin looked less red with all the sebum inside.(moist promoted healing).

Also as i said previously,im pretty sure people here are intelligent enough to make their own decisions,but you dont mind reading what everybody else writes,right?You are the shit and know better.

The purpose of BP is to kill the bacteria, and it's pretty good at it most of the time. Especially in large amounts.

I don't know what happened to that guy, that's just what he reported. It was some while ago, maybe a year or more on clearskin.net. I recall it from the thread Jerryhsu started.

I am the shit? Is that a good thing?(-: I know people can understand what is being said and to make their own decisions. I hope you do get clear from this regimen, don't get me wrong.. but I don't think it is for everyone at all.

[collegegeek]

Im 20 years old and thinking about doing the no bp/face wash thing. If you look at pictures of people in the early 1900s you hardly saw anyone with acne and anyone that did have it had mostly outgrown by their twenties. They didnt shower regualry. In the morning they would shave with crapy blunt razors and that was it. No moisturizer. They even sometimes shaved again for their dinner in the evenings. Noone else in my family has or ever had acne and they eat shit and dont wash! And hey they have clear skin. Im the only one washin and caring about my skin but im the one with acne! Its the same with friends who drink all night and head straidht for bed without washing.Im not doing the regimen but I wash twice a day with c&c and apply bp to problem areas. Im thinkink of copying my dads daily routine which is just shaving in morn and brushing teeth.

Any thoughts?

[AlexAlmighty]

If BP isnt working for you try my way .Its inexpensive too.I have to warn you though..if your skin is very oily you better be prepared for a week in hell

[Yaakman]

why dont we just look at french people and see how their skin is... they never shower

[Green_Vegetable_Man]

The Los Angeles Times reported the shocking results of a series of polls and studies: 55% of French men and 51% of women do not take a bath or shower daily. The studies, unfortunately, don't tell us how many of them take showers annually. But I can only guess that water consumption is especially high just before Valentine's Day.

The studies dug up even more dirt on the French: 40% of men and 25% of women don't change their underwear daily. And some of the rest probably don't even wear underwear.

What's more, 50% of men and 30% of women don't use deodorant. And the men who use the most deodorant are probably the ones who never take showers.

http://melvindurai.com/french.htm

[Yaakman]

french are dirty little basturds and the women dont shave their armpits

[duluxdog]

Well done, you just proved to everyone that you are an enormous retard. I'd rather be French than American any day.

Just because America does something doesn't mean it's right. This is why so many hate Americans so much. Your way is NOT the compulsory way of doing everything. If something is different, that does not make it wrong. It seems to the outside world that the people of America are so stupid, and fucking fat, because of this.

Your nation needs to lose some major flab. IT is NOT okay to be weight 39548395 pounds. Stop going to McDonald's, fatasses. Recently, a French designer I read about was commenting on sizes in foreign counties compared to France. And I recall he said something akin to 'Americans need to be told is not safe to weigh off the scale. In America they go on TV and say 'I am fat and proud' on talkshows and people applaud and clap their hands..'. I think that guy rules.

[ewok]

french are dirty little basturds and the women dont shave their armpits

Why the hell should women shave when men don't? People like you disgust me

[Kelin]

Okay.. I have several things to comment on here.
First, about the French people not showering or changing their underwear - Just because they don't shower every day doesn't mean that they're filthy. Most Americans have just gotten so used to showering daily that they believe that everyone who doesn't do it is digusting. I mean, there is a reason that France has such a booming perfume industry, right? Also, soap, shampoo, and deodorant are a lot more expensive there than they are here.. I think the armpit shaving thing is a myth. I have known many French women who shave their armpits, as I have known several American women who don't.. But my point is... French people sort of think that we're weird here for using all the lotions and hair conditioners that we use here.. They say we wouldn't need to if we'd stop showering so often and washing off all of our bodies' natural oils. Maybe they have a point..

I have never gone to the extent to which AlexAlmighty has gone, but I have found that my skin is much calmer when I'm not killing it with cleansers and topicals. For a long time, I just wasn't washing my makeup off at night, but people kept telling me how bad that was for my face, that I started again... I have trouble seeing how it's better to have acne than to leave my makeup on my face overnight. It honestly is amazing though how much less oil I would wake up with after going to sleep without washing my face. And then skintone is so much more even when I do that.

[Yaakman]

i wash my face after a shower every night then i dont take a shower untill the upcoming night... and my natural oils are regained but if u reli want to regain ur oils dont wash ur face and take showers at seperate times just shower once a day and wash ur face the same time once a day and u shud be a naturally oily mofo by the end of the day ...

somehow when my face gets oily i tend to get many blackheads

[hauntedmoon]

I have noticed that when i wake up in the morning i will look in the mirror and be like YAY my face looks better! and then take a shower and wash my face and then get out and look in the mirror again and somehow miraculously, zits have appeared where they weren't before, my face looks overall worse. Thats it, no more cleansers for me. I have been using cetaphil gentle cleanser and my prescribed topicals, but my face is sooo dry and flaky, and I hate putting moisturizers and things on my face. But then last night when I washed my face with just the cleanser and didn't even put my topical on, i just waited. After about 20 mins my face was already dry and flaky.

My boyfriend has never washed his face in his life, and yes he gets like ONE pimple now and then, but he definitly doesn't have acne. He just puts some BP on his unwashed face in the morning (he takes showers at night). He only uses it every few days, also.

Which reminds me, I read this entire post, and it reminded me of something I learned in psychology. Ways of knowing things. The idea that cleaner is better, more is better, tight skin is clean, dryer is better, yada yada yada is a form of tenacity, i.e. something that has been stated over and over for years and years so it is believed to be true. The whole "I'm gonna leave my face alone and do like the cavemen did" is a good way of thinking. It is called common sense. Trust me, I have thought about it before, why only recently acne has become an increasing concern. Thanks for bringing this thought up.

[AlexAlmighty]

frogsoblivious04: This has been brought up many times but noone pays attention because of the blind trust people have for doctors,and even worse the trust for companies that make products and brainwash us with hundreds of commercials per day.I also noticed that freshmen every year in my school have more and more acne,i think the 21st century can be summed up by a big ol nasty whitehead .

[nevermind]

I read a few of the first pages but none since, sry if i missed something important. my question... If you arent wetting your face at all for a day(s), when the fudge are you brushing your teeth dude? bad oral hygene is not good.

[AlexAlmighty]

Teeth are not on your face nevermind.And believe it or not i can brush my teeth without getting half my face filled with toothpaste (sorry for sarcasm ).Seriously now,i wash my teeth and then spit toothpaste/saliva for a good 40-60 seconds.Drink some water and its over.

[AlexAlmighty]

Im always honest..So this week was weird..What i mean...my oil dropped alot more,my cheeks are just a nodge above normal skin oilness,my jaw is a bit more oily.Now the weird part is that i got 3 cysts! I havent seen those for months,and they are in the same place where previous where.One is partially gone,one is just forming and the other one came to a head but i cant be bothered popping it.Well basically i was trying to breakout this week.Eating all the crap i could,masturbating like a mad man and,drinking alcohol and sleeping 3hours/night with my face rubbing on the bed.Overally skin tone is better than before(go figure),the only problem are those 3 cysts as i said,whiteheads are gone.Also i noticed a link between using the pc too much and acne.. P i cant explain it but i noticed it.So im gonna try to get my shit together again (diet,lifestyle etc) and see what happens.I contribute this also to the fact that i can walk in public atlast without worrying 24/7 about my skin so i let myself slip a bit

BTW:The one cyst is one i popped last week (was there for 10-12 days) and it came back,it was HUGE,half my face got covered in blood,literally.Lol it wasnt that obvious though..must of been very deep.

So i conclude that its still going ok but not as fast as before.

[AlexAlmighty]

Lol theres nothing to "stand",that was like the first 10days.Well i cant say im "Satisfied",its better but i still sweat over 3cysts as much as i sweat over 6cysts and 11whiteheads (yeah i count them and keep records).My face skin feels just like my skin in any other area.Lol i dunno why you ppl have something with gore..i still eat fine while watching zombie movies with heads splattering and all..heck if its a good movie i even get hungry

Good thing is that now im motivated to fix up life etc and update again in 14 days (hoping to be the last ).

edit: Yeah i will do that,ill fix up my life for 14 days.No wasting time on pc etc,any spare time goes to extra studying or sleep.I will keep a handwritten diary which i will copy here.I also gotta write myself a daily schedule.Well see ya all in 2 weeks.

[C3000]

Hi

i started doing the same stuff just after i read about AlexAlmighty's litte experiment. before that i was using a gel called basocin and skinoren with some antibiotica which just didn't work at all.

the first couple of days i washed my face with warm water 3 times a day. no scrubbing or any chems. everything was fine.
after a week my face began to clear up. for about 2 weeks it was great. then i got some little pimple on my cheek (something that i haven't seen for about 7 years), but still no cysts or big red mountains on my face. two days ago some more of those little pimples popped out of my skin, but that's all what happened in 4 weeks.
before that experiment i got like 3 cysts a week.

so afterall i have to say it is a good result. feel like my acne changed back to the status it was 7 years ago. i'm pretty happy now, but i'm still trying to find something to kill 100% of my acne.

[malia]

Alex:

would you mind giving us some of your stats? age? how long have you had acne? when did you start? severity?

i'm also wondering if your whiteheads just disappeared by themselves or did you sort of feel the drying out and dropping off? like when sometimes you scratch your face and this tiny white bump comes out.

i've been doing a modified version of your regimen since Sept 27th because i went on vacation and my skin had dried up significantly...to the point where i could feel a layer of dead skin on my forehead. but now i've switched to just spraying with Evian water and wiping my face with a washcloth twice a day. do you think this is too much? if i spray and wipe a few more times my skin will get dry again and feel taut. this is crazy. i have oil dripping into my eyes normally.

i'm glad you posted your experience and have been honest. please keep us up to date! unlikr you, i'm just scared to jump ship right now and just not wash at all. i meet with people daily and can just imagine them staring at my breakouts under flourescent lighting. ahh someone give me courage! maybe i'll start tomorrow

[AlexAlmighty]

Well malia.Im 17years old and i have been fighting acne for 5 years now.If it is of any importance im 6'1" around 185lb.It started with blackheads on nose,some months later whiteheads on upperlip/nose,then whiteheads on upperlip,around nose, lowerlip,then whiteheads on cheeks,then cysts on cheeks/chin,then more cysts etc..at the peak i had 7cysts 4 on one side of my face and 3 on the other,lots of whiteheads on chin/upperlip and blackheads only on nose.(my face was oily as hell too).I was sick and tired of acne and i dont know exactly how i ended up not washing (i think i explained some in the 1st post of this thread).Now my acne is 1 whitehead on jaw,some blackheads on forehead (never had them),lots of red marks and 1 almost flat cyst,and my oil is barely over normal skin oilness.Most of the time my whiteheads turn to a yellow crust and fall off.Well too much is relative,depends on what you were doing before and how easily your skin readapts.Actually i had about 15-20 days of vacations left so i decided to do this and not leave the house for that time.