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My acne is mild most of the time though sometimes it can become pretty moderate for a period. I've managed to clear it before using a light cleanser and jojoba oil in the evening only but i'm always looking to simplify my regimen so i dont have to go to bed with oil all over my face and keep such a strict skincare regimen. My skin used to be really oily and i never used a moisturiser after cleansing and my face seemed to be fine and then i started using jojoba oil and my skin completely dried up and i started getting breakouts, this made me believe that our skin needs some of the oil our skin produces. Since then i've tried the natural regimens like water only and not washing but there's always been a problem eventually like dirt becoming a factor or dryness.
Anyway recently i've been trying to wash my face every 2 days in the shower and this cleared me after about a week. My skin started off feeling dry after every shower but it was never as dry as normal and then my skin seemed to adjust and it stopped feeling dry after my showers. After about 2 weeks of this regimen i was really happy with my skin, even my seb derm had started clearing up, and then after 2 days of excersise i started using a cleanser to clean the sweat off and because my room was suddenly so hot i started sleeping with a fan next to my face. After 3 days of this my skin started breaking out again, mostly on the side that was facing the fan during the night but there were some spots in other areas too. Obviously my skin had been completely dried out but instead of waiting until it settled down again and continuing the regimen i started cleansing and moisturising in a bit to clear it up. This didnt help at all and my skin's been getting worse since.
I always seem to break out on my chin first whenever i'm about to breakout at all, i've always wondered why and i had a thought after reading an article online about beards using the sebum from our skin that i thought maybe it was because the hair there is thickest and uses up the available moisture quicker than anywhere else on my face. Then i thought about all the times i'd broken out on my chin and thought about the causes like late nights, drinking too much alcohol, eating too much wheat or dairy, hormones. This made me wonder if these things could cause dry skin an that was why i was breaking out on my chin.
After a bit of experimentation I found that after having very little sleep my face was always drier than normal, and the same went for drinking alchohol and eating lots of wheat based products. I didnt understand though how the rest of my skin didnt break out eventually from the dry skin though, and then i realised perhaps the dry skin only lasted at most a couple of days which would not be enough time for my cheeks to use up all the available moisture but my chin/jaw did because the hair there is so much thicker and used the moisture up!
Obviously this could all be completely wrong but it seems to make sense to me, i know after eating lots of wheat and dairy my face itches loads which is always a sign of dryness and if your body isnt 100% then its going to struggle to function effectively so that would explain why lack of sleep and lots of alcohol would cause dryness, not sure why hormones would cause any dryness though but i haven't really looked into it that much.
Also i recently found out my sister only lets her face get a little wet in the shower and her skin's really good, especially in summer. She does use a cleansing wipe to remove her makeup though but she only wears that when she goes to school, which might be why her skin is slightly worse during the school year because of the constant cleansing every night.
So anyway my plan is to return to my most recent regimen and try to avoid anything that i believe might cause my skin to dry, so i'll be briefly washing my face in the shower every 2 days and hopefully it'll clear up again. By giving it a days break between washes i'm hoping it'll have enough time to adjust without getting too dry and once my skin retains enough moisture by itself i can start introducing those things that might cause my skin to dry without worrying about breakouts.
Edited by SaharaSkin, 06 October 2011 - 08:38 AM.
