24 replies to this topic

[Battle2011]

37 days after starting the caveman regimen, here are some facts:

- I am in my mid 30s, still having acne breakouts and cystic pimples. Tried everything, every range, every medicine (including accutane), every diet.

- I decided to start the caveman regimen 37 days ago. No more water touching my face at all, except on rare occasions after very sweaty day (and it would be spring water, not the one coming from the tap).

- First, my skin got much clearer. Or at least, so it seems. If a pimple comes, it usually comes to a head within hours, lasts a day or two, does not get inflammed, does not hurt, and it blends into the skin (nothing extreme red anymore).

- Old marks faded away, and some old cyst marks woke up. Pimples grew in those areas, as if the skin needed to purge. They are now gone.

- The only issue is dead skin:

There is a huge amount of dead skin building up. It is quite an issue. If I do nothing, I think it can hardly be seen. But if I do a bit of sports, it becomes an absolute mess. Or today, I was kissing with my fiancee outside, and my God! My nose and the areas around were absolutely white from skin debris, my chin as well. Tons of dead skin just showed up. I am not even sure how and why. It took me a good hour to gently remove those debris with wet cotton pads. But still, some dead skin debris keep surfacing even when i remove what I can see.

How can this be?
Anyone has a solution to such an issue?
I have always had skin problems, and dry skin.
But here, it is really unsightly and I do not understand how such a build up can form and be so hard to remove.
Some of the debris also seem firmly attached to the skin, and do not go away even with wet cotton pads!!

My hair is also full of dead skin by the way.

[Murph89]

Exfoliation is the most important step in skin care. Might want to find an exfoliant to get rid of all that dead skin.

[Battle2011]

any good one that you would know of? without any chemicals in it?

[Murph89]

There was something people mentioned on here that is all natural with sugar and something else. I can't remember.

[Green Gables]

I tried the caveman thing and had the same issue...

I switched to the Oil Cleansing Method and found I got the same results as the caveman without the nasty skin shedding.

[Battle2011]

That's interesting. What is your typical regimen with oil cleansing method then? i mean, how does it work?

[sepsi]

In OCM you usually scrape your face with a towel. That quite effectively removes the dead skin cells.

[Green Gables]

Google Oil Cleansing Method. You basically use jojoba oil mixed with castor oil to cleanse your face (there are other oils you can use, but I would say that's the standby). In my experience, the oil actually helped my clogged pores loosen up and get rid of the stuff trapped in there. My face also seemed to maintain a more constant state: a nice happy medium between oily and dry.

I only stopped because I went on spiro to treat my hormonal acne, and on the spiro I feel like I have "normal" skin...you know, where you can do anything to it and it stays the same. So basically I stopped feeling a real need for the benefits of OCM. But I might start up again, since I still have blackheads.

[Beender20]

Hey I'm glad to see you've stuck it out for the full 30 days and more! I think I did around 47/48 myself and then finally took it all off. I was at the beach at the time and just dumped my head under the ocean water and gently rubbed it all away with my fingers. Idk if you took it off yet or what but I would suggest just getting your fingers wet and gently rubbing all the dead skin off.

[allrighty]

Try manuka honey, the good stuff, it has tiny little particles in the honey, its great for scrubbing ur face, it isnt too harse, just gentle enough to do the job and remove the dead skin.
BTW with the caveman diet, what snacks do u eat? Im fining it hard to get snacks....

[Battle2011]

Thanks for all the answers. It turned out fine.
Now I am battling the first break out due to heavy sweating at the weekend.
As for my diet, I eat everything now. Gluten, sugar.. It has very low incidence on my acne.
It was really all the products I have used over the years that made a disaster on my skin.
Now my issue is to find a balance, and clean the skin once in a while, to avoid those breakouts when i exercise.
Maybe water with a drop of tea tree oil would do the trick. Not sure how abrasive that would be...

[Sima]

I'm not exactly sure how tea tree oil would help with the exfoliation of the built up layers of dead skin. I recommend gently exfoliating with sugar or a washcloth in circular motions. I don't wash my face either, but I do a sugar scrub once a week.

[Beender20]

Yeah after I did the caveman thing I've been just washing my face with water everyday in the shower and I've been fine. No new breakouts. It was all the products that was causing my breakouts for me too, not diet..although I try to eat healthy as possible.

[wicky]

how do you do this is if your already dry and plugged? My skin has the grossest hardest sebum already and Im afraid they will become harder and more stuck if thats possible

[bjarnecke]

In OCM you usually scrape your face with a towel. That quite effectively removes the dead skin cells.

Sepsi, have you actually tried the OCM regimen? I'm just wondering to see what kind of results you had with it. I'm thinking about trying a caveman regimen, or a variation of it like this

[sepsi]

In OCM you usually scrape your face with a towel. That quite effectively removes the dead skin cells.

Sepsi, have you actually tried the OCM regimen? I'm just wondering to see what kind of results you had with it. I'm thinking about trying a caveman regimen, or a variation of it like this

I did it a few times, but I was never consistent with it. I have had good comments about it at my forums though.

[bjarnecke]

In OCM you usually scrape your face with a towel. That quite effectively removes the dead skin cells.

Sepsi, have you actually tried the OCM regimen? I'm just wondering to see what kind of results you had with it. I'm thinking about trying a caveman regimen, or a variation of it like this

I did it a few times, but I was never consistent with it. I have had good comments about it at my forums though.

I think I'm going to try the caveman regimen and scrape away the dead skin with a towel. The only problem is, I live and work on a farm, so there are days when my face gets very dirty. Not sure how I'll deal with that yet.

[sepsi]

I have to say that I'm not a big fan of the caveman regimen. That's because it totally ignores the role of genetics and skin abnormalities in acne-prone skin. In my opinion you just can't leave acne-prone skin to fend for itself. Because even at normal hormone levels acne-prone skin produces too much sebum, skin cells grow too fast and there's too much keratin, see here for a complete description of how genes affect acne.

The caveman regimen is good for reducing irritation from topical products. But why not just use gentler products? Why not use stuff that both helps the skin and doesn't irritate it?

Just my two cents.

[bjarnecke]

I just went a week without washing my face...it didn't get any worse, but it really didn't get any better either. However, the redness did clear up a little bit.

I think I figured out what my problem is though. Where I live, we have extremely hard water. And I've read quite a few articles about how the minerals in hard water don't allow cleaners and topicals to work properly, and more often than not damage the skin. So tonight I bought some distilled water and I'm going to wash my face with that for a while. If that goes well, I'll more than likely add a gentle cleanser back in the mix.

I do know that the first week of July, I went on vacation, and the place we stayed had naturally soft water. After that week, my skin felt great and looked fairly good too. I mean as good as acne-prone skin can look I guess.

My face was getting too oily and felt unclean even though it really didn't look dirty. I just had to wash it. So my "caveman" regimen will consist of distilled water only for a few weeks, even you can even call it that then.

[helpfulheart]

Very interesting read. I'm still contemplating taking the plunge.