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!
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
Where can this info be found?
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..
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.
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..
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.
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
Where can this info be found?
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...
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..
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.
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
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
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.
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.
moisturizers dont form protective layers over the skin they are designed to penetrate the skin which is why they have a potential to cause breakouts.
why not just wash your face then apply some type of oil afterwards ( i personally use coconut). You can try mixing it with some bottled water instead of regular to avoid the chloride in tap which is known to dry the skin out. Sometimes usually in the winter when i feel like my skin is dry ill apply oil all over my body when im in the shower and just run water across it. makes the skin feel highly moisturized for several days.
if anything not washing will make your skin drier eventually because youre not adding moisture from the water to your face anymore. its best to wash and then replace the oils lost if necessary.
thank you all for your recommendations regarding water/natural oils. ive been on the nothing regimen for about 11 days i think (no water/no oil etc). ive had the odd whitehead but still yet to breakout. Yes, my chin is quite flakey but im still leaving it alone. I trust that it will sort itself out (actually quite encouraging because the chin is place where most of the product assault/most of problems have occurred over recent years)
I never really wash my face, nor do I put anything on it. I've been doing the 'caveman regimen' for about a year or two.
It was around the time I started abusing face washes and topicals, like rubbing alcohol and peroxide and Oxy cream, that I began to get serious acne. So then I just left my face alone and it became a lot less severe.
I would say that now I have typical teenage acne, not really that bad, but my skin is still very sensitive and gets irritated easily all because of the topical abuse from two years ago. It's caused some permanent damage, like my facial skin is a lot more sensitive and not as thick as it used to be.
I've learned that water is the only thing thats safe to put on sensitive skin. and for me personally when I'm in the sunshine a lot, my skin will clear up totally.
So it is important not to put too many things on your face, or ideally, just don't even touch your face at all (including picking). It's not worth the damage it causes.
i reckon that the bottled water did more harm than good. The water is fine but i think the water removed some dead skin which i prob needed to be there (whilst the skin repairs itself underneath etc)..this morning my skin felt a bit more irritated than usual as a result..Im going to leave it alone from now on.
at the moment, there is like a battle between having dead skin or irritated skin. I think im going to settle with the dead skin for the moment and hope that it goes away
Hey man, glad to see that this caveman regimen is working out for you. Since reading your first post i have begun to reduce the amount of topicals i put on my face. I have yet to completely stop though. I have already noticed a little less irritation and redness. I have a question though, do you think someone with hormonal acne would benefit from not washing their face, or do you think it would do more harm than good. i am only 16 and i really want to just quit all the scrubs and acne washes and juts let my face heal, but i am afraid that if i stop washing my face i will break out like crazy.
thanks in advance
-andrew
i reckon that the bottled water did more harm than good. The water is fine but i think the water removed some dead skin which i prob needed to be there (whilst the skin repairs itself underneath etc)..this morning my skin felt a bit more irritated than usual as a result..Im going to leave it alone from now on.
at the moment, there is like a battle between having dead skin or irritated skin. I think im going to settle with the dead skin for the moment and hope that it goes away
Hey. Just wanted to consult with you since we're both in the same boat. I've using only WATER for like the past 2-3 weeks. Anyways, my skin is completely filled with dead flakey skin. I don't know if I should exfoliate or just leave them there. I'm trying not to use ANYTHING on m yface, so I don't even use lotion anymore (which I always suspected did more harm than good). I'm currently only putting olive oil on my face for 15 mins before taking a shower as a "moisturizing" thing, but I guess it cant get rid of all the dead skin I have. My nose especially, is filled with dead skin. I'm not sure if the excessive flaking is because I'm strictly only using water or because I have a thyroid disorder (excessive dry skin is one of the symptoms), but its pretty flakey. The flakyness subsides after like 4-5 hours after I take a shower but it just being there annoys me. I don't know how long its going to stay there for. Should I exfoliate (with baking soda)?
^ I don't think you get the point of the regimen. Like I say, 100 years ago, we never had half the sh*t for acne that we have now, so I'm pretty sure the high rates of acne nowadyas past the teenage years are made worse by the onslaught of "cures" for acne that have come on the market, most of which fuck up your skin in one way or another. If you let your skin get back to its natural state then one, your skin is healthier generally and 2. it can actually do its job without being weakened by layers upon layers of chemicals.
People on this site put 3-4 different medications on thier acne in a DAY. I remember one guy saying he put BP, Duac, Differin and took a oral tetracycline. That is called overreacting to a problem.
The only reason I'm doing this (although mine is modified to include water daily - no cleansers though) is because I have no family history of persistent acne. My dad had spots as a teenager, but all he used to use was water, and he was clear by the time he was in his 20's. My brother had my type of whiteheads as a teenager but he never once used anything on his face. He stopped seeing spots after he was 20, and only gets like 2 spots a year nowadays. Me on the other hand, I've consistently thought using a plethora of products was the best way to go. So, where has that led me? I'm 19, 5 years going on this battle and I've never been completely clear (except for when I used clindamycin....but lo and behold the acne got resistant to it!).
If you yourself haven't tried it, then you have no right to try and ridicule others. Just because the notion of putting loads of shit on your face is the one thats prevalent doesnt mean its right, as you can obviously see by the fact that theres 300-500 people online at any given time on this board.
Now, I'm not exactly doing the caveman regimen because I cant NOT take atleast a shower a day and I love running my face in the water, but water only could be something that other people try in the meantime if they feel the traditional caveman ways aren't for them.
Hey man, glad to see that this caveman regimen is working out for you. Since reading your first post i have begun to reduce the amount of topicals i put on my face. I have yet to completely stop though. I have already noticed a little less irritation and redness. I have a question though, do you think someone with hormonal acne would benefit from not washing their face, or do you think it would do more harm than good. i am only 16 and i really want to just quit all the scrubs and acne washes and juts let my face heal, but i am afraid that if i stop washing my face i will break out like crazy.
thanks in advance
-andrew
Firstly, i recommned that you look at a few other threads on this toic (search the boards for threads made by waterwater, alexalmighty and jan carlo). I can give you some advice, but you are likely to find a lot more on these threads (thats where i got the idea and became convinced that this was more me)
Okay, so you say that you have hormonal acne and having been using topicals. Because you have been using topicals, i would think that there is a greater likelihood of an initial breakout etc but i cant be sure (see the above threads). I went from cetaphil cleanser and cream to this "regimen" so my face is still yet to really breakout. I'm not sure wherif it is best for you to jump right in to this or gradually reduce the topicals. Again, see the threads.
im 20 as of a couple of weeks. I thought i had hormonal acne but im not convinced anymore. I got acne at 16 by drinkning excessive amounts of dairy and i reckon the irritation of topicals has prolonged the experinced. Alexalmighty was 17 when he started this regimen, and he said he started with cysts and the like. He was pretty sure that irriation was the cause. Do you think you are irritating your skin?
did you begin with a couple of zits then start scrubbing your face? if yes, perhaps this regimen will be really good for you..
and also, just remember that diet can influence your hormones 
(even though i have been off the diet for a little while)