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I do realize that me working the night shift and not having a regular sleep pattern has been the #1 main cause for my acne.. this is something I strongly recommend you check with your own habbits...
But otherwise... Snow is the man and knows what hes talking about
Sleep is important because it will affect your stress level. If you feel exhausted because you are messing with your body's sleeping patterns, you will feel that stress and exhaustion throughout the day.
I am glad you have found not worrying about acne such a help.
Sleep is important because it will affect your stress level. If you feel exhausted because you are messing with your body's sleeping patterns, you will feel that stress and exhaustion throughout the day.
I am glad you have found not worrying about acne such a help.
It's good to see you again here man! You're so great! Not worrying about acne made me live life as if I never had them! Though I am still not washing because it simply felt so natural not to wash my face very often or in a routine like habit. By the way, I'm acne free now!!! 
Well i keep trying to do this, it's pretty damn hard to avoid water on your face when washing your hair though.
I am keeping the faith with it, but my skin has a lot of dead stuff and some of it is flaking off. If the dead skin and flaking is supposed to go then it sure is taking its bloody time!!!
i scraped mine off today before i took a shower because when i shaved the dead skin was just ridiculous. I did this with an electric trimmer and it worked well. 90% of the mask is now gone and my face looks great. At first when you do this your face will be red but i only did this an hour ago and the color to my face has almost returned.
Now i am on day 49 of this regimen, i DON'T recommend you do this unless you are at least 40 days into this regimen and have had the dead skin mask for at least 3 weeks. Even if you have had the dead skin mask for 3 weeks don't do this unless your face is peeling and flaking like crazy and you can deff tell that its time for it to come off.
i scraped mine off today before i took a shower because when i shaved the dead skin was just ridiculous. I did this with an electric trimmer and it worked well. 90% of the mask is now gone and my face looks great. At first when you do this your face will be red but i only did this an hour ago and the color to my face has almost returned.
Now i am on day 49 of this regimen, i DON'T recommend you do this unless you are at least 40 days into this regimen and have had the dead skin mask for at least 3 weeks. Even if you have had the dead skin mask for 3 weeks don't do this unless your face is peeling and flaking like crazy and you can deff tell that its time for it to come off.
where will u go from here? will u continue to not let water touch ur face or only let it touch in the shower or ?? keep us updated as I just recently removed the dead skin from my face after around the 50 day mark as well. (see my recent posts if ya want). Then I went 9 more days of only letting water hit my face in the shower and the dead skin built itself up again. I think now I will try to avoid water alltogether to see if that helps. If it doesn't I plan to physically wash with water only for awhile, as it seems to be the only way to accomplish my goal of both 1) no topicals and 2) keeping the dead skin at bay.
well i still plan on only letting water touch my face maybe once every week and a half to two weeks like i have been doing since i started the regimen.
Im disappointed to hear that the dead skin came back for you. I really hope it doesn't come back, it was the most uncomfortable thing ever. Like i have said, i would rather have a few pimples then that god for saken dead skin mask.
Now with the dead skin coming back, is it as worse as when the dead skin mask was initially there? Or god forbid is it even worse than the initial dead skin mask?
I really don't think i can go through that phase again. The dead skin was so overwhelming it hurt to even smile. It looked like i had some sort of disease on my face like an infection of some sort.
don't worry i will deff keep updating for all you guys.
RatsOff said:well i still plan on only letting water touch my face maybe once every week and a half to two weeks like i have been doing since i started the regimen.Im disappointed to hear that the dead skin came back for you. I really hope it doesn't come back, it was the most uncomfortable thing ever. Like i have said, i would rather have a few pimples then that god for saken dead skin mask.
Now with the dead skin coming back, is it as worse as when the dead skin mask was initially there? Or god forbid is it even worse than the initial dead skin mask?
I really don't think i can go through that phase again. The dead skin was so overwhelming it hurt to even smile. It looked like i had some sort of disease on my face like an infection of some sort.
don't worry i will deff keep updating for all you guys.
Now in my case I am/was letting water run down my face once every night when I took a shower, so that might be why it returned. Please let me note tho that the severity of the dead skin was about 3X less than before. In fact as long as I didn't scratch anywhere on my face there weren't hardly any flakes at all. But the thing that bothered me was knowing that the dead skin was there in the first place. Maybe it's not COMPLETELY healed yet, but there was definetly a reduction in noticeability for sure. But if it makes u feel better, know that ur not alone in this and that ur not a freak because several others have experienced the same thing. It boggles my mind that some of our predecessors said the dead skin would go away in 2-3 weeks and on its own, while several of us here are approaching 2 full months of this process. Perhaps our skin was more damaged than theirs was? Or perhaps we suffer from abnormal skin shedding? A few of us have been discussing that topic here....
[Edited link out]
im thinking that you letting water touch your face every night might be a part of the problem. When i wash my face it dries out a lot and that's because you are removing your natural oils from your skin. i Find that my face is the best a day or two after i wash it because the oils are replenished. Definitely try letting water only touch your face maybe once a week and see what happens.
its a relief to know that like you said the dead skin wont be nearly as bad. Now what i am gonna do is before i wash my face in a week or so im gonna remove the rest of the dead skin being that it will prob be ready by then. After that im going to continue to do this once every week to two weeks.
I think the skin just needs time to get used to its new situation hence all the dead skin.
When i started using topicals years ago same thing happened. First two weeks my face was just red, then for the next month my face was dry and flaking/peeling like crazy. After a month or two of this going on my face got used to the bp and it stopped becoming red/dry/flaky.
fingers are crossed hoping that the dead skin will subside over time. as for acne, i never even get it anymore (knocks on wood). Only time i will get a pimple is if i let my beard grow a lot. A long beard usually makes my skin a lot more itchy and as a result i scratch more thus leads to a pimple.
Now in my case I am/was letting water run down my face once every night when I took a shower, so that might be why it returned.
Nope.
im thinking that you letting water touch your face every night might be a part of the problem.
I take 1-2 showers a day, sometimes three, and let water and even the shampoo *o no! not the shampoo! 
* touch my face.
The only reason you *should* feel dry skin after a shower is if you take hot showers. If you seem to be having a problem with this, make the shower cooler, or even cold (I have found it easy to cut shower time in half this way, it is a great way to free up time).
Water does not cause acne. Lets not spread this idea around or soon we'll have people running and hiding from the rain. Stress causes acne. Hormonal imbalance causes acne. Hormonal imbalance also causes stress. Yay a lovely cycle. There is nothing you can do about the hormones unless you are a woman and take birth control, or if you are a man on steroids, you should stop those. So the only thing you can really control is your stress.
Lose the stress. The fact that you are still obsessing over water touching your face, and still trying to find causes in every minuscule place tells me you are still plagued with the stresses of acne. You want so badly to free yourself you think going to extremes will do it.
Stop checking yourself in mirrors so often, stop fretting about a new zit, stop even knowing about a new zit. Stop looking in the mirror in the morning to get an update on your face.
Stop obsessing and let go.
Treat yourself as if you do not have acne. Your life will get better. Your acne will get better. I promise.
@iamsnow
welcome back first of all! and secondly thank you for your insight/encouragement. Im afraid u misunderstand my worries tho, Im not "afraid" of water touching my face based on the possibility of getting acne, but rather the possibility of dead skin buildup. I have taken ur approach and applied it to my life as far as acne goes. I dropped my multi-vitamin, zinc vitamins, topicals, and my trying to avoid certain foods b/c it might have a negative effect on my acne and the results have been encouraging.
@iamsnow
we are not talking about acne, i don't really get it anymore. We are talking about the dead skin mask that forms when you do this regimen (at least for us). Not worrying about it is not gonna just make all the dead skin stop from forming.
i don't think it has anything to do with stress, or for me hormonal imbalances( im 24).
I think it is our skin getting used to not using topicals anymore.
@iamsnow
welcome back first of all! and secondly thank you for your insight/encouragement. Im afraid u misunderstand my worries tho, Im not "afraid" of water touching my face based on the possibility of getting acne, but rather the possibility of dead skin buildup. I have taken ur approach and applied it to my life as far as acne goes. I dropped my multi-vitamin, zinc vitamins, topicals, and my trying to avoid certain foods b/c it might have a negative effect on my acne and the results have been encouraging.
Thanks for the welcome back, I do not plan to be on too often though.
To you and Ratsoff:
Well then I apologize for referencing to it being because of acne. I only read the previous three pages before posting.
I would still suggest you take cooler (or cold) showers because hot ones dry out the skin.
It could also be your climate or skin type is different than mine. I live near Houston TX, and our climate is generally humid. Also, right now everyone's climate is dry because of the season.
Even with the cold, dry climate, stopping topicals basically eliminated my dry skin problem instantly. But, like I said, it could be be a variance of skin types.
I wish Adam08 would come back and tell us how he's doing. i assume he's doing well or else he'd be back here. lol.
Adam said his last post was a long time ago.... I doubt he will return. I tried to just leave but kept getting emails from people sending me messages on here. I am contemplating just leaving my email in one of my posts and telling people to only contact me that way.
I wish Adam08 would come back and tell us how he's doing. i assume he's doing well or else he'd be back here. lol.
Adam said his last post was a long time ago.... I doubt he will return. I tried to just leave but kept getting emails from people sending me messages on here. I am contemplating just leaving my email in one of my posts and telling people to only contact me that way.
adam08.....january 20th.....
"anyway, i wish you all the best. i'll report back in 2 months or so. if i dont, consider me clear. i need to get off this site.."
yea i guess ur right. 
this was his last post, hopefully he'll come back around march for an update.
The problem when i was doing this was that i could not help but gets a lots of water on my face. But i have now followed the advice by I am Snow about using cold water not drying out the skin so much and i think it is working for me. My skin looks like crap but the breakout i got this time last week is now dying down and i will continue to plough on with this.
Hey guys, thought i would shed my experience on this post.
I've alway had dry skin, but it of course is much worse in the winter. For about a year, i used cetaphil cleanser and moisturizer but was still battling breakouts. I dropped the cleanser and for awhile now, i just use the moisturizer. My brekouts have been less, and cetaphil is the only moisturizer that doesnt break me out. After following this simple moisturizer only regimen for about 6 months, my skin was pretty good, with a minor breakout here and there.
However, over the past month i have gotten pretty bad dry skin, and significantly more breakouts than usual. I'm afraid to drop the moisturizer, in fear of my skin becoming drier, but is it possible its causing my skin to be more flaky? Could if just be the nasty Michigan winter? I only apply it after i shower. I use nothing else on my face.
So, I've been reading this forum for well over a year and never registered. I couldn't tell you why.
But, anyway, I'll get to my point. I tried many variations of this regimen. First, I showered without washing my hair or face (no water contact with face period). That worked fairly well until eventually (a month or so later) I got a bad breakout. I have never noticed any correlation between my diet and acne, except for citrus fruits, which I had cut out long before starting this regimen. I assumed the breakout resulted from a build up of dead skin on my face. I didn't peel off the dead skin until it started to come off on its own. At which point I used a clean&clear oil-free moisturizer, which I just now realized has salicylic acid in it (could have been my problem), to remove the dead skin.
I also tried what is more similar to iamsnow's regimen which included me shampooing my hair and washing my face. I always wash my body with soap so because I do not include that doesn't mean I don't do it (it's just a given for me). I never had back acne. I sometimes get a zit (less than once a month I'd say) on my back. I had a bad breakout shortly after starting this regimen (possibly just an initial reaction of pores unclogging and things coming to the surface). But, that was enough to scare me away. I wish I had stayed with that regimen a little more. I may go back to it.
Also, I was washing my face once a day during each of these regimens. Right now I still wash my face once a day and use a "decongestant" face wash without salicylic acid, benzoyl peroxide, or any of the well known active ingredients of acne face washes. My face looks about the same as it did while I was on the no-wash regimen except with less dead skin this time.
A quick side note: I was completely clear this past summer by washing twice a day with Neutrogena Oil-Free Acne Wash (the orange pump bottle). I feel like I was clear because I swam and exercised nearly every day though. Because, other times I used the same product it only made my skin worse. It's still a mystery to me. I am the kind of person that likes to do things naturally though so the less things I put on my face the better I feel.
I am starting to think I should try washing my face every day with only water. What do you all think?
@ evasion.
Thanks for sharing your experiences! I think you should try washing with just water only and see if that works out 4 ya. I believe you mentioned you were clear using Neutrogena Face wash? That's funny because that was the last thing I used before dropping all chemicals alltogether because it was destroying my face! O well, everyone's skin is different. But yea man I would try water only, and keep us updated if you can!
@ evasion.
Thanks for sharing your experiences! I think you should try washing with just water only and see if that works out 4 ya. I believe you mentioned you were clear using Neutrogena Face wash? That's funny because that was the last thing I used before dropping all chemicals alltogether because it was destroying my face! O well, everyone's skin is different. But yea man I would try water only, and keep us updated if you can!
I think I'll go ahead and try water only starting tonight. Also, what I meant to say in my previous post is that I don't think the neutrogena got me clear because I was living well and exercising a ton over the summer and I've used that face was other times and it made things worse.
What should I do about dead skin? I think I am going to look for a moisturizer that doesn't have SA or anything in it. I would rather not use one at all but I can't have dead skin flaking off of me all the time.
Unfortunately, I believe the dead skin, flaking is a sign that your skin is healing itself and no amount of moisturizer is going to completly stop this from occuring. I chose not to use any moisturizer at all during this process, cuz I don't want my skin relying on it in the long run. But to each his own I guess. Good luck to you with this....I think you'll see positive results.