Acne.org Products
@mike59i get it from glacier vending machines. like these. u can find them next to safeway.
even if u are not on caveman regimen. i think it would be healthy to stop consuming or washing ur body or hands with tap water. notice i always use the word "THINK" because there's apparently no proof to what i said. it's all just observation.
@mike59i get it from glacier vending machines. like these. u can find them next to safeway.
even if u are not on caveman regimen. i think it would be healthy to stop consuming or washing ur body or hands with tap water. notice i always use the word "THINK" because there's apparently no proof to what i said. it's all just observation.
oh okay thanks for the picture!!!
Has ANYONE been completely cleared by this.
To the point of having normal skin. Not flakey, full of clogged pores, shiny, etc.
I know a lot of people claim to have "improvement" at some point or another, but have any of you achieved "normal" skin by just using water only, and no other changes?
I have been looking into shampoos and such. Recently I stopped using shampoo altogether. DRAMATIC IMPROVEMENT. The shampoo was suave for men. I read the ingredients and didn't see anything strange except "fragrance". Having heard many say that fragrances can aggravate acne, I now wash my hair with water only and it doesn't even get greasy. I wash my face and hair with water only once a day in the afternoon in the shower and use regular soap on my body. Now if I can just do something about my dry skin which is mostly on my chin. I think it is from months of BP. I may go to the no water at all regimen but I'm worried how my face will react when I start swimming in the summer.
Also, to everyone debating tap water, I was clear this summer when I was away from home. Maybe it was the water there or maybe it was the shampoo. I wish I could have tested these variables.
Has ANYONE been completely cleared by this.To the point of having normal skin. Not flakey, full of clogged pores, shiny, etc.
I know a lot of people claim to have "improvement" at some point or another, but have any of you achieved "normal" skin by just using water only, and no other changes?
If there's anyone, they're not here anymore. This method started since 2004 and most of those who tried this out are gone. They simply disappeared.
Now, I'm not yet 100% clear but I'm free from acne now. Not flakey, still having clogged pores but not shiny. And using water only didn't do this alone. You need to approach acne inside out. I live healthy lifestyle now so that's a big improvement on my part. Doing nothing simply ensured that there are only few factors that might affect my acne. I used turmeric juice and that cleared up my jaw line and bacne. 
i still get a pimple here and there but they go away faster. I also don't get cysts anymore(knocks on wood). I think i was getting cysts because of the bp. As for flakiness it is gradually going away (its almost nothing) and every 2 days i use purpose redness reducing moisturizer on my face and it seems to be working good. I would like to soon not have to use moisturizer at all.
Oh and im about 3 and a 1/2 months into this regimen. Good luck guys hope you stay with it.
I'm back just to pop in and say hello! I'm sorry it's been so long. But I have good news to report!
Since I've stopped STRESSING about acne, and touching/popping/picking at my skin, it's healed dramatically! I do wash my face. I let water touch it. I wear makeup but not every day. My biggest thing was trying to never go to bed with a dirty face. I don't use ANY topicals. I use a gentle apricot scrub when I need it, less then once a week.
The moment I started living my life and stopped letting my life revolve around my acne, it's started improvement. I'm still healing, and still getting acne, but again, this is I think due to the fact that I work the night shift with my job and sleep during the daytime. This time in your life is a difficult one, and stress simply does do the worst kind of damage to your skin.
Snow's got it. Wapak and I have tried the same type of thing to keep our skin in check, and guess what, it's working!!
Don't follow this caveman regimen too strictly. Don't be afraid of water and/or soap. But do let your skin do it's thing. Let it breathe. Don't fight it, try to work along with it and you will get results. Hope someone you do find light at the end of this tunnel, it's there, I promise...
Feel free to email me if youd like.
Kate
The moment I started living my life and stopped letting my life revolve around my acne, it's started improvement. I'm still healing, and still getting acne, but again, this is I think due to the fact that I work the night shift with my job and sleep during the daytime. This time in your life is a difficult one, and stress simply does do the worst kind of damage to your skin.
Great to hear Kate!
:dance:
I am also back to pop in and make sure this thread is still around. Looks like it is going well.
If you want success quit obsessing over your face in any way. While you should not be washing your face with topicals or even water, you should also not totally avoid water.
I run and workout almost everyday, so I usually take two showers a day and all kinds of things touch my face.
Eat well, but do not obsess here.
The key in my opinion is to completely forget about acne. For me, I was at the point where every time I even picked up something to eat, I would think about how it might affect my acne.
It is a long process, and you WILL of course still get acne. I still get pimples, but smaller, less painful, and they do not have an effect on the way I act.
I find that sometimes I go for a week or two without even really looking at my face in the mirror just because I do not even think of it. How many of you check every morning?
Not sure why because I haven't been changing anything in my regimen but I had a major breakout this week. I am almost positive I am allergic to citrus, I may have to add bananas to the list. I don't think they've given me a problem before but we just got some after going a couple weeks without them and I've gotten a lot of cysts.
i am on 21 day or something like that. So far i think its been good slowly healing but i did not get my regular bi weekly break outs, which is good. I am planing to go for another 1 month for complete healing hopefully than starting washing my face through cold showers and exercising. I have question. So lets hypothetically say when ur dead skin mask disappears, how would i know because sometimes i dont sense that there is skin build up during the day but than i do especially at end of the day. Also so after the mask disappears and lets say i continue not to use water would dead skin will begin to build up again? or thats it no more dead skin build up?
Not sure why because I haven't been changing anything in my regimen but I had a major breakout this week. I am almost positive I am allergic to citrus, I may have to add bananas to the list. I don't think they've given me a problem before but we just got some after going a couple weeks without them and I've gotten a lot of cysts.
As long as you are thinking about acne while you eat your citrus you will convince yourself it is the cause.
Maybe you are allergic to citrus, but citrus does not cause acne.
Just thought I'd throw in an update to maybe help out others out there who are trying this.
I am up around day 22 I think.
My face certainly isn't clear yet, but its looking better, around day 11-17 I had random tiny tiny little bumps pop up all over my nose and forehead, this was after I had rinsed my face because shampoo leaked onto it and after st patricks day where I ended up drinking alot.
Maybe 5% of those bumps that appeared have all dissapeared and my nose and forehead are mostly clear and smooth, I do have a 2 small bumps up around my forehead that were cyst-like, and that the damn hair cutter didn't help with healing them..., but they are healing nicely.
I also occasionally get a whitehead or two while on this, but they all dissapear within 12-24 hours, I'm amazed, and then the skin underneath starts a quick healing process.
As for how people have treated me, I've honestly been more confident about things recently as well as just living life and no one seems to care about my acne.
So I will check back maybe around day 30 ish or so, who knows!
As for citrus, I've added lemons to my diet in one of those green smoothie things that are proposed on this board, and it all seems to be helping. I'm not taking the stuff for acne so much as for overall health, as I feel getting a healthy amount of greens and some fruits in the morning is great, I have way more energy.
i wanna back up what snow and wapak said. I had myself so stressed over getting zits for something big planned this week, and after being clear for a while i really did breakout cus i was so worried about what i ate and other stuff. Im just gonna try to relax this week and im sure things will go back to normal. I can live with mild acne.
There is some amazing insight in this board.
When I first saw this thread started back in October, I disregarded it. Now washing your face? Ew. At that same time, I was also doing a full on detox where I was eating pretty much a raw vegan diet and obsessing over everything I put in my mouth.
But now I don't know why I even thought that. It makes so much sense to me now.
I had mild acne since I was 12ish, I'm 16 now. Last summer was the closest thing to clear I ever became. I realized the cause to that:
>Little Stress
>Healthy sun exposure
>Gentle face cleansing with plenty of moisturizing
>Little Makeup
>Healthy-but-not-obsessive diet
Up until this Januaryish I had mild/moderate acne. My almost clear state vanished when the summer ended and I was back with what I had before the summer. It was a combo of topical changes, more makeup, dietary changes, and stress.
But I could live with it.
January rolled around, and my acne was a little crazy because of stress, but still mild/moderate-ish. I started using a new topical.
Neutrogena Grapefruit Foaming Acne Scrub.
And that's when my acne went from mildish to moderate/severe. It was a huge change. I used to get acne only on my forehead. Suddenly it was on my cheeks.
Right now, it's everywhere. For the first time in my life, I got cystic acne along with my normal pustules and papules.
I quit that terrible shiz about a month ago, and started using the Neutrogena glycerin bar for acne prone skin. Which is still bad, but significantly gentler.
Anyway, that's the end of my story. Now on to the present.
I am a girl. So that makes this whole no-soap thing difficult. I'm hoping I won't have a too terrible recovery process, because the grapefruit scrub is probably the worst thing I've ever done to my skin, and compared to most people, it's not too terrible.
I'm going to start a log, btw.
I'm trying to avoid the whole flaky, blotchy part as much as I can. I'm on spring break, so I will avoid wearing makeup as much as possible. This is what I'm doing:
Morning & Night-
-Apply EVOO to skin and gently massage
-Let sit for 10 minutes
-GENTLY buff away with a very soft washcloth
The way I see it is that if I gently help my skin heal, it might heal faster. And I'm not drying it out or anything, or using water, so that should be fine. Plus, I have a massive amount of hyperpigmentation, so if I can use the EVOO to get rid of that, that would be great. I've had good results from olive oil in the past.
I did my first day of this today. My face didn't get irritated when I applied and buffed off the olive oil this morning. My acne isn't as inflamed.
Most importantly, my skin feels HEALTHY.
I will keep doing this. Thanks for the info!
Currently I am washing my face with water only once a day while I am in the shower. But this week I have been getting cyst after cyst after cyst. I am completely perplexed. My diet hasn't significantly changed nor anything else that I can think of...
For how long have you been doing that? Have you tried nothing at all?
I think I am going to try this. A lot of it makes sense, and I really hope I am a candidate for this regimen.
Over the past few days I have done a lot of reading posted by Wapak, Adam08, WaterWater and AlexAlmighty who all have pretty much cleared from this "caveman" regimen. Now let me summarise that I have understood all the theory behind this. . .
As I understand it we all have this "acid mantle" which acts as a protective barrier that prevents our skin from infection and bacteria (including acne). Now if this protective layer is somewhat "disturbed" or removed (via chemicals from topicals), then it can no longer do it's job, and as a result we get irritated skin which is more prone to acne. Hope I'm on the right track so far??
So basically we need to stop ALL topicals, and anything else which might be a problem, to allow our skin to regenerate and for our acid mantle to be in a healthy state to do it's job (i.e. fight bacteria and prevent acne breakouts).
Now in my situation, I have been on the water only regimen for about a month now, but still constantly break out all over the place. I had gradually weened off using BP after using it for 5 years previously. I am guessing that as I am still breaking out on the water only regimen, that even water is causing my skin to be irritated?? I am actually hoping this is the case, which would mean I would be a good candidate for this "no washing" regimen.
I really hope this works as I have reached a dead end with all this holistic stuff. I hear all the time the statement "Our acne is a reflection that something is seriously wrong with our internals". As a result I have done almost everything, . . . liver flushes, colon cleansing, fasting, eat super super healthy, .. . . etc. and NOTHING I do seems to make any difference. I am beginning to think that there is nothing wrong with my body internally, but maybe my skin is just irritated and sensitive. And that skin irritation is the REAL CAUSE of my acne, NOT an unhealthy functioning body.
Can someone who has researched this confirm this is the theory on why this works?
Yup, that's pretty much it in my opinion. if you keep your healthy functioning body and try this do nothing regimen then this would certainly stop you from breaking out.
This will stop you from breaking out further but will not do a thing on your current breakouts. So for that, I suggest using the juice of turmeric roots! It cleared my problem areas left from using proactive.
Or you may try using distilled or filtered water to do the water only regimen. Because there is also the possibility that you have a chlorinated tap water which is also irritating.
Hi wapak,
Just wondering if I can ask a few questions before I start:
- How long into this regimen before you stopped getting any breakouts, or was it more of a case that you just gradually got less and less acne??
- At what stage did you introduce water into this regimen? And throughout, how often would you wash your face?? Would it be silly to try and last 30 consecutive days without water?
Thanks for the tumeric juice idea, but I don't think I will try putting anything on face just yet. I don't want to include another variable that may interfere with the recovery process.
Since day 1 I stop getting any breakouts. If I get any pimple, they are one or two at a time and smaller, less noticeable and goes away within the next 24 hours and doesn't leave a mark. But the breakouts I had at the start stayed the same even after 30 days.
On day 14, I tried introducing water but I noticed that my skin is still sensitive so I didn't wash again. Since day 51's wash, I wash my face one or twice a week. I wish I could have done a 30 days straight so I say that is not silly. That is my goal actually, if not for the mistake of shaving on my day 14.
Btw, what are the problem areas left for you?
Good luck!
^ Is your face oily at all? If it is oily, how fast does your face gets oily after you wash your face?
I have tried this for a week in the past before but the oilyness around my eyes made my eyes sting so bad. I don't think I want to try this again. However, I've been using only water for about a week now washing twice a day but nothing really changed about the oil production on my face.