bump.

I have the same problem since I dropped using most products and cleansers. For the past 3-4 months I've been on a very mild water regimen where I wash once or twice a day with water and then I usually moisturize with Jojoba oil and I occasionally have been using a Hyaluronic acid-based night creme which is completely non-irritating or "stripping". The only reason I add moisturizers is because of the dry winter here, which is thankfully almost over. I also make sure to use moisturizers that only add moisture and water retention to the skin, rather than damage or irritate the naturally occurring oils.

I feel that dead skin buildup is actually much worse in the winter. In the summer, get some sun exposure and exercise and the dead skin should really go down a lot. I find that, for me atleast, every single thing about my skin gets better in the spring/summer except the occasional whitehead/blackhead. I think that most people on the water only regimen who have problems with dry/dead skin will find their skin clears up in the summer. If you aren't as climate sensitive or you live in a place that doesn't get very humid then naturally, the dead skin buildup should start going down over time and the skin should function normally again. Patience is key. I don't think it would last any more than 9 months to a year. Although it sucks, it'll be worth it to use no products or minimal gentle products like I do for that time period because then your skin will be resilient and healthy again and not have been stripped/damaged for months by harsh chemicals.

The water only regimen is always a long term, sometimes difficult regimen to follow and I swore by it years ago around when jan_carlo made his post about dropping topicals but I eventually strayed and used products again. I've since been back on it and I stick by it in the spring/summer with good results but in the winter my skin simply needs the extra moisture because without it, too much damage/dryness happens from the cold. As for dead skin, same thing, worse in the winter and I still haven't found exactly how to fix it other than just hoping if I wait long enough my skin functioning will return to how it was before I started using a bunch of harsh products years ago. Maybe waiting as long as the amount of time using those silly products is needed? Who knows..

I find that occasionally exfoliating will bring dead skin levels down for about a week or 2 until they slowly come back. Sometimes I leave it alone and sometimes I exfoliate. The only benefit of exfoliating is for a better, smoother texture. I personally don't breakout any more or less with or without dead skin on the surface, it just looks ridiculous and frustrating up close in certain lighting. Other than that, as someone who has been on and off this regimen for a long time, I feel that only time can allow for skin to function normally again and fully bring the dead skin levels down. Eat right, exercise, get sun exposure and vitamin D is also nice. Products, as always, are temporary relief but if you use them, be smart about it because most people on this regimen with this problem made the mistake of being dumb about product choices, including myself.

Good luck.

@Gearhead

Thanks for the input! I too am hoping that the dead skin will subside over time. I've seen a gradual decline in dead skin over the past couple months, but it's very slow....like on a week-by-week basis. It would be very easy for me to accept that this condition is permenant but I refuse to do that. I know this won't last forever, but it's starting to wear on me. At what point in time do I say to myself...."hey, this is as good as it's gunna get." I worry more about the dead skin more than I do acne now (since I really don't have it anymore! ). What I've been doing is washing with water and buffing the dead skin off once a day @ night with a cloth only to find that it returns by the next night. Yea, I think it's getting better, but who knows.

Don't worry. It would certainly stop coming one day.

first adam is annoying me with his advertisement.second i agree that nothing from the derms ever worked for me or anything else but being very gentle with my skin.i am going to begin the no treatment with using water as little as possible.water can strip the face of its natural oils similar to when it rains the oil rises to the surface because oil is lighter than water.also i believe the skin can reverse itself and eventually all that dead skin will dry enough to where it will leave the surface of the skin.the outer layer of skin is just dead skin cells and i believe once the uneven cells fall off and the new cells are pushed up in unison we will no longer have the dead skin patches.eventually the dead cells will fall off because they do that on their own which is why there is dust in the house.i believe again that once the new layer is surface in unison there will be no more dead skin patches.i also believe exfoliation is a load of crap to get ppl to feel insecure and buy lots of products such as skin care and make up etc.i dnt believe when you hit a certain age its time to start scrubbing your face.ppl in 3rd world countries im assume dont because they arent conditioned to believe that like we are.also ive never seen even a dirty bum have acne because they dnt buy fancy products or sometimes even wash.idk just my thought.

also i believe the skin can reverse itself and eventually all that dead skin will dry enough to where it will leave the surface of the skin.the outer layer of skin is just dead skin cells and i believe once the uneven cells fall off and the new cells are pushed up in unison we will no longer have the dead skin patches.eventually the dead cells will fall off because they do that on their own which is why there is dust in the house.

before i started the "no-wash" regimen that was my philosophy too. but, unfortunately for me at least, after almost two months of leaving the dead skin alone I realized that it wasn't going to come off on its own. so since then i've continually had to "manually" wipe the excess dead skin off although it has been reducing slowly over time. My new philosophy on this is that if you spent years using chemicals to get that dead skin off your face than your skin has become adapt to it. Once you no longer use those chemicals your skin will go through a "readjusting" period in which it has to relearn to shed dead skin cells w/o the aide of chemicals and such. So to help your skin adjust you might have to manually wipe/peel that dead skin off for awhile (but don't use a chemical agent or you will ruin any progress you have made!) until you're face becomes like the rest of your skin on your body and sheds properly on its own. this is just my philosophy on the issue after having gone through close to 6 months on this.

allrighty so i did a little thinking today on how this whole dead skin mask has played out....i've come to another theory/idea.

so all of us used those b.s. chemicals/topicals/products for long enough to where it broke down our skin, enlarged our pores, & increased our oiliness. We relied on our topicals to exfoliate our skin and keep our oil production in check until a brave few of us decided we wanted out of this vicious cycle. but unfortunately our skin was/is no longer the same as it used to be in areas we smothered it with chemicals. i believe (at least in my case) that years of using topicals made my pores larger in areas of my face which led to more oiliness and left me prone to inflamation. So while my skin was/is trying to revert back to normal it is faced with excess oil in which makes the outer layer of the skin "sticky", which in turn prevents the dead skin cells to slough off w/o chemically/manually exfoliating. When the dead skin cells fail to slough off, they become dry in which case u get your dead skin mask that many of us have experienced.

Now I noticed tonight that when I take the back of my fingernail on my thumb and glide it across my forehead (the oiliest part of my body for years) that it did not acquire much oil at all! Six months ago when I was using Neutrogena Oil-Free face wash my skin would be dripping, and I mean dripping with oil within hours of washing. This has to mean that my pores/oil production was greater then than it is now....which is why I experience very little dead skin buildup now (for the ideaology I explained in the 2nd paragraph) and experienced a ton then when I stopped cold turkey. I know I didn't explain my reasoning all to well, but I wanted to share this with others who have experienced the dead skin mask to see what they think.

Personally, I would hate to see what my skin would look like after days of not washing with soap. Some people do induce breakouts by overtreating their skin, but I doubt they had bad acne to begin with... just acne they got too overzealous about.

 

The dead skin buildup is probably due to an internal issue, which then manifests itself externally. I think it has to do with a mixture of diet, possibly yeast problems (such as candida), definitely hormones, and probably genetics. Like everyone says, the skin's inability to properly shed itself means it gets stuck together and clogs up pores, which in turn produces acne.

 

Even if we did maintain a solid regimen - including a mild cleanser, no makeup, few topicals, regular exfoliation and moisturization (which one would THINK would clear acne - as it would be simulating what 'normal' skin does) - the internal factors probably get in the way.

 

Damn you, sebum.

Why I might agree with the internal cause explanation, how can you explain that my dead skin mask has decreased over time? I have not done anything different with my diet, I exercise the same, and definetly my genetics are the same. Think of the time before you washed your face regularaly, say maybe like from the time you were born up and until you were 12....do u ever remember having to manually slough off dead skin cells that were stuck to your face....i dont think so. The reality is that all of us have perfectly capable skin of shedding itself when we are born until we do something to mess that up (use cleansers, BP, Retin-A, SA, etc.). Now I know some people might argue that yes our skin can shed easily until we hit puberty when the skin cells get a bit more stickier. Well I remember when that happened, and yes I got a pimple here and there, but I didn't have to scrap off the dead skin everyday because my skin was doing it for me. It was only when I started messing with that by using topicals that it became that my entire face became unable to shed skin and not just a random portion every now and then.

So to sum it all up, for those of you that depend on using cleansers and face washes everyday....if you ever decide you don't want to do the same routine everyday and stop using that stuff, you're gunna go through a dead skin phase no doubt. But don't worry many others here have been through it already and can share their experiences. just search the forums for "cavemen regimen", "not washing face for month", and "all natural regimen"

Bump. This is an interesting thread and it's exactly what I'm going through now. My cheeks are raw an dried out from excessive cream use, and when I started the caveman 2.5 months ago I Immediately built up dead skin all over my cheeks. I'm wondering if this is a good thing or not. I took some of the dead skin off a part of my cheek yesterday and the skin under there looks kind of irritated and extra shiny

The "Caveman Regimen" during which you do not wash your face for 2 months, and allow a layer of skin to heal over the scars works wonders for Rosacea and hyperpigmentation, and costs literally no money. I've had great success with for hyperpigmentation scarring.

Just let your skin rejuvenate through its own biological mechanisms.

What I have found is that acne is often caused by internal factors (in my case, genetic predisposition to hormonal imbalance exacerbated by childhood environmental factors) and that once your skin has been through years of acne, it is UNABLE to properly heal itself.

Take, for example, pores. When pores are constantly clogged and inflamed, they become impacted, stretched, and even scarred. Yes, pores can actually scar (not that you can see it with the naked eye, but it's there). A scarred pore is always likely to get clogged because it's not structurally sound anymore. Even if you fix the internal factors and stop the acne, clogged pores will be the bane of your existence.

Same thing with rosacea. No one really knows what causes rosacea, however, once you've had it for several years, those broken capillaries are NOT going away. Don't wash your face for years. The veins will still be there.

Point being, if you find that washing your face less often or never works for you, go for it. But at best it will only prevent new problems. It won't re-form damaged skin.