I'm a month in. I have a good amount of dead skin but I stilll don't have any on my nose or forehead, and their still both oozing with oil. I always had severe oily skin so I'm hoping it's just taking those areas longer to balance out. On the plus side I rarely ever get zits anymore.

Yea I've noticed that I just had tons od dead skin but not really that many zits. Anyways the patch of dead skin on my forehead is lookng so much better, every day it becomesd more and more the color of my skin but I think I'm going to remove it on Sunday or not idk because it really doesn't look that bad as it used to a few weeks ago so I might just leave it on for a week or so just to be safe.

jmaaan, wait another week or two until you take the mask off just to be safe. when i took it off my forehead yesterday, i had little red bumps.

Yea I know what you mean. My previous attempts at removing haven't went so well and the skin underneath was very pink and raw and it looked like I was peeling. Those spots where I attempted to remove it are now still red and have dead skin over them while the rest of my cheeks are healed and look pretty much normal. My forehead still needs time though.

The red bumps on my forehead are starting to go away but the skin isnt pink or irritated, neither is the skin on my nose, do you think the dead skin will come back in those places?

The red bumps on my forehead are starting to go away but the skin isnt pink or irritated, neither is the skin on my nose, do you think the dead skin will come back in those places?

Yes it will just take awhile for you to notice the dead skin is building up, but it is.

Oh okay thanks. i thought my forehead and nose were done healing, i guess not haha.

So ive done the no washing thing for a long time now. I didn't touch water to my face for an entire month, and what I learned was topicals really don't do sh*t. But i think you guys would be better off using water ever few days or so and scrubbing off the dead skin.

so i've been using water on my face for about 2 weeks now. i wet my face and gently rub the deadskin off if i even get any. i let my cheeks get the skin build up so it heals. i dont really care about my forehead and nose, theyre pretty much clear, just a few spots. i guess the water only worked better for me than the not washing, although, it gave my skin a while to heal so im happy about that. i dont think im gonna be on here a lot, just once in a while. good luck everyone and enjoy your soon to be clear skin! xoxo

so i've been using water on my face for about 2 weeks now. i wet my face and gently rub the deadskin off if i even get any. i let my cheeks get the skin build up so it heals. i dont really care about my forehead and nose, theyre pretty much clear, just a few spots. i guess the water only worked better for me than the not washing, although, it gave my skin a while to heal so im happy about that. i dont think im gonna be on here a lot, just once in a while. good luck everyone and enjoy your soon to be clear skin! xoxo

Same exactly, my forehead is clear and cheeks but inner cheeks and nose still need time.

Sup yall!

I've been using this gentle facial cleanser for about a week now. Cleansing Bar

It seems I'm getting a bit of an initial breakout from it. I'm assuming its one of a few things, either my skin is purging, my skin is irritated, or my skin is overdried.

I'll keep washing and let ya guys know if my skin calms down. The deadskin mask came completly off by the 2nd facial wash. I like the way my skin looks with this cleanser. These new breakouts are mainly just red... they havent come to whiteheads yet.

peace.

So far my skin is doing good. Still have the deadskin mask on my inner cheeks and my nose is doing ok it has the mask but its not really noticeable. My forehead is a little more difficult. When i wash my face and see the white deadskin on my forehead i gently rub it until it comes off then its a little pink and a few little pimples show up. After a few days my forehead looks clear because the white deadskin came back but its not noticeable unless wet. How do i make it so that when i rub it off it doesnt become pink?

Pretty much same with me. My forehead and inner cheeks and nose still need time and have deadskin mask on them pretty badly. My only guess would be too let the dead skin mask stay on for a week or more and let the skin underneath heal. I had dead skin on my cheeks a month or two ago and removed the mask on my cheeks and the skin underneath was healed and looked normal and clear and the dead skin mask hasn't returned on those spots. I have finally gotten so fed up and frustrated that I set up an appointment with a dermatologists. I don't want to get prescribed anything I just want some professional advice on the fastest way to make my skin heal naturally. Anyways my deadskin mask remaining looks horrible. It is thick and brownish and is cracking a little. Is this what normal dead skin looks like when it is severe?

Pretty much same with me. My forehead and inner cheeks and nose still need time and have deadskin mask on them pretty badly. My only guess would be too let the dead skin mask stay on for a week or more and let the skin underneath heal. I had dead skin on my cheeks a month or two ago and removed the mask on my cheeks and the skin underneath was healed and looked normal and clear and the dead skin mask hasn't returned on those spots. I have finally gotten so fed up and frustrated that I set up an appointment with a dermatologists. I don't want to get prescribed anything I just want some professional advice on the fastest way to make my skin heal naturally. Anyways my deadskin mask remaining looks horrible. It is thick and brownish and is cracking a little. Is this what normal dead skin looks like when it is severe?

I dont know for sure but i guess all the damaged skin is turning into deadskin and then falling off on its own when its ready, revealing clear new skin.

Pretty much same with me. My forehead and inner cheeks and nose still need time and have deadskin mask on them pretty badly. My only guess would be too let the dead skin mask stay on for a week or more and let the skin underneath heal. I had dead skin on my cheeks a month or two ago and removed the mask on my cheeks and the skin underneath was healed and looked normal and clear and the dead skin mask hasn't returned on those spots. I have finally gotten so fed up and frustrated that I set up an appointment with a dermatologists. I don't want to get prescribed anything I just want some professional advice on the fastest way to make my skin heal naturally. Anyways my deadskin mask remaining looks horrible. It is thick and brownish and is cracking a little. Is this what normal dead skin looks like when it is severe?

I dont know for sure but i guess all the damaged skin is turning into deadskin and then falling off on its own when its ready, revealing clear new skin.

 

Ok thanks

Hello. I am brand new to this site and like others, have tried everything the dermatologist recommends. I am currently on Oracea and just started Sodium sulfacetamide (topically).

I apply Jojoba oil at night.

I have adult onset acne. I rarely had an occasional pimple in high school around my period. Now my skin is never clear, is patchy and red and bumpy on one side. (I'm experiencing acne and Rosacea, though the Rosacea is mostly just on the right side).

I have been on Adderal off and on and am realizing that this could be exacerbating the problem. (probably a separate post).

My skin is super sensitive and I've even tried the 'just water" approach to no avail. After reading this I am going to give the "no wash" approach a try. (also tried Cetaphil products and gentle oatmeal soap)

What I fear the most is going off Oracea which is probably also a separate post. I've been on it 3 months and when I skipped a few days it flared up.

So I may go to every other day with Oracea for a week while I ease into no washing and then off completely and see how goes.

I'm curious to hear an update since the last posts were made 2 years ago. Is this practice still working for you or anyone else?

I will be in touch about my progress, but I am suspecting it will get worse as I go off meds and since I have finals next week as well.

Steph

Steph,

I was in the same boat 3 weeks ago. Tomorrow will be Day 20 for me. It's been an interesting road so far. My face is really changing. Good and bad so far.

Hello. I am brand new to this site and like others, have tried everything the dermatologist recommends. I am currently on Oracea and just started Sodium sulfacetamide (topically).

I apply Jojoba oil at night.

I have adult onset acne. I rarely had an occasional pimple in high school around my period. Now my skin is never clear, is patchy and red and bumpy on one side. (I'm experiencing acne and Rosacea, though the Rosacea is mostly just on the right side).

I have been on Adderal off and on and am realizing that this could be exacerbating the problem. (probably a separate post).

My skin is super sensitive and I've even tried the 'just water" approach to no avail. After reading this I am going to give the "no wash" approach a try. (also tried Cetaphil products and gentle oatmeal soap)

What I fear the most is going off Oracea which is probably also a separate post. I've been on it 3 months and when I skipped a few days it flared up.

So I may go to every other day with Oracea for a week while I ease into no washing and then off completely and see how goes.

 

I'm curious to hear an update since the last posts were made 2 years ago. Is this practice still working for you or anyone else?

I will be in touch about my progress, but I am suspecting it will get worse as I go off meds and since I have finals next week as well.

 

Steph

Hmmm for me what I did was I did the no wash thing but not for a whole month. Like in a span of the whole month I probably washed like 3 times or so. All I noticed was my face felt pretty grimey and nasty and had an insane amount of dead skin. And also at the end of the 30 days I attempted to remove the dead skin mask and the skin underneath was still healing and very raw. After that I tried the washing with only water and it seems to be working pretty well now. At first my face was too damaged and weak I guess to handle the drying effect of the water but I kept doing it and now I do it everyday. My skin does look better but this has also been about 4 or 5 months of me not using any topicals and letting my skin heal itself from all the irritation from the Salicylic Acid. So I guess it's a combination of time and non-irritation. Seems like a pretty straight foward, simple and easy concept but it was pretty hard considering all the feelings of being insecure, no confidence, etc. And at times it was so frustrating that you're willing to try anything just to make your face just look normal and have clear skin again and there's no chemical or drug that's an "instant cure" and you have to keep thinking positive and have faith. But for me it was absolutely, positively the Salicylic Acid wash that made my face like this so that's the mindset I had and still do have now. I pretty much think to myself that since I have stopped using the face wash that my skin will eventually heal itself and get back to normal and that's kinda my motivation through the hard times. Anyways kinda rambling now but for this to work for you your acne has to be caused by irritation and cannot be hormonal acne or else I don't think you'll have much success. Hope this helps somewhat..

This dead skin is pissing me off -__-. I wish that when I take the dead skin off my skin will go to natural skin color and the mask wont come back. It looks nasty, pink on some parts of my innercheeks mixed with the brown dead skin. I can't wait until my skin heals and the mask comes off. I'm gonna have a freakin party.

Yea me too like if I choose to take the dead skin off cause it looks bad the skin underneath is still raw and pink, it's really frsutrating I don't know what to do.

Today I went to see a dermatologsts and I told him about how I used the SA wash and messed up my skin and hee tried to diagnose me with seborrheic keratosis and gave me this CeraVe "hydrating" cleanser with some pretty nasty ingredients in it. And prescribed me this 1% Clindamycin Phosphate topical gel. He also asked if I had any back or chest acne and I don't so I said no and then he checked my fingernails and tongue and asked if I had any lines on my fingernails or something and I said no and he looked at my back and said there were "little bumps" that could be the seborrheic keratosis and took a little tiny biopsy on my back and told me to come back in a week so he could observe it or something. He also gave me some samples of Retin-A to try which I'm not touching. He also said that me using the SA wash and it affecting my skin the way it has could be just coincidence and I could have seborrheic keratosis. All the other signs of seborric keratosis are dandruff, fingernail problems, and other stuff which I had none of and yet he still says it's not the SA wash. Man I really don't know what to do I mean he is a doctor and all but somethnig tells me that it was the SA and using all this stuff will just do more damage to my skin and I'm really comtemplating even using this stuff because my face HAS gotten better ever since I stopped using the SA and even thugh I'm not completely clear it has definitely improved over time and me not using that product. Please someone help me out here as I do not want to cause any further damage. Also does anyone have any good/bad input on Clindamycin Phosphate topical or the CeraVe Cleanser? Thanks

Hey jmaaan, i can hear the frustration in your post, and I've been to that exact same spot. The first time I did the caveman regimen (summer 09) I felt so helpless against the battle with deadskin that I went to a dermatologist and I was immediately prescribed azcone cream with CeraVe hydrating cleanser. I tried them, and it demolished my skin. After 2 months of not washing, and a few water rinses, my skin had become so incredibly sensitive to things getting on it.

Your going to need to be extra careful with your skin, its not as resilient as it was back when you washed it frequently. I personally do not know what you should do, but I hope you make the right choice.

Thanks Caveman it's nice to know that someone knows what I'm going through. But wow pretty good results actually, I'm suprised. Ok so anyways after that first post I ended up washing with the CeraVe Cleanser and it's pretty gentle on my skin despite it's huge list of ingredients (Alcohol being one of them). And the Clindamycin Topical I've been reading is an antibiotic and it really dries out my skin and have only used it twice in three days even though I'm supposed to twice A DAY. Twice a day seems like way too much and it's a little too harsh on my face for that. Anyways at first I was VERY skeptical about the derm instantly prescribing me all this stuff on the first visit especially after my past experience with the SA that got me into this whole thing, I was very more cautious about just rubbing random chemicals all over my already sensitive face. So washed with that cleanser and then after applied the topical to my inner cheeks and nose and forehead because those are the spots with pretty bad dead skin. It dried out those areas at first and the dead skin was a little detached from my skin. Washed again at night and aplpied the topical again and go to sleep. Keep in mind this is still the first day. I wake up to go to school the next day and nose, cheek and forehead area were felt pretty dry. I take a shower and decide to wash my face with the cleanser and once I get out of the shower and look in the mirror I notice there is a huge patch of dead ksin missing from my forehead and it looks weird and very uneven with the brown dead skin and a missing patch in the middle. I was very freaked out and my noly guess would be my fingers rubbed it off while I was washing my face. Anyways after looking in the mirror for awhile still freakiing out I decide to remove some of the dead skin to make it a little more "even" I guess. WHile doing this I found that the skin underneath was clear and healed so I decide to remove ALL the dead skin on my forehead and all the skin under is healed and clear and looks normal. It's amazing. My nose and cheeks don't have dead skin either mostly because the topical dries it out and it gets too dry to stay on and I've removed a little. Still, my cheeks and nose are pretty red from not being healed all the way but there is no dead skin and they're just a little red. I also have been noticing that my nose and cheeks and even forehead even though there is no dead skin and they look pretty good they're pretty oily and have some shine, I think it's because the topical dries it out so much and the oil just sits on it so that's why I haven't been using the topical but my skin still looks good just a little oily. Any questions let me know.

I don't know what to do anymore. Is there a way to get rid of the deadskin for good without gently scrubbing the area? It's starting to really tick me off. M nose and forehead are always pink now because i have to rub the deadskin off. I have a few little pimples on my forehead too. My inner cheeks have the deadskin mask because that's the area I want to heal the most.

I agree that washing your face twice a day isn't natural... but if you live in the city living amongst pollution isn't natural either.

Sometimes I feel that if I went to the country my skin would be a lot healthier and it's probably true. My face looks much healthier with a gentle cleanser though. I treat it like washing my hands, I don't scrub or try to peel stuff off, I barely put any pressure and just massage it a bit (for like less than 30seconds). I tried the no-washing thing when I was a little younger and I just didn't like the oil...

One thing I can recommend to ANYONE is don't take very long showers, the steam will dry out and irritate your skin. It shouldn't take too long to shower anyway...wash your whole body in 1-2mins? Shampoo for 1 min? Leave conditioner in for 1mins and wash in 1min? There's no need for extremely long showers and it won't do you any good... Also letting the water from the shower head hit your face is very irritating. It's like little watery fingers poking at your skin.