okay everyone.. ill first start off by saying i am new to acne.org and i have recently decided to join due to the fact that i have just had enough. my acne is mild but it is still just too much for me, it sucks to look at friends and see that they have barely any. i am 18 by the way.

i have finally talked to many people and learned about real life experiences to help with acne. i DONT believe that people are born with acne and are doomed from the start i now believe that something triggered a few pimples in the beginning and all of the sudden everyone thinks to drench our skin with products. Think about it, there are hormone changes which can cause it and everyone has gotten a pimple before. but people like myself if one pimple shows up i would work so hard to kill it where as others would just continue their washing.

As a kid i never washed my face. not once in the shower and when that first pimple showed up around 13-14 i started to. and im not sure if im making a connection here but all of the sudden i was dealing with more and more pimples. i did a test on some products i have been using by putting some on a wash cloth and washing it off... the wash cloth was bleached! now imagine that stuff on your skin! so i have slowly stopped using these products, there was a period of just bad acne. worse i have ever gotten but now it has really went down. now before you guys say "oh well you have only been doing it for a few weeks".. wrong, i have done this in the summer i just stopped doing anything because i noticed after staying the night somewhere without putting product on my face seemed to heal quicker and was less red. i was working out and didnt use much product and i had great skin. then school rolled around and mixed with the hard water and my skin turned against me. so i started again and as you guys can guess.. my skin got more pimples again. btw yes i know puberty causes acne. im just saying we may be making our own acne.

i will now talk about people i have asked with without acne. i went around asking my my family and friends about how they keep there skin clean. my dad, who has taken 5 minute showers every since he was a teen answered with "i washed once a day with bar soap and used calamine on the occasional pimple.." i asked one friend who has long hair constantly in his face, he replied with " i wash my face once a week if i remember with just regular soap" basically what i am saying is that everyone i asked didnt really keep great washing habits. none of my friends talked about using any acne creams at night or making sure they washed before bed where as i would wash up to three times a day and i would apply products all day to my acne. my friend suggested that i slowly get off these products which i will start doing by washing every other day for a few weeks and i will continue to increase the amount of days in between.

Other factors:

im a teen guy and most of us will masturbate starting at around 13-14. this may seem far fetched but the ones like myself did it a few times a day and i am starting to believe that this is a connection. i dont know the science all i know it is can influence hormones due to testosterone. in summer (when i had my good skin) i stopped masturbating for a few weeks to see and honestly my face did clear up a good amount but that could have been related to the working out and less face products being used. but i have recently looked into it and even if it doesnt help with acne the benefits of being more confident seem to outweigh the pleasure. so i will give this a try as well. this probably will sound weird but sometimes that will come up in conversation as joke and one day my friends just said how they dont do it that much and i was like wow maybe that actually could be the cause..

as for junk food im not sure, my friends all eat like crap and have horrible eating patterns where as i have great eating patterns but i will eat chips and fast food too. so im not sure of the correlation but i am going to give up chips, fast food, and try and slow down on white bread and pastas.

i have attemped the caveman in a sloppy way for close to a month and it really seemed to break me out more which people say could be the detoxing but i couldnt do it and i started using dove soap for sensitive skin and calamine and night.. thats it and i can honestly say that it has shown a difference in about a week. however i shaved for the first time in a month and that seemed to have irritated the jawline acne and it is coming back pretty strong haha. also i have eaten like crap with being home from college and the past few days i have noticed more break outs. but i have been eating fast food for the past few nights.

Ill just sum up what i will be doing as my new regimen..

- wash once every other day dove soap (slowly increase the days in between)

- use calamine on face every other day (slowly increase the days in between)

- no fast food or chips. less pasta and white bread

- no masturbation

- begin to take vitamins such as vitamin C, and i will attempt omega 3s for i have heard they are essential for skin

- workout and try not to look in the mirror for awhile because i dont want the stress of acne on top of other stress.

thats it guys, it probably sounds stupid but i will keep everyone updated. wish me luck!

also please share any similar experiences that have been attempted.

there was once a time where everyone had clear skin, you arent born with it. everyone also goes through puberty so we need to ask ourselves what we are doing that can possibly causing this. im sure that all of you have a friend who does the same exact habits as you but has clear skin..