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Stop trying to care of your face, and it will take care of itself.

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(@gabfar)

Posted : 05/07/2016 4:04 am

Hi everyone,

I have rarely visited this site and this is my first post ever but I wanted to share my experience with you guys. I'm not saying what worked for me is going to work for everyone but I think it should be considered more of a possible solution that it currently is.

I had minor-moderate acne since the age of 12, spiking between the ages of 15-18. I tried almost everything, except Acutane (which I am thankful for). I went to a lot of derms, even visited the top derm in my country, and they all said the same thing: without Acutane your acne will never vanish and you will have it until you are 40. Up till that moment I would have tried thousands of creams, including some weird home remedies like rubbing lemon and sulfur on my face (which worked surprisingly well, 33% of the time). I also have to note that the cream which worked for me 100% of the time and made the biggest difference was Effaclar from La Roche Posay, even though it left a lot of redness on my face and pimples used to take forever to heal.

But then I read an article somewhere where the acne sufferer abonded all sin care routines and just did... Nothing. Yes, nothing. And guess what? After a few months, her skin had cleared and returned to normal. After reading this I was convinced this was the way to go, it made snse. Skin care ia probably a billion dollar industry and if you actually think big pharma is looking out for our best interests, you are probably mistaken. I am not saying that they are sabotaging our faces, that would be bad business sense, but they probably know that there are better solutions.

Anyway, after reading this I stopped all skin care products and the only liquids my face received was a shower every day. Most importantly, I did not fuss over my face, I did not look at the mirror every 10 minutes and did not feel like the world is coming to an end. I just accepted that acne was going to be a small part of me until the face regains its chemical balance I had so wildly thrown it off from.

It is three months now and I am completely clear and have been so for the past 1.5 months. I still have some redness but ruptured blood vessels take some time to heal and I have accepted that. I still get occasional pimples, but they HEAL SO QUICKLY. And the reason that they heal so quickly is that big red pimples MUST produce a white head in the middle, big as it may be, and the white head MUST stay there for a day or two. Then the white head will gray out and fall off and the redness will fade, in that order. Every time we brush, scrub or cleanse our face we are scrubbing off the whitehead (which is so fragile, even a hot shower can peel it off). You must take care of the whitehead. I used to think of it like a fragile special container my face is transporting out of my body, and should it spill over other pores I would have a distaster.

But the most important underlying element was that I did not care. I just did not. Sure people might say something in their head, but it will vanish when they talk to you and recongize how awesome of a person you are. I have met some people with horrendous acne and after some minutes I just did not care. If people do care, they are probably bitter and unhappy with themselves, so you should just not care about them in the first place.

I am not saying this will work for everyone. I understand that some acne cases our much worse than others. Personally I have never had cysts, even though I have had some BIG pimples. Also I have to shower every day or for every day I miss I get a pimple more or less. Even then the pimple would vanish in 1-3 days. You do not know how good it feels to just go to bed without having to go through a 30 min routine in front of a mirror.

TLDR:
1. Everytime you scrub, cleans or do anything that involves contact with your face you are scraping off healing elements your acne needs to fade.
2. Stop caring so much, no one does, so why should you.
3. Stop doing anything to your face except a warm (not hot) shower every day. You probably started washing because of hormonal changes, which are probably stable now, and are just getting acne because you actually are washing. Let you face heal.

Things that didn't make a difference for me:
1. Diet: was following a pretty clean diet when I had acne and currently am on the worst diet of my life as I'm bulking and am clear
2. Stress: was extremely stressed sometimes when clear and relaxed when I had acne

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(@leelowe1)

Posted : 05/07/2016 5:48 am

Thank you for sharing, Acne that clears once skin care is stopped is acne sometimes caused using the wrong products. This method will not work for everyone and in fact can lead to prolonged periods of acne if other issues are not addressed such as :

diet
stress
hormonal issues

root cause of acne acne is a very individualized thing.

i enjoyed the fact that you stressed letting go and not caring. Acne is such an emotional thing and it can imprison us to the point of us not wanting to move forward. We can't always control it but we can control us.

If you are comfortable doing so, I encourage you to post before and after pictures.

Congrats on your success.

Iwikiwi liked
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(@lore91)

Posted : 05/07/2016 7:49 am

Nice post.. Sometimes I think that using nothing is the way to go, but it's hard to just not do anything. Products kind of give me hope - but hey ... Our ancestors used nothing on their faces and there are no records of acne or skin problems back then. Skin is an organ, like any other part of your body. Your body takes care of itself

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(@tretinoin)

Posted : 05/07/2016 8:00 am

Yeah, I did this for a year and nothing happened. Realized that I had to treat the cause and finally went to the dermatologist and got tretinoin. Best decision of my life so far in terms of what I've done for my skin.

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(@gabfar)

Posted : 05/07/2016 8:28 am

2 hours ago, leelowe1 said:

Thank you for sharing,  Acne that clears once skin care is stopped is acne sometimes caused using the wrong products.  This method will not work for everyone and in fact can lead to prolonged periods of acne if other issues are not addressed such as :

diet
stress
hormonal issues

root cause of acne acne is a very individualized thing.

i enjoyed the fact that you stressed letting go and not caring.  Acne is such an emotional thing and it can imprison us to the point of us not wanting to move forward.  We can't always control it but we can control us.

If you are comfortable doing so, I encourage you to post before and after pictures.

Congrats on your success.

Your welcome. Note however that I had tried a LOT of other products. It's true that it will not work for everyone, but at least it should be considered as a viable solution that using products is actually causing your acne.

I could not have stopped caring on my own. I met my girlfriend and they never bothered her and gradually they stopped bothering me less and less.

I do not have before pictures as it was quite some long time ago but I took photos of how I am now. I realize I am not perfect and I have accepted that I have some ways to go before I am 100% clear but it has never been better and I am happy that I do not have to do anything to stay this way.

39 minutes ago, Lore91 said:

Nice post.. Sometimes I think that using nothing is the way to go, but it's hard to just not do anything. Products kind of give me hope - but hey ... Our ancestors used nothing on their faces and there are no records of acne or skin problems back then. Skin is an organ, like any other part of your body. Your body takes care of itself

Honestly it wasn't that hard for me. I just said I'm fed up and I'm going to see how this goes. I'm done making a fuss over what other people think of me.

28 minutes ago, Tretinoin said:

Yeah, I did this for a year and nothing happened. Realized that I had to treat the cause and finally went to the dermatologist and got tretinoin. Best decision of my life so far in terms of what I've done for my skin. 

Yeah then it was definitely some underlying issue. As I said this won't work for everyone but it's good that you at least tried to give your face a chance to heal.

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(@alex9945)

Posted : 05/07/2016 3:38 pm

I'm not sure i'm convinced enough.

I'm glad it worked for you, but because you healed from the inside does not mean that skin products are bad and will make things worse. If we look objectively at your situation - you might have been using irritation skin products. People who have acne creates more sebum and it is therefore important to exfoliate the skin often.

MissSac17 liked
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MemberMember
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(@alex9945)

Posted : 05/08/2016 3:21 am

11 hours ago, Alex9945 said:

I'm not sure i'm convinced enough.

I'm glad it worked for you, but because you healed from the inside does not mean that skin products are bad and will make things worse. If we look objectively at your situation - you might have been using irritatingskin products. People who have acne creates more sebum and it is therefore important to exfoliate the skin often.

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