Day 1: its quite hard to resist picking my skin as im so used to naturally looking for flaws to fix. During the day its easier as Im busy, but in the evenings im trying to avoid looking in the mirror. So far, so good. No major issues, and current active spots are going down on their own without me interfering and making them redder and swollen.

Day 2: I stupidly picked the tiniest mark on my face this morning, which turned into a huge red swollen bump! Once that happened, it gave me the motivation to walk away from the mirror and leave my face alone. It's now the end of the day and, whereas I'd usually keep picking at the bump to 'rectify' the problem, i've left it alone and it's paid off! It's already gone back down in size and is less angry-looking. The rest of my skin looks okay, the complexion is more even seeing as I'm not constantly touching it and making it red. It is hard to resist picking when I know there are two small whiteheads on my chin, but hopefully these will go quicker if I leave them alone.

Great idea, keep us updated!

I gone quite a few days without any severe picking until tonight.. I squeezed some nodular spots which were deep rooted and only had a small white head. Got them all extracted but ofc I've left my skin in redness.

I was doing well and my cheeks where healing up nicely, now this will probably set them back! Going to bed with loads of sudocrem on hoping the redness will be away by tmoz morning..

Update: so on day 3 and 4 my skin looked really good and I felt confident for the first time in ages! But when I got home I looked in the mirror and saw some bumps and ended up tearing my face apart. I was really disappointed in myself because I went from have clear-ish looking skin to at least 10 scabs in the space of a few hours. Seeing the damage I did kind of gave me the motivation to stop picking again. That night I put some benzoyl peroxide on, followed by bio-oil the next day as my skin was dry as a result. I'm now on day 8 and all the scabs have gone (some have left red marks). My skin looks okay again. I've stopped picking which means it's less red, but I still have some whiteheads and bumps appearing on my forehead and chin. I'm trying hard not to pick the bumps by reminding myself that I won't get anything out of them and a skin-coloured bump is a lot less harmless compared to a huge scab!

So far, it seems that not picking doesn't necessarily stop my acne, but it does prevent spreading, cause whiteheads to heal a bit quicker, and evens my complexion out slightly as there's less redness.

24 minutes ago, jPablo said:

I gone quite a few days without any severe picking until tonight.. I squeezed some nodular spots which were deep rooted and only had a small white head. Got them all extracted but ofc I've left my skin in redness.

I was doing well and my cheeks where healing up nicely, now this will probably set them back! Going to bed with loads of sudocrem on hoping the redness will be away by tmoz morning..

Use this to motivate yourself not to pick again! That's what I'm trying to do. Every time I pick my face, I take photos for me to look back on and stop myself from causing more damage. How is your face doing today?

1 hour ago, RipMyFaceOff said:

Update: so on day 3 and 4 my skin looked really good and I felt confident for the first time in ages! But when I got home I looked in the mirror and saw some bumps and ended up tearing my face apart. I was really disappointed in myself because I went from have clear-ish looking skin to at least 10 scabs in the space of a few hours. Seeing the damage I did kind of gave me the motivation to stop picking again. That night I put some benzoyl peroxide on, followed by bio-oil the next day as my skin was dry as a result. I'm now on day 8 and all the scabs have gone (some have left red marks). My skin looks okay again. I've stopped picking which means it's less red, but I still have some whiteheads and bumps appearing on my forehead and chin. I'm trying hard not to pick the bumps by reminding myself that I won't get anything out of them and a skin-coloured bump is a lot less harmless compared to a huge scab!

So far, it seems that not picking doesn't necessarily stop my acne, but it does prevent spreading, cause whiteheads to heal a bit quicker, and evens my complexion out slightly as there's less redness.

Use this to motivate yourself not to pick again! That's what I'm trying to do. Every time I pick my face, I take photos for me to look back on and stop myself from causing more damage. How is your face doing today?

I just don't get it. My face was doing well with very little redness, I squeezed one white head and then boom my hands wouldn't stop.

The redness will take another week to heal and drop me back into the cycle again. So frustrating!!