NOT WASHING MY FACE FOR A MONTH

Why am I doing this, honestly, it's because I'm frustrated. I never had acne until turning 20 and am now almost 23, everday I wake up I want to rip my face off and go back to the days when my face was normal. I've tried all different regimens, things that are too harsh dry my face, take a simplistic approach and I have oil and dead skin everywhere. I've been to 3 derms and they all give different things that never really work. I feel like I have every symptom or diet problem that all these forums proclaim and it just makes me crazy to the point that I have no idea what is really good for my face anymore, so basically I'm quitting, since my face doesn't want to be clean and clear than I won't make it, I'm going to teach it a lesson by not washing it for a month starting actually two days ago the 10th. I know that whatever the outcome will be it will be interesting along the way and I'm trying to look at it as a scientific experiment, maybe leaving it alone will help healing weak acne prone skin? who knows, I don't. As of right now my skin isn't breaking out very badly, I never really have bad acne just bad skin texture and little bumps but if I wash too much than I break out. So my nose is oily and has alot of dead skin and my cheeks are oily and have little bumps I have some dry skin around my mouth too, so we'll see what happens when leaving it all alone for a while.

you might want to rub some off the dead skin off with tissue or something every couple of days , incase you develop blocked pores or in the worst case cysts.

I understand your frustration, but not washing your face will make it worse...

try a gentle cleanser and see how that goes...

As a long time cystic acne suffering, all I can say to you is: wtf.


We should all be as lucky.

Why don't you just get a chemical peel? Your pores just getting blocked up. Not washing it isn't going to help, but hey - it's your life.

Thats a horrible idea. Maybe you just need a cleanser that has noncomedogenic and nonirritating ingredients in it.

Will it really make it worse, will the dead skin really cause cysts, I don't know for sure we'll have to wait and see, my skins been such a bitch for the past years that I just don't think it deserves to see any water for a while, the worst that could happen is, omg, I have bad skin in a month and then I can go back to having bad skin again by doing all the things I already do. I've tried gentle cleansers and I've tried using only water and my face still is super sensitive and breaks out so I think this is a simple enough regimen to follow and I've only found one article online of someone else doing this and they apparently were happy with how they looked, i'll consider myself a rebel like eating mcdonalds everymeal for a month, I'm going to take a picture everyday for the remaining 28 days and see what happens i'll probably regret this but as stubborn as my acne is i just want to do something as stubborn back.

Have you tried medicated non over the counter cleansers? Maybe your derm can give you one; thats what my derm did

This person didn't suffer from acne until they were 20. It seems like it's some clogged pores. Nothing huge and cystic or scar forming yet. They're over-reacting and haven't lived with it for as long as some of us have.

You're very right, I don't have cystic acne or even whats considered moderate acne, but what I do have has made me very conscientous about my appearance and as a result has been a suffering experience regardless of what you may consider the severity, everything is relative to the individual, something that I believe to be a problem may not seem to be a problem at all to you, just as someone who is severily handicapped would probably think less of your acne problem. I'm not trying to start an argument but their is always more to an individuals actual experiences in life than words or an outside point of view can completely understand and in light of this I don't think we should judge one anothers plight or belittle others struggles because we think our own to be so much worse. Would you be happier with my skin, maybe, would I be happier with someone elses skin who frequents this website, probably, but I won't tell them their over-reacting and haven't lived what I've lived.

I've been on accutane, which was a huge mistake, and also used differin, oracea, finacea, and now I've been using only water for the past couple of weeks and it has been very beneficial but regardless even if I only wash my face for like five seconds a day it still becomes dry and I don't experience this when I don't wash so hence the no washing and I also just want to try it and see what happens, we place so much emphasis on conventional wisdom when we live in such an unconventional world, built to spill, wish I could say i philophisized that. I may be doing something completely wrong but I like to pretend that trying things differently will elicit different results, makes sense, and since everything i've tried hasn't than helped.... at least I'll have one more thing I can mark as not working. Thanks for the advice btw

UPDATE: Day 5

Well, it's been five days since I've washed my face with anything and their are definately some noteworthy things taking place. First off, it makes sense to clarify more specifically the condition my face was in prior to beginning any of this. At the time I had 6 or 7 medium sized pimples/zits, uneven skin tone ( my cheeks were perpetually red and my nose was as well, my derm told me I had mild case of rosacea), alot of tiny skin colored bumps on my upper cheeks, and dry skin aroound my mouth and nose. I understand that some of the positive things I may mention could change at any point in the future with continuation of this regimen, or lack there of, but as of now this is whats happening with my condition then I'll give possible theories I've been running over as to what may be the contributing factors. My skin tone has dramatically changed, what I am normally accustomed to is having what some refer to as the raccoon look, palish looking skin everywhere on the face except for the cheeks which are bright red and make the darker area around my eyes look like circles, I basically always looked like I just finished running a marathon, red and emmaciated. Out of all the things that are different, this is the most dramatic. My cheeks are no longer red and my face doesn't look pale, I actually have an even skin tone for the first time in a long time, not only does my face now more resemble the color of my chest but its looking very healthy, a natural glow if you will. The reason I believe this may be goes back to one of the reasons why I started all of this, after realizing that my sensitive skin was reacting to even the most minimal care, ie just using water, it began to make sense that I had to take care of my skin in a way that would never result in having any dry skin from irritation. By avoiding irritating my skin for the past five days, I believe that my faces natural oils have been able to be used beneficially and properly absorbed as opposed to sitting on top of very dry skin. In other words, at the end of the day I, as many others, was used to having very oily skin, so, what I would do was wash my face to make sure that all the oil was cleaned off, and it was, but obviously the oil comes back but instead of coming back to skin that is healthy, its coming back to skin that has been cleaned but at the same time dried out, so I think that by doing this its like the oil just stays on the face instead of being able to absorb back into the skin. Now, instead of constantly washing all of this oil off my face at night or during the day I let it stay and by doing this its like my skin is repairing itself, I really am starting to believe that the oil on my skin is more of a benefit than a negative, if I don't mess with my face at all its like the oil is able to properly do its job, its hard to explain but I fall asleep with oily skin and wake up without it and instead my skin is glowing, naturally, and I think its my body naturally taking over the process of healing what has become dry, irritated, and weak skin resulting in acne. Moving on, as of right now I have only 3 pimples/zits, thats down from the initial 6 or 7 that I'm accustomed to, but whats even more telling is whats happened in the time between. I woke up on day three and saw a big zit right on my lip line like a cold sore, I'm used to getting these a couple times a month and I hate them the most because they are always the most stubborn and take the longest to go away, so needless to say I was bummed. Well, to my astonishment by the end of the day it was literally gone, THIS, has never happened to me, anytime I have ever gotten one of these it always takes a week atleast to go away and this is the pattern thats emerged. The original 6 or 7 that I had have all healed since beginning this but new things keep popping up but less and less and anytime something new comes along that normally I would say great that will take weeks to go away, are gone within a day or so. This goes back to what I believe my body's way of naturally helping my face out, instead of me feeling like I have to clean away my zits on my face, its like the natural oils are cleaning my face for me and doing a better job than I do. I could go alot more in depth but I'll move on as I'm begginning to write a memoire. My nose has changed alot too, I'm used to it being a bit dry but not flaky, alittle discolored like reddish, and having small black heads. The first couple of days things on my nose definately looked worse, I had a couple zits pop up and it began to flake heavily with dry skin and all together was the worst part of my face, but after day 3 it began to follow suit with the rest of my skin, the dry skin slowly started to flake away and the zits disappeared and now my nose looks cleaner and not the bumpy look I'm used to seeing, it still has alittle more dead skin than the rest but it looks so much better than usual. I don't want to jinx myself, but right now, my skin looks better than it has in the last couple of years and from everything that I keep seeing transform everyday it feels like things can only get better, and I've been doing everything you always here not to do, leaving all the oil on my face not washing after sweating in the sun etc etc. Its just so weird cause I wake up in the morning and what I see in the mirror is like, ok I really don't feel like if I wash that it will look any better, so I leave it alone and at the end of the day it looks better than fine, it looks more healthy. I'll update again in 5 days.

Any updates?

Yea...this is interesting!

i totally understand where you're coming from... my acne isn't thaaat bad either but it makes you really self-conscious.... i hope this works out for you!

I dont think its right to minimize how people feel about their acne. If its one or two pimples fine, but if its more than that, then its understandable they feel the way they do in my opinion and theres no reason to be so judgemental

I've quit counting days now, my main purpose of doing this was to prove to myself that washing my face everyday wasn't going to make my face any clearer and most likely was causing my face to break out even though as mentioned I was only using water! I've quit counting because after ten days my face stopped breaking out, literally I haven't had anything new come up in about a week, since realizing that it makes no sense to "cleanse" one part of your body repeatedly on a daily basis things have been amazing, now I wash my face about once every three or four days even though I don't feel I need to I could go a week without washing and know that things stay the same. Its just all about irritation, whatever you do to clean yourself, if your face ever feels tight or its dry and you need lotion than your irritating your skin, its simple just keep telling yourself less is more and after a while you realize that leaving it alone actually helps more too. Also, I had a ton of dead skin and oil for the first week or so and it didn't make my face break out in those places, its stupid to use something to strip your skin dry in those places and then when the oil comes back just make it a dry blocked mess, just leave your face alone for a while and see what happens I'm very happy with what I've learned in doing this and since my skin is clear now for the first time in years I know that cleaning your face even once a day may be too much for some.

Interesting!

However, I work out every day and have to take a shower after the workout. However I shower as little as possible, but once a day is a must for me:)

sorry about the above post

I workout routinely also and the majority of my days I spend outside sweating profusely, I agree that alot of times a shower is a must because of the smell but besides that your body doesn't need it in my opinion, for example, the first week that I was doing this I felt crazy going to sleep with all of the oil and sweat on my face, but every morning my face looked better than the nights I would wash all of it off. What I did was wash my body without getting my face wet, the first couple of days are weird but for me atleast by the fourth day things were beginning to make sense as far as letting my face do whatever it was going to naturally, I know many people know this but talk to your grandparents about their bathing habits, as kids it was like once a week and its not surprising that recently acne is such a widespread problem when we are told, bath daily, repeatedly wash your face multiple times a day and with chemicals, just makes no sense to me. The most your face needs is a splash of water if at all and then let it heal itself from all the self inflicted damage over the years. It just takes a little bit of courage to do something as random as this because its against all conventional wisdom, but I just hung out with my family for like a week because I knew they wouldn't care if my face erupted but luckily it didn't and now I understand alot more of how by body needs to be taken care of

This has been really interesting reading this thread. It makes a lot of sense in ways. I've just started this last night not washing my face. I've been pretty well close to clear but my face has always looked so unhealthy after washing.

I remembered back when I went on a camping trip (I was on pro-active at the time..and it was working) but I forgot my stuff, so I thought "oh great my face is gonna be ruined after this trip". I ended up not washing my face, sweating like crazy hiking and such and my face had cleared up totally by the end of it and my skin seemed to be healthier.

Maybe this doesn't work for some people with severe acne, but I think it might work for me. I'm giving it a shot.


Thanks waterwater!

nFallin,
What do you use to wash your face prior to doing this, the only reason I'm asking is because I'm not sure how something like this will work if one goes from using extremely harsh cleansers to simply nothing. For me I stopped using all the cleansers about a month or two ago and since then was only using water and then proceeded to do nothing, but, the premise still makes sense I think, you just may have more of a buildup of skin and oil in the beginning if in fact you've been using something harsher than water but realize that like anything else it takes some time and don't get discouraged if your looking in the mirror at the end of the day and you really want to wash your face sleep on it, literally, and in the morning you'll be surprised at how things look especially after doing this a couple of times. Also, my older brother has always had cystic acne really bad, but I have three other siblings that don't have any acne at all and mine was never as bad as his, interestingly he has been using proactive for the past couple of years and his face has really spiraled down but he saw me a couple of weeks ago and asked " Why is your face all oily and it looks like you haven't bathed" and i told him that it was because I quit washing my face and he laughed and said that he knew if he quit using proactive that his face would erupt and I told him probably so but that was to be expected for the first couple of days, still he didn't pay much attention, then I saw him yesterday and he asked me what new face wash I had been using and I told him I still was rarely washing my face, it had been three days since my last wash when I saw him, and he was floored, he said he was going to do the same thing cause he could see the difference too, so I'll know what kind of effect doing this has on more severe cases of acne, but I still believe that this is mostly a cure for adult acne, the hormonal kind teenagers go through won't go away from not washing but I still think their use of chemicals is ridiculous.

Sorry, I shouldn't have put "cure" above, I don't want any raving lunatics commenting about how I"m not a doctor and blah blah, this just worked for me and I think it would for some others, not everyone.