The Water Treatment

Hi guys!  It's been a while since I posted anything, sorry!  Uni's been crazy lately.  

I do still plan on doing the streetsnaps thing, but...so far I haven't been able to work myself up to actually -ask- someone if I could take their photo.  (fear of rejection perhaps?)

Meanwhile, I found possible interesting experiments to try!  

& an extralong post to make up for being gone!

the water treatment

I've had mild acne & blackheads on my forehead since I started uni in 2008.  

Thankfully my acne's not anywhere near the typical inflamed, throbbing, red sort (think Proactive ads); 

still it's not the greatest thing to have had it for 5 years on and off and be 21.  

I had a brief period in summer 2012, where my skin was pretty much flawless and even toned 

for about 3 months...then began breaking out once fall, and school, began.  

Since I spend most of the day out of the house, I switched back to a 0.5% salicylic acid cleanser

Just around the end of December I developed small, hard, round "bumps" under my skin - a little cluster of them on one cheek, another on the left of my chin/jaw, and a third cluster on one temple. :c  I was surprised because I thought I was doing pretty well and keeping my face really clean - apparently not?

So pretty much since mid-September I've used everything - Proactive, stronger salicylic acid cleansers, masks, scrubs, etc.    Nothing I've tried yet has worked.  I also tried going back to what I was using in summer, but it was either too oily or something, as it wasn't effective at all and ended up making my face greasy and sticky. :c  (I quit before THAT gave me extra spots to worry about.)

About Proactive... It's a case to case basis.  It has helped my sister immensely - she uses it as soon as she sees anything and it goes away in 1-2 days.  For me, looked like it was working the first week I used it, but from the second time onwards the bumps just seemed to first look irritated, and then not change at all (no spreading though, whew).

However Ace, my boyfriend, on the other hand, is 23 and has quite good skin with only very occasional breakouts, and then only ever one or two spots that disappear within 1-2 days.  Though he did have mild acne during highschool, same as I did.

I asked him what he used to wash, and he said he doesn't soap his face every day - only ever when he showers, & just with a bit of shampoo left after washing his hair.  Super low key routine.  (Also he's not the type to spend a lot of time examining spots in the mirror - less tempted to pick/squeeze at spots.)

This sounded incredibly gross and lazy at the time.

But after reading around on the web and a few books, it seems like this is actually effective - just washing your face with water, and occasionally a gentle/mild cleanser.

Skin has its own natural "acid mantle", which protects against bacteria etc. and allows the skin to maintain its own health.  But of course, if you use soap/cleansers, you're throwing off the pH of this mantle ...or completely washing it off.  And if your cleanser is something for acne (aka super drying), it'll really rough up your skin.

So starting tomorrow I'm going to wash with 

ONLY water, morning and night, 

and use a gentle soapfree cleanser (Cetaphil) every other day.  

I don't know about using moisturizer but I'm assuming you probably won't need to, as you'll have your skin's natural oil buildup after a couple of days.  (I'll probably use oilfree Neutrogena for the first day though, to get a head start.)  

Now let's consider makeup & water-only washing.

I don't wear foundation/makeup other than eyeliner, so I don't really have to worry that I'll be leaving foundation on my face day..after day...after day, which is a TERRIBLE idea & will almost certainly backfire this whole routine on you.  I'm planning to use oilfree moisturizer to remove the liner, since that's a pretty limited area it shouldn't throw off the water-only routine.  

If you're going to try this then I recommend going without foundation/powder for a while!  I know a lot of girls who do use a lot of foundation to cover up their acne, and to have it exposed is pretty embarrassing.

BUT -- if your face clears up from this, then you won't even need to use that makeup anymore - you'll save money on both acne treatments and makeup, AND you'll be naturally glowy and radiant.  Whyever not?!

More info can be found
here
and
here
(it's also called the "caveman" routine/regime, though I doubt Ace knows this)

Besides washing with just water, I basically cut out soda/junkfood/sweets

and anything really fattening.  Also I'm trying to drink more water & 

unsweetened tea, + more veggies and not as much meat.

I'll make a small update post day by day as I do this. c: 

From what I've read, results show up between a week to 3 weeks, 

so hopefully it works out well!

♡ISA