Caveman Regimen

Ever heard of it? I hadn't until last week. It's a skincare regimen, or lack thereof. Basically you don't wash your face, apply cosmetics or skin care products for a full 30 days, but just let your skin do its own thing. I've been informed that two things are likely to happen during those 30 days: A dead skin face-mask, and small fleshy bumps. The idea behind this is that after those 30 days of embarrassing flaky, bumpy skin, the skin beneath will have the new found ability to renew and heal itself without the help of products. You peel away that dead skin face-mask at the end of the 30 days and voila! Perfect, smooth skin lies beneath. After all it takes 28 days for our skin to renew itself and get out of the habit of having products help it along. After those 30 days you can do whatever you like I guess, but if it works for you then I assume you continue on the regimen, but perhaps washing your face with plain old water or exfoliating with your fingers every now and then.

The logic behind this is that when you wash your face and use chemical or even all natural face products, you disrupt your skins natural acid mantle and moisture barrier. These two things are what your skin uses as a defence against common skin problems, especially acne. Makes sense doesn't it? Why would humans be plagued with skin that just doesn't quite cut it naturally, always prone to inflammation and open sores, and without a careful, difficult (not to mention expensive) care regimen your poor vulnerable skin just falls into chaos. I don't know if humans would have lasted this long if the very organ responsible for protecting pretty much every other organ was that dang needy and difficult.

One way I like to look at this is from the perspective of an alien observing the human race. Or if it’s easier, imagine cartoon cows instead of people. There's a herd of cows on Earth, they are constantly suffering from open, bleeding, pus-filled sores on their faces. They have absolutely no idea why this happens and the only known and "effective" treatments involve very harsh chemicals and synthetic substances being applied to the skin or taken internally, but even these are usually short-lived. You observe that the cows have an interesting habit of twice daily scrubbing, washing, rubbing, and picking at said facial skin (or cow-hide if you prefer), along with applying an array of products and cover-up that can and usually do contain very bad ingredients. Does it take a genius to figure it out?

I'm not at all saying this is the cause of all acne, although it's not helping in any situation. Teenagers get acne due to hormones, as do some adults with various illnesses and diseases. Some people get acne due to poor diet, as there is a proven correlation between sugar, insulin levels and acne. But what about us people who have breached the age of maturity, have excellent diets and are in good physical health with no conditions?

I belong to the latter category, and I still get acne.

I have extremely sensitive skin, as do most people I believe who have spent years rubbing at it, and my problem areas tend to be, well anywhere really. Most frequently my forehead, cheeks and around my mouth. So yeah, anywhere. I do notice if I eat a lot of sugar or fat I break out in specific areas, namely my mouth area and sides of my cheeks.

I also have some minimal hyper-pigmentation, mostly around my mouth.

My whole life I have been bombarded with the idea that I need to wash my skin, with cleanser, twice a day. And because all that washing can dry your skin out, you need to apply moisturiser afterwards. And if you want to get really fancy, you should also include a toner to balance the pH of your skin which you just messed up by washing it, exfoliate to remove dead skin that our own bodies are apparently too ill-evolved to get rid of by themselves, and some face masques for various other things. I have done most of these rituals since I was about 14 years old, right around when I also started to get acne. Don't get me wrong, I probably would've had some acne regardless due to all my raging teenage hormones, but it did actually get worse when I started using products, and when it continued past age 20, I got worried.

I've been on accutane twice, the doctor just gave it to me without many questions asked and no warnings besides "don't get pregnant on these" I had no idea how dangerous and not recommended this medication was, and now I've been on it twice. I was only 14 and 16 years old at the times I took it, a wee young lady who trusted my doctor and hardly went on the internet. My acne wasn't even that bad. After those two times my acne still came back eventually so my doctor just put me on a benzoyl peroxide product. This did work, but my acne would always come back whenever I missed a day or two and I was a little concerned about what it might be doing to my face considering it was bleaching my hand towels even after I washed my hands. After looking it up (I finally discovered the internet) I read a whole bunch of scary things like tumors and carcinogens and a whole bunch of great things like miracle acne cure. I also noted that it is no longer listed as safe under the FDA, but rather as safety is unknown. So the data is conflicting.

But I do know that I always felt stifled by my ridiculous morning and night routine of washing my face, applying toner, applying moisturiser, applying make-up if necessary and so on. I always felt like it didn't match who I am, an all-natural hippy type using expensive definitely not so natural products and using make-up to cover what I actually look like naturally. Not to mention the bad feelings I'd get when someone mentioned camping (oh no, how am I going to perform my rituals? How am I going to get my make-up on with no one seeing what I look like beforehand?) Or hitch-hiking, or WOOFing (all things I love to do by the way), or anything where I wouldn't have constant, private access to a full bathroom (to perform rituals I don't love to do at all). Very stifling indeed, and perhaps a tad neurotic as well. I want freedom from my rituals, freedom from bad feelings associated with my appearance, and freedom to just go the heck to bed when I'm tired instead of having to drag myself to bathroom first. Oh, and of course, freedom from acne.

It occured to me more then once that maybe all these things I'm doing to my skin are actually making it worse, but I had such a reinforced idea of washing, toning, moisturising that I didn't dare break free for fear of breaking out even more.

Somehow or other I happened upon a website where a woman talks about her experiences on the caveman regimen. I notice her acne is very similar to mine, and so is her lifestyle, health and eating habits. She experienced a lot of success on the caveman regimen.

I've also heard a lot of people who have had bad experiences with this, but I wonder what other factors are contributing there: poor health (emotionally or physically)? Poor diet? The list goes on. I believe this regimen is for people who have gotten their lives together, looked at the possibility of and/or have taken steps in healing internal illnesses/imbalances and improved their diets. This regimen is a kind of last resort for getting rid of stubborn acne after all these other things have been addressed.

If you like to wear makeup and can't go without it, this isn't for you. Even if you go the whole 30 days makeup free, when you do want to wear it again, you won't be able to properly remove it from your skin without disrupting the regimen, which can result in cosmetic acne.

I will be going makeup free, which is very difficult for me, for the first time since I was 15 years old. I know, long time. I've weaned myself out of it slowly over the past few days. First letting go of my under eye concealor, then not covering up my scars and finally allowing my active blemishes to breath fresh air. I recommend doing this part slowly so you don't remove all at once, be really insecure about it for the whole day, have one kind of bad experience, and blame it on the no makeup and chicken out of the whole deal. Be patient with it, let yourself and people around you get used to your new look. And be brave. I remember reading on the woman's blog (the woman who introduced me to the idea) that it's a catch 22; you have to expose your acne in order to get rid of it. I think it’s part of the process, and makes perfect sense, as with anything psychological; you must stop hiding something in order for it to come to the surface and be healed. It also teaches you to be less insecure about your appearance and to put less importance on appearing "perfect", which I believe could benefit all of western society at the moment. Anyway.

I'm pretty confident about this actually, just this morning I was mulling over whether I should actually do it or not, and it occurred to me that there was one time in my life since puberty when I had naturally good skin. And all I did at the time was washing my face with water and put on moisturiser, mostly out of laziness at the time. I still broke out sometimes in very small pimples, probably due to the moisturiser (which wasn't the best suited for my skin and was pretty cheap) but nothing like the inflamed ones I can get nowadays. I also just can't stand the thought of being dependent on products for the rest of my life (the cost adds up pretty quick, and what if I run out and the store is closed?!) or being trapped in the idea of having to do these unnatural things to my face or else. Deep down I know adult acne is not normal, and I shouldn't have it. This is the last resort for me as a (what feels like) lifelong acne sufferer, so it shall be done!

So, to recap, no makeup, no washing, just get up and go. I'm still going to shower, but managing this without getting my face wet is something I've done for years, so no problem there. Just face away from the showerhead and lean your head back, face pointing upwards, until the water just runs over your hair, and go no further. I'm also not going to freak out if a little bit of water gets on my face, but just not put it there on purpose.

This is Day 1 for me, so far so good. I washed my face this morning to get rid of the products I used last night, and that's it. My face feels a bit tight, it's already dry (bring on the dead skin face-mask!) and I'm preparing myself for a possible purging period (although this seems rare) and the fleshy bumps. Of course I had to be inspired to do this regimen two weeks before I attend a big conference, but what the heck, no time like the present. I'll try to post updates bi-weekly, or at least whenever anything new and notable happens. I'm even going to post pics.

And as for my feelings on the whole thing, I'm just gonna go with the flow and hope for the best.