I'm Moisturising Again....(photos)

So here we are at the end of the moisturiser withdrawal experiment. I gave it five weeks, but to be perfectly honest, I wasn't enjoying it and neither was my skin!

I try to keep up to date with all of the other TSW blogs and I noticed that quite a few people were trying the experiment at around the same time. I saw that some of them had absolutely fantastic results going "no-mo", whereas others, like me, struggled with it or only saw limited results.

I still think it is worth a try, especially if you are not getting any results using moisturisers or feel like you are getting too dependent on them for comfort. Giving the skin a break can be a great way to "reset" the healing process. Another good thing about this method is that the skin is a lot less red and angry.

In retrospect, I wish that I had tapered the moisturisers rather than stopping them cold turkey. I didn't really give my skin time to adjust in making its own oils. I ended up "hard landing" like Dr Fukaya warned.

The first two weeks were very hard. The skin looked bad and I was embarrassed to face people. The skin was very itchy and it was hard not to scratch off the flakes. The skin was tight and moving my mouth was hard, as it cracked.

The third and fourth weeks were a lot better. Instead of large flakes, the dryness was more powdery. I started having more faith in the process and a growing belief that I would improve with this method.

Unfortunately in the fifth week, my skin flared badly. It went back to how it was in the early weeks and oozed badly.

A couple of days ago I decided to resume moisturising. The effect was almost instant. My skin looked calm and clear. It felt nice too!

 The process has changed my habits forever though. I now realise how moisturising had become a "habit", whether I needed to do it or not. Every morning and night I used to slap on creams and I had top ups in my bags and on shelves around the house. Stopping altogether made me rethink my routine.

I am going to continue trying to use as little moisturiser as possible and will only apply it when I NEED to rather than as part of a routine. I also have a strict policy not to moisturise at night, as this is when the body makes its own oils and repairs itself. In practise, this may mean going several days without moisturiser, but not denying myself a dab of cream when I need it.

With this new method, I think I will get to a stage where I naturally don't need the creams anymore. I call it the "soft landing" method!

I'm also incorporating a few positive lifestyle changes including less junk in my diet, more juicing, more exercise and supplements of vitamin D to replace the sunshine I have missed. Hopefully these measures will have good results.



Here are the photos I took when not moisturising....

 

 

....and here are some pictures I took today, after using moisturisers again for a couple of days:

 

 

 

 

 

Please share your experiences of moisturiser withdrawal in the comments section. Have you tried it? How did you find it? Do you believe it can speed up TSW?

 

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