[Acne] Cakey Skin? Heavy handed manual exfoliation works wonders.

Beauty Tips For Body Care
I'm not a lurker but I've had a breakthrough after battling acne for the last 20 years, so I thought I would share in case it helps.Now, I'm a man, and that might or might not mean something for skin types, so just something to keep in mind, but the best I can describe my skin as is 'cakey' or 'heavy', so we're not just talking greasy, it's greasy but blocked by heavy cell shedding and turnover. So I do not have deep cystic acne, we're talking more about blocked pores that progress to whiteheads and deep red angry marks the more I prod them (plus trapped hair).So I had a flash back to history lessons and remembered the ancient romans used to oil their skin and then scrape it off. So I tried it, and had the grim satisfaction of literal GUNK coming off my skin. We're talking thick grey gunge! It's not working everywhere but anywhere you would expect, chest, upper back, T-zone, and post-shaved beard (less greasy more dandruffy).So I've continued with this for a few weeks now, the down side is the immediate irritation, it makes you turn red temporarily, and it'll also pull off scabs from old acne, which isn't necessarily bad, but needs to be considered carefully.The tool I'm using is a standard table knife, so basically just a blunt piece of metal, the serrated side works much better, but naturally it cannot be sharp. I'm sure you could get similar results with just about anything rigid with a low enough surface area to create localised drag on the skin.Now, I tried it with olive oil, but I did not really find any difference compared to just a few splashes of warm water or during the shower.Gunk will lesson during the session, so I stop once the worst of it comes off. But surprisingly this comes back VERY fast, for me we're talking every other day, and especially on my back, which just feels incredible btw.It's the first time I've had that squeaky clean feeling, and although my skin is temporarily irritated I'm not getting that horrible dry feeling.So it's been a few weeks and I have two very faint red marks left and ZERO new spots, and the biggest surprise is that the sebaceous filaments on my nose have improved, they're not empty so I don't have post squeeze craters, but they're not big and black either, the skin just looks plump and healthy.Now, for more sensitive skin you might steer clear, or take it very easy, but if you've just got beast skin like me then it might be about time to get a bit more heavy handed.I'm not using face wash or shower gel, and I'm just using a bit of Aveeno after.Hope this helps someone else!
Girls Blog 2015
Submitted by kassa1989