Looking at the picture above, you probably would not think that the last two weeks were the worst in my acne history. When I ditched Benzol Peroxide and turned to all natural skincare regimen, I did experience a pretty unsightly breakout (picture here), but nothing even close to what what I had to deal with since my last acne update. About two weeks ago, I woke up with the sides of my face covered in dozens of small bumps (similar to those I used to get on my forehead) and just as many blackheads, which I have never had on my cheeks before. A couple of days later, I also started to get rather sizable bumps on my chin and around the jaw line (2-3 at a time), which kept popping up one right after another. Fast forward a week and the things were looking so bad that I every time I looked in the mirror or touched my face, I did not know whether to cry or simply rip my skin off.
From the very begining of this pimple explosion, I was pretty sure that it had to do with all the oils I was using. Nothing else in my skin care regimen could have clogged my pores so terribly. It had to be either the Oil Cleansing method or jojoba oil, which I was applying as a moisturizer. As worrisome as this realization was, quitting OCM (or oils all together) before reaching a three-months mark was not an option. Having done quite a bit of research before starting OCM, I knew that it can result in a pretty severe purging period, which can last anywhere from a couple of weeks to several months, and I did not want a temporary inconvenience to prevent me from reaping many benefits of this potentially amazing method. This being said, I did decide that it was time to rethink my oil choices, and ended up replacing jojoba oil with hempseed oil, which is supposed to be completely noncomedogenic (0 comedogenity rating as opposed to 2 for jojoba).
An interesting thing about these two weeks from pimple hell was that while the sides of my face were taking a turn for the worse, my forehead was beginning to clear up. About a month ago, for instance, the texture of my skin there could not have been more disgusting: The oiliness and dry scabs made it feel like a cheese grater that was dipped into oil. Every time I gently scratched my forehead with my nails, I would lift a pretty gross paste consisting of dead skin cells and sebum. To my immeasurable satisfaction, by the end of March, both excess production of sebum and dry scabs were almost completely gone; the tiny underskin pimples that plagued my forehead since my early teens were soon to follow. Below are two photos of the same patch on of skin on my forehead taken one month apart. While lighting makes it somewhat difficult to truly appreciate the difference, I think it is pretty noticeable that my skin looks much less bumpy.
At the moment, my face is about 90% healed: There are still a few bumps remaining, but I think that they are mostly a result of my picking. All the blackheads left my cheeks as suddenly as they invaded them, and for the first time in two weeks, I do not feel completely grossed out when touching my face or looking in the mirror. Throughout the breakout, I continued to OCM every day with a blend of hempseed oil, castor oil, avocado oil, and tea tree oil. To make sure that no dirty oil is remaining on my face, after steaming and cleaning my face with a washcloth, I alternated between honey and clay masks. I plan to continue with the same routine in the near future and hold my fingers crossed that I’ve seen the end of purging (or whatever the hell it was)!
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