Real or flake? Experts weigh in on whether TikTok's viral ‘caveman method' skin care routine actually works

The latest viral skincare routine involves no skincare at all. Dubbed the 'caveman method', it involves shunning any kind of skincare products, as well as water, and letting the skin barrier 'heal'.
TikTok creator Tia Zakher has become a viral sensation for her adherence to the trend. The 22-year-old sparked debate about the method after posting videos with visibly flaky skin, apparently a result of the trend. 'What you're seeing is dead skin, that's going to flake off eventually while new healthy skin forms underneath,' she told millions of viewers.
Zakher has her sceptics but, whether or not you believe the videos, what do experts think about the regime, which has been attributed to other celebrities including Alexa Chung and Salma Hayek?
Like many healthcare professionals who have commented on the viral videos, Associate Prof Deshan Sebaratnam, a dermatologist at the Skin Hospital in Sydney, says 'it's not a good idea'.
'The reason being is your body is constantly regenerating itself, your skin is constantly turning over, and old skin cells are being shed. Normally they can fall off, but sometimes they can get stuck together, particularly if your skin's a little bit oilier.'
Sebaratnam said a condition known as terra firma-forme – where those dead skin cells can accumulate like scale – can develop when people don't shower.
'I wouldn't recommend what she's doing,' he said.
Associate professor Yousuf Mohammed, an expert in pharmaceutics and skin toxicology at the University of Queensland, said sebum – the natural, oily substance produced by sebaceous glands in the skin – provides a partial barrier to protect the skin, but if left unwashed for too long can create the perfect atmosphere for certain types of bacteria to grow.
'The caveman technique [might have] worked when we lived in the caves because we didn't have these new kinds of [modern] pollutants around,' he said. 'In today's day and age, we really do need to wash.'
'There's all this misinformation out there that you need a 12-step skincare routine – that's completely not true. But you don't want to take it from one extreme to the other, like this person,' Sebaratnam said.
He recommends in the morning putting sunscreen on, and then at the end of the day a gentle soap-free cleanser, ideally without fragrances or perfumes. 'You don't need to be spending lots of money – the cheap stuff works great.'
Sebaratnam says cleansers are helpful because 'with makeup, with sunscreen, even with your own sweat and oil, you need something a little bit more than just water, because those things are oil-based, and oil and water don't mix, so you need something that can help remove oil-based products.'
'That's really all you need in terms of a very simple skincare routine – you don't need to be doing anything extra on top of that. All sunscreen have moisturiser in-built within them, so you don't need to be putting sunscreen and moisturiser on at the same time,' Sebaratnam said.
From a medical perspective, only people with conditions such as eczema need moisturiser, Sebaratnam said. But there are lots of different factors that motivate people when it comes to their skincare – 'for some people, that's their form of meditation or their form of self-care'.
Sebaratnam says aggressive skin care products can certainly disrupt the barrier function of the skin. 'Even products like soap can strip away natural oils. Anything you put on your skin can disrupt the pH transiently but our skin is resilient and has mechanisms in place to self-regulate this.'
Commercial skincare brands often promote products with active ingredients to target specific concerns like vitamin A for anti-ageing, hyaluronic acid for hydration or vitamin C for brightening. 'There's lots of different products that you can put on your skin but, in particular, a lot of the actives, they'll all cause a small degree of irritation, and then if all of a sudden you're putting 12 of these things on, you know, 12 times a small degree of irritation becomes a big degree of irritation,' Sebaratnam says.
'Be intentional with your skincare. Just because you see someone online using something and it suits them, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to help you reach your skincare goals.
'Having a sense of what you want to achieve with your skincare is important, and then you can pick products that suit that.'
For some people whose intention is to use their skincare to pamper themselves, they might want to buy expensive products, often paying for a fancy bottle and fragrance, but the improvement in skin quality the next day is likely to be the same whether you use $150 or $15 cream at night, he says.
Natasha May is Guardian Australia's health reporter
Antiviral is a fortnightly column that interrogates the evidence behind the health headlines and factchecks popular wellness claims
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