TikToker's ‘caveman' skincare routine has sceptics, but the 22-year-old says it is real

Straits Times

15-05-2025

Tia Zakher is a 22-year-old woman known on TikTok for a skincare routine that involves doing nothing to her skin – not even washing it. PHOTO: TIAZAKHER/TIKTOK
TikToker's 'caveman' skincare routine has sceptics, but the 22-year-old says it is real
NEW YORK – Tia Zakher, a 22-year-old woman known on TikTok for a skincare routine that involves doing nothing to her skin – not even washing it – would like you to know she is fine.
And that she has started using water to clean her face, she said in early May during a video call.
That she had to specify both of those things underscores the unusual nature of social media, where soon after she posted videos about her routine, rumours began swirling that there was something seriously wrong with her skin, or that her skincare journey was fake.
It also highlights, yet again, the tension that arises when healthcare and social media collide.
On March 14, after years of trying different skincare approaches to heal her acne – from topicals and peels to microneedling and exfoliation – Zakher decided to stop doing anything whatsoever: stop touching her face, stop picking at any scabs or dead skin and stop washing it.
She did not post about that decision to her followers, a group that has swelled to more than 140,000 in recent weeks.
It was only in April, when her skin started showing visible changes – discolouration, a build-up of flaky skin and a scaly texture – that her followers asked what was going on.
She responded with a video that now has more than 10 million views. In it , she said the changes in her appearance were just her skin's way of healing naturally. She called it the 'caveman' routine, though she clarified in the video call that she did not invent the term an d had seen it elsewhere when researching skincare routines.
At first, 'people were just intrigued and I got so many more comments, so I responded again and then that video took off', she said. 'But it was never something where I wanted to sit down and share this with people. It's just, you know, how the internet works.'
Then the questions – and the trolling – began. Some commenters were disgusted, others speculated that she had a fungal infection. Some theorised that she was faking the whole thing by using a clay mask just to garner attention.
'When you have somebody who's spreading a lot of information about health that is potentially dangerous, whether what she's doing is re al i s not the issue,' Dr Zachary Rubin, an allergist in Chicago who posted a video on TikTok in response to Zakher, said in a telephone interview.
He noted that not cleaning your face could potentially lead to infections. 'It's that you might have somebody, who is vulnerable to skin issues, take that advice and end up having more problems.'
'My view on this is that she's trying to promote some type of lifestyle that involves medical advice that's highly inappropriate,' he added. 'You see this all the time with people saying 'drink raw milk' or 'don't take vaccines'.'
Zakher said she had told other TikTok users to seek out a dermatologist's advice. She also turned to her own dermatologist, who commented on her TikTok videos saying that Zakher did not have an infection or a condition to worry about.
Her mother, Samah Kamel, jumped into the comments as well, adding that Zakher had been 'medically advised by a very good doctor'.
Still, the internet became so invested in what was happening to Zakher's face that TikTok creators and commenters started to pick apart every video.
When she posted one about participating in a half-marathon in rainy conditions, online sleuths pounced on tiny changes in her skin as clues that she had been lying. Some contended that her skin colour had changed in the rain, thus proving it was just clay.
The level of questioning got to a point where Zakher said close friends and family reached out to her and her parents to check in on them.
'I know that my situation is very rare and unique, and many people struggle with understanding that – but I can take it, I have thick skin,' she said, with the pun fully intended.
To Zakher, what is more concerning is the dermatologists who have tried to diagnose her from afar or jumped in with their opinions. 'That's a bit worrying to me,' she said.
Brynne Clippard, one of the many social media users drawn into the mystery around Zakher's skin, did her own online sleuthing. She found a Reddit post by Zakher from a year ago in which her skin looked the same as it does today, which she thought added credence to this being a real condition.
If she were lying, Clippard said in a telephone interview, 'I would give her props for playing the longest game ever'.
Zakher confirmed in her video call that she had tried the same routine a year ago, and that it had led to the same reaction. But two weeks into that previous attempt, she could not resist the urge to exfoliate it all off, she said.
'I couldn't take the texture – it felt like something was wrong,' she said. 'I gave up too soon.'
This time around, she has committed to a few months, or for as long as it takes for the build-up on her skin to fall off naturally. That, she claimed, would be a sign that her skin had healed itself.
And, for the record, during the video interview, she touched her skin, rubbed it and then held her finger up to the camera. There was no clay visible. NYTIMES
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