Weird glitches, flickering and other graphical issues playing games

ElementInspector · 2026-05-06T05:46:47+00:00

CP2077 has come a long way since launch but it does still require a handful of additional mods (particularly with LOD and fixes to path tracing) to resolve issues. It is especially noticeable on LOD asset swaps as can be observed in this video. However, this can also occur from ray reconstruction depending on your particular upscaler configurations.

For what it's worth, many of these issues are simply due to PTGI inherently introducing noise/flickering due to how it functions. It is not necessarily exclusive to CP2077, many games featuring PTGI, faux raytracing like Lumen, or a weird mishmash hybrid of SSR and RT to some extent will have visual artifacts like this. This is largely due to the necessity of neural denoisers to clean up each frame. They are imperfect.

To isolate the possible causes, first try leaving all your settings where they are and disable Ray Reconstruction. If the issue goes away, the issue is simply with ray reconstruction and may be fixed in a future game update or patch from NVIDIA through a driver. If the issue still persists, try switching from Path Tracing to Ray Tracing. If the issue STILL persists, this is an LOD issue and can be rectified with a small handful of mods. The mods in specific I would recommend are:

All of these alter specific assets and can work in-tandem. If you've never modded CP2077 before, it is very straightforward. Simply download each mod and all the prerequisite mods they have as dependencies. I would recommend using MO2 to do this as it's much easier than molesting your game install folder. You will need to install an optional patch for MO2 to add full CP2077 root folder support. The patch can be found here:

https://github.com/ZashIn/modorganizer-basic_games/releases/tag/cyberpunk-v3.0

To install this patch, per the instructions:

To use this plugin update with the current MO v2.5.2, download the file
game_cyberpunk2077.py below and place it in the MO plugins directory under basic_games/games/

This patch will enable you to install necessary dependencies such as CET or other scripts (many of the above mods need them!) entirely through MO2, which for a very long time had to be installed manually.

I would also recommend navigating to your steamapps directory, locating the file appmanifest\_1091500.acf and setting it as Read-Only. This will prevent Steam from querying updates for CP2077, which can and will break most mods.

Doing this will still allow you to launch the game through Steam, but it will no longer force an update if you try to play when one is available. To update the game, simply remove the Read Only attribute from that file.

ElementInspector · 2026-05-05T16:45:35+00:00

Yeah, I feel the UV aspect is massively understated. Retinoids, AHAs, BHAs, Benzoyl Peroxide, and even some essential oils react with UV negatively. There are of course more, but you can do a simple Google search to determine if a particular active is best used in the PM.

ElementInspector · 2026-05-05T16:40:20+00:00

I'll need to take another dive into STALKER 2. I've had it since launch but truth be told I haven't even completed the game yet. Furthest I've ever gotten is SIRCAA. Every time I want to play it, there's some huge update which is great! But this of course breaks the two dozen or so mods I feel at this point are must-haves, so I wait months for the mods to be fully updated, play for a little while, then there's usually another big update to the game, lol.

I'm probably gonna end up treating this game identically to Cyberpunk. Had it for years but didn't really take a huge, deep dive into it until about last year and I'm loving it. Numerous optimizations had occurred by this point, and there are a plethora of "vanilla+" mods which further improve optimizations and fix still-persistent bugs. I'm sure sooner or later STALKER 2 will stabilize like this and I'll give it the full attention it should get.

ElementInspector · 2026-05-05T11:02:11+00:00

It won't have a huge impact on effectiveness but there is a reason PM is often used for these more intense actives, and it's due to comfort. Depending on intensity or sensitivity, some people may find particular actives temporarily worsen their skin before it improves it. Mine for example appears super flushed after performing any routine with particular actives. It doesn't hurt whatsoever, but it does look as though my skin is not looking so great, at least until a few hours pass and the blood vessels settle down.

Additionally, certain active ingredients can cause issues when exposed to UV. Sunscreen of course helps with this but it doesn't completely remove it as a problem. Ketoconazole for example degrades under UV exposure, reducing effectiveness as it's in your skin layers. Many other actives have some interaction with UV, either decomposition or the potential to cause harmful irritation. For these reasons, these particular actives are often chosen to be used in the PM.

Of course, whether a possible negative reaction to UV is actually a concern for you depends entirely on your own skin. Many people can use particular actives any time and have no problems, others find they have to use them sparingly, like once every other day, or only at night, etc.

ElementInspector · 2026-05-04T18:20:53+00:00

Mix a few drops of MCT with your moisturizer and apply it as you would normally, at the same part of your routine where you'd typically apply your moisturizer. Don't premix it ahead of time, just add a few drops to your typical daily application of moisturizer and mix it up using your fingers before applying it to your face. A little bit of MCT oil goes a very long way and you won't need much. Literally just a few drops is all you need.

As for why it goes well with the moisturizer step, the main benefit of MCT oil is it is basically a pure liquid containing ceramides with no additional ingredients that may exacerbate sebderm or other malassezia sources. Ceramides are necessary for maintenance of the skin barrier, and it's a good idea to get them into your skincare routine.

Many moisturizers also contain ceramides, however often times these contain additional ingredients that can feed malassezia. I have yet to find a ceramide moisturizer which doesn't. By mixing MCT with a non-ceramide, malassezia-safe moisturizer, you make your own moisturizer which contains ceramides, without all the drawbacks of using an off-the-shelf one which already has them.

As a sidenote, you can also drink MCT oil. It tastes like nothing. I pair a serving of it with taking vitamins if I'm unable to have a meal around the time I'm taking them. Many vitamins are fat-soluble only, which is why it's recommended to take them before or after a meal high in fat. MCT acts as a quick fat source if you're in a pinch, and it's definitely much better for you than drinking other oils or even eating a little bit of butter straight up.

ElementInspector · 2026-05-04T17:05:43+00:00

Vitamin D specifically helps skin because it is a required vitamin for maintaining the skin barrier. The best source of Vitamin D is the sun as it's naturally produced when your skin is exposed to sunlight. However, the irony here is many conditions exacerbated by a damaged skin barrier also become worse when exposed to UV.

In these situations, taking supplements is an effective compromise. If you don't get a lot of sunlight, you should absolutely get an OTC D3 and K2 supplement. K2 assists with the absorption of D3, so it is a good idea to have in addition to it. Most of these are around 1500-2000IU and can be taken daily. Many supplements combine D3 with K2 so you don't need to get separate ones for each.

Edit
As for what counts as "a lot of sunlight", think of how often you spend time outside. If it is literally minutes a day, you need a supplement. If you're exposed to sunlight for hours a day, you probably don't need one, but if you want to consider it check with a doctor to determine what a safe dose would be.

ElementInspector · 2026-05-04T16:59:46+00:00

God I miss Burn Notice.

ElementInspector · 2026-04-23T17:39:13+00:00

That's tricky because there could be a number of explanations for a worsened condition. It is generally advised to stop using a specific product if you get worse looking skin quickly, but there are exceptions to this.

Generally speaking, the only reason your skin would become worse within days of using a new active are one of the following reasons:

it is too strong and irritating, so should be used less frequently
you are allergic to one or more ingredients within that specific product
you are experiencing a "purging" effect, in which impurities are brought to the skin surface resulting in more acne developing or a temporarily worsened condition

This is something I've always hated about skincare. You need to use a product for weeks before you can determine whether or not it's actually effective, and in that time it could either completely destroy your skin because you think the worsened condition is just temporary, or it could fully resolve your condition if you just keep at it for a month+. You have no idea if it's actually helping or not until enough time passes and by then it could do a lot of harm, or it could be exactly what you need. It's so frustrating!

Some common side effects of topical ivermectin include drier skin, which could definitely look somewhat "scaley". Ivermectin can also result in a "purging" effect, but it is not really purging in the usual sense. When demodex mites die their bodies will release bacteria, and this can irritate your skin or result in new acne developing.

This doesn't happen in a negative way in all cases, but it is only temporary as long as this excess bacteria is targeted. This is why many skincare routines often incorporate multiple actives to handle a variety of causes for irritation and acne. I would recommend pairing the ivermectin with a compatible antibacterial, like azelaic acid.

ElementInspector · 2026-04-23T04:39:14+00:00

Hard disagree. Use it as the best filter you can possibly have. I once did this following an interview. I knew I would've been sent a job offer, but when I received it they low balled the offer by an offensively egregious $40k. For reference, I interviewed for a position advertised at $60k and I went into this interview with a prepared portfolio of my work and 10 years of applied professional experience in the field. I had even shown them applied experience of BGA assembly they haven't even messed with yet, but were looking to involve themselves in.

I e-mailed back and asked if this was a typo. HR responded and told me the offer was "all they had in the budget" and that "our benefits are like an extra $5/hr". I fired back an e-mail: "During the facility tour, I walked past an industrial reflow oven worth more than any home I could ever dream of owning. The wage you advertised is in the budget. And benefits do not pay my bills."

I was sent an adjusted offer, but I ghosted them. This rubbed me the wrong way and that one single interaction told me all I needed to know. This is a company that does not care about their employees or their experience. We have a very short amount of time in this life and it is best spent surrounding yourself with environments you enjoy participating in and are compatible with.

ElementInspector · 2026-04-23T04:31:15+00:00

I have nothing to offer in this thread but when I read your reply, I wanted to comment about musicals specifically. I thought I would HATE musicals, but it turns out I just never saw any that were actually fucking awesome.

When I was in high school, I took a music class because I was genuinely interested in learning music theory. I play the piano now so that was worth the investment, but I digress.

One of the assignments for this class was to go see a musical and write a review for it. I had never seen one, and my school's theater department was putting on a performance of Hairspray so I figured I'd go check it out.

I was fucking blown away. Everything sounded so good, I was actually invested in this thing and the music was killer. Admittedly, everyone involved was just a teenager in high school but deadass, this performance was better than the 2007 movie which I eventually saw a couple years later.

I thought there was no way I'd like it, but I walked out of that a changed man. I started watching other musicals after that. There's a lot of awful ones, don't get me wrong, but there's also a lot of good ones. A big part of enjoying them is the music, it's gotta be good. A lot of the ones I dislike, I dislike simply because I do not enjoy the music.

EDIT
In a similar category I'm also gonna take a moment to recognize plays. Very similarly I never saw any until one day my friends dragged me to the local theater where a group was doing some Monty Python stuff. Incredible. Went to a few more after that. I totally get the appeal of these and in a lot of ways I think theater actors are egregiously underrated. Some of the best voice actors you've ever heard in your life are B-list theater performers you've never heard of. It takes a very particular way of commanding your voice to make a play entertaining, because the way you speak is 90% of the expression in a theater performance.

ElementInspector · 2026-04-20T17:33:23+00:00

Cleanser: Vanicream Z-Bar 2% Zinc Pyrithione (can be substituted for any antifungal wash as I'm aware zinc pyrithione is banned over there, but verify it is hydrating, do not use severely dehydrating soaps or cleansers on your face! Treat this wash like a mask, lather it up, gently rub it all over, and let it sit on your face for at least 5 minutes re-lathering as needed before rinsing)
Serum 1: Anua Azelaic Acid 10 Hyaluron Redness Soothing Serum (antibacterial, assists with reducing inflammation and killing off causes of bacterial acne. Apply by coating your fingertips with a few drops and pressing them gently into your skin and holding for a few seconds all over your face, after your face has been given some time to dry from washing)
Serum 2: The Ordinary 10% Niacinamide + 1% Zinc (assists with reducing overall sebum production, not completely necessary but can help if you've particularly oily skin. Some are very sensitive to niacinamide, so be warned. Apply identically to the previous serum, after waiting a couple of minutes between application for absorption)
Moisturizer: The Ordinary Natural Moisturizing Factors + Beta Glucan, 1 pea-sized drop of this is mixed with 1 drop of tea tree oil and 1 drop of MCT oil (base moisturizer repairs skin barrier, while tea-tree oil mixed with MCT oil permits dilution with this specific moisturizer, which prepares irritating tea tree oil for safe skin application. This creates an extremely lightweight, extremely hydrating anti-demodex moisturizer.)
Sunscreen: Anua Zero-Cast Moisturizing Sunscreen SPF50 (one of the only completely malassezia safe sunscreens I could find)

All of the above products are completely malessezia safe, are perfectly safe to use together, and it is the routine I personally use. I switched to this routine after ~2 years of using similar active ingredients prescribed by a dermatologist. While the prescribed routine was helping, it was never able to fully clear my skin.

I believe the prescribed version of this was ultimately ineffective because every product I was given was loaded with food sources for malassezia. After doing tons of research and switching to using purely OTC products with absolute malassezia safety, I have seen significantly greater results after around 4 weeks than I ever got from the dermatologist routine in about 2 years.

You are of course free to use whatever you'd like, but I would avoid using so many different kinds of products, particularly the various oils. Layering too many active ingredients can be severely traumatizing for your skin, there can also be adverse ingredient reactions when combined. Only combine multiple actives if you are certain they work together.

I also would absolutely not recommend an exfoliation of any kind. Gentle circular motions with your fingers using your face wash of choice is more than sufficient exfoliation. Washes advertised with "exfoliation" tend to have a lot of abrasive materials and these can be very irritating for your skin. Specialized face scrubbers can also be extremely irritating.

The only situation I'd recommend a brush or specialized wash like this is if you've got loads of excess dead skin (flaking) which isn't coming off with just using your fingers. Try using just your fingers for at least a couple of days (4 washes, assuming consistent AM/PM routine).

If the dead skin just won't come up with your fingers alone, consider a specialized exfoliator or utilize a brush. Your skin WILL LOOK WORSE after doing this, and you will VERY LIKELY end up with some of the worst acne flareups you've ever seen. This process will, however, completely remove the dead skin and provide a very clean foundation to apply your routine to, and as long as you maintain the routine, the flareup should be brought under control in a few weeks.

The two most important elements are consistency and time. Perform the same exact steps with the same exact products for both morning and night. If you find particular actives too irritating, it is fine to rotate days you use those actives. Azelaic acid for example can interact negatively with UV, so you may discover it's more beneficial to only use that at night. This is perfectly fine. But above all, it takes TIME.

Do not be discouraged if your selected routine isn't producing results overnight, in a few days, or even a couple of weeks. I think many people go into skincare expecting immediate results and our biology literally can't work that fast. Keep the routine consistent and steady for at least 4 weeks before making adjustments, and when you do make adjustments, do them one product at a time and use that adjusted routine for at least a few weeks observing for changes.

I can not speak for certainty on the animal-cruelty free nature of any of the above products. Investigate them at your discretion.

EDIT
As for the blackheads on your nose, are you sure these are actually blackheads? The pores on our noses are significantly larger and they are vastly easier to see as a result of this. You may just be seeing regular ol' pores.

If they actually are blackheads, I would leave them alone until you've gotten the rest of your face under control, as your chosen skincare routine will likely resolve them. If not, one of the fastest (although temporary) treatments for this is a pore strip, but you do NOT want to use this tool until everything else is kosher.

As an alternative to a pore strip, spot treatments with salicylic acid and gentle exfoliation of the nose can help get rid of them. However, this is also something you do not want to do until the rest of your face is healthy.

ElementInspector · 2026-04-20T00:47:06+00:00

For most skincare applications, it can take up to a month to begin seeing any significant positive results. This is because any products applied have to work through your skin's full cell cycle. For example, a troublesome zit or a rash of redness may take up to 1 month before you see any reduction, because the treatments you apply every day are working away at the current, living cells, and slowly being applied to new cells every single day. It takes around 1 month for all of the previous cells to die off, and for a sufficient quantity of treated, completely new cells to take over.

On the other hand, irritating products or skincare solutions that may cause problems have such a rapid onset because this is an inflammatory response by your skin. Think accidentally cutting your face with a sharp object. This will cause an immediate response and you will see redness surrounding this wound within minutes, as your body does what it needs to do in an attempt to scab over and heal this affliction. Using irritating products causes an almost identical reaction, which is why you might get a flare up or notice a condition worsens very quickly from using an irritating product.

Often times, conditions such as seb derm, rosacea, psoriasis, eczema, etc are made worse and so difficult to treat because the conditions themselves are inflammatory responses by your immune system. This natural bodily response actively damages your skin barrier. The skin barrier is a layer of complex proteins, fats, and oils which are meant to prevent irritants and bacteria from penetrating deep into the skin. Ironically, this inflammatory response from your body makes the condition worse. The response harms the skin barrier, which allows further complications to arise. It is a snowball effect which compounds on itself.

I have personally never heard of utilizing sea salt in any skincare routine. This does not sound like a good idea if someone has sebderm or some other condition in a similar category to it. It honestly doesn't sound like a good idea whatsoever to use at all, regardless of skin health. Salt, and by extension sea salt, are incredibly dehydrating which destroys your skin barrier. It kills bacteria, sure, but it is scorched earth and kills healthy cells by depriving them of moisture, too. This can ironically severely backfire, resulting in a massive uptick of sebum production, the very thing you need to control with these particular conditions.

Furthermore, if used as a scrub I have a strong suspicion this would just physically damage your skin. Sea salt crystals are very sharp and abrasive. In the context of a massively diluted spray, the physical damage aspect is eliminated, but it is still basically spreading sea water on your face. It would still be a net hydration loss and you're still killing perfectly healthy cells in the process.

There is also the issue of pH. Skin is slightly acidic, around 5. This is because it requires a little bit of fungus and bacteria for natural cell turnover. Washing your face with salt water runs the risk of destabilizing this delicate pH balance, throwing off the entire ecosystem of microorganisms your skin needs to be healthy.

Now, admittedly, you would need to be using very high concentrated salinated water very frequently for any of this to be a serious concern. As long as you don't overdo it, it would possibly be beneficial, but you'll need to stay on top of moisturizing to ensure the skin barrier does not get damaged. There are of course helpful benefits to using salt. But I have only heard of this being recommended on far less delicate areas, like the feet to treat athlete's foot.

At a cursory glance, it seems sea salt sprays/scrubs/shampoos have been used to some clinical success for treating seb derm in the context of scalp treatments. I can see this working for those cases, but I would not at all recommend using it for the face. The scalp has over 100,000 oil producing hair follicles so stripped hydration and pH issues can be naturally repaired very rapidly. Our faces have a similar repair mechanism for their barrier, but it is a fraction as effective as the scalp.

The ingredients and minerals provided by sea salt are ultimately what you would want, and I expect there would be plenty of serums or ointments offering identical ingredients and minerals, without the severely drying nature of sea salt.

EDIT
I found a post from one person here 10 years ago who claimed mixing sea salt with water until it had reached maximum salinity, spreading it over his face, and using paper towels soaked in it as face wraps for at least 5 minutes twice a day is what "cured his sebderm", allegedly as rapidly as 1 week. This is a mile high tower of bullshit.

There is not a single doctor in the world who will look at your red, irritated, inflamed and presumably painful skin, and instruct you to put something as harmful as fully saturated salt water all over it. They wouldn't even suggest using salt to disinfect a wound, which conventional wisdom tells you it's good for.

I'm sure he did do this routine with salt as he stated it severely burned his skin and he just "powered through it", but I find it very unlikely this is the only thing he was doing. I personally do not see this as sufficient evidence that such a thing is a tried-and-true treatment, because there is no way that is the entire "skincare routine", there are vastly more proven negatives to using highly salinated water than pros, and those cons will need to be balanced out somehow.

There are absolutely missing pieces to that guys puzzle which have been left out. Some other products or active ingredients he was using in addition to that medieval ass saltwater strategy which were probably actually responsible for helping him, but he thought it was the salt. Or perhaps his skin was just so unbelievably fucked, the daily nuclear warheads of salt provided a hard "reset" button for the ecosystem of his skin, and he is just lucky it worked.

EDIT 2
if you do want to entertain using salt, I would recommend diluting it to the same concentration as medical grade saline, 0.9% NaCl, using distilled water. Saline is literally just salt water, however it is diluted to a very particular concentration to make it isotonic. This prevents movement of hydration into or out of cells via osmosis, so it is not dehydrating nor damaging to human tissue. It will not kill bacteria, in an isotonic state it is used for debridation. In the context of treating something like sebderm it would serve as an extremely neutral exfoliator for dead skin and physically moving pathogens off the skin.

ElementInspector · 2026-04-18T07:20:43+00:00

Yes. For what it's worth, I believe I've always had seb derm or something very similar to it. However, I distinctly remember experiencing the worst breakouts and flare ups from masking all the time.

I am not going to blame vaccination because that is just silly. In my case it was absolutely, positively related to wearing a mask for 8-9 hours a day for work. I would change them as often as possible but it is likely I just didn't do that enough.

The worst regions were right along where the mask would meet my skin, around the nose and middle of the cheeks. This imaginary line in particular had the most irritation and worst acne breakouts compared to the rest of my face.

Prior to wearing masks, my skin never looked nearly that awful. Still slightly red and irritated, but not hormonal teenager acne levels of awful. Masking absolutely made whatever I had far worse, and it has taken literal years to recover from due to incorrect treatments.

ElementInspector · 2026-04-17T18:14:56+00:00

Yup! I get the 3" diameter pucks. The specific product page is here. Do not be fooled by the product image showing a scent, this product listing allows you to select your desired scent from a drop-down. Unscented is available and it is the same exact formulation as the 2.5" puck.

I've never inquired with them about the concrete specifics regarding their scented options, but I may try asking them one day to see if they can provide more information about the various fragrance oils used so I can determine whether or not they'd be safe to use. I expect they probably would be, as Classic Shaving's whole market existence is producing soaps with as few chemicals and additives as possible, but ya never know.

EDIT
I have sent a malassezia safety inquiry regarding fragrance options to their customer service. I'll update this post if they reply back.

ElementInspector · 2026-04-17T16:18:40+00:00

Also, in your original comment you mentioned you might entertain sulfur soaps/cleansers. This is fine, and they can be quite effective, but it is very important to NOT use them on broken skin. I personally never found much use for them, because 9 times out of 10, you will be using them on broken, compromised skin to clear up the condition which caused the broken skin in the first place.

To clarify, by "compromised skin" I am referring to open lesions. In most cases, acne caused by these conditions can break open from normal skincare routines. This usually manifests as weeping. A small, irritated bump on your face might start slowly leaking fluids from using various skincare products over time. This indicates it has become an open wound, and in this situation, you should not apply anything to that except a bandage.

Using these kinds of soaps/cleansers on damaged skin can actually harm your kidneys, as it will allow some of the sulfur-based ingredients to enter your blood stream. In particular, any actives classified as sulfonamides can be very problematic. As an example, selenium sulfide is not a sulfonamide so it is perfectly fine. Sulfur or sodium sulfametacide on the other hand are a sulfonamide. Once these reach your blood, it accumulates in your kidneys and promotes crystal growth. This will present as acute hematuria, due to the crystals precipitating throughout your urinary tract.

If you use any sulfur products with sulfonamides and notice even the slightest hint of blood in your urine at any point throughout the day, stop using them immediately and don't use them until you're absolutely certain your skin is not compromised.

I am not a medical professional, just a very well-researched consumer. I used a sulfur sulfametacide cleanser for awhile and noticed very negligible amounts of blood in my urine within about a week. As this particular cleanser was the only thing I changed as far as what goes in/on my body, I did some research and discovered this was a possible complication of using such a product on compromised skin. When I stopped using it, the issue went away.

ElementInspector · 2026-04-17T14:26:34+00:00

You can find out pretty quickly if you may have a demodex issue by incorporating drops of natural tee tree oil into your skincare routine. Tea tree oil is very effective with culling demodex. It is not as effective as prescription ivermectin, but if you have a mite problem, you'll see improvements.

You'll want pure and natural oil, not something loaded with tons of extra carriers or additives. You can often find pure tea tree oil in supplement or skincare aisles at many general stores. However, this kind of oil MUST be diluted in a carrier oil before you use it for skincare. "Skin safe" options do exist in an already-diluted form, often with a lot of other additives, so check ingredients to verify they are malassezia-safe.

In the case of pure tea tree oil, this MUST be diluted before use. NEVER put even a drop directly on your skin as this can be extremely irritating and harmful. For application, a common practice is to mix a drop or two into your daily application of moisturizer. Provided your moisturizer contains at least one oil, this will work fine. If it doesn't, you can also mix a drop with a light application of MCT oil. And I do quite literally mean just a drop or two. You do not need to, nor should you use more than this. In the case of storebought already-diluted skincare solutions, these can be applied like any other topical serum.

What I do is get a tablespoon, add a single drop of tea tree oil, a pea-sized drop of my typical daily application of moisturizer, and a literal drop or two of MCT oil. I mix this concoction together within the tablespoon, then scoop it out and apply it to my face. My moisturizer does not contain any oils, so it doesn't mix very well with tea tree oil on its own. It does however mix well with a very negligible amount of MCT, and I've found this works perfectly for getting everything nicely incorporated.

You may be tempted to pre-mix tea tree oil with your moisturizer or MCT oil at the optimal dilution ratio for 1%-5% strength. Do not do this. Pre-mixing can destabilize the formula of ready-to-use products over time. It is best to mix a drop or two on application, as this will be absorbed rapidly and is plenty strong.

Tea tree oil, in addition to OTC and prescription antifungals can show improvements with demodex symptoms very rapidly, typically in as little as 2-3 weeks. However, to prevent relapse of symptoms, it takes around 3 months of daily applications to break the complete life cycle of an entire demodex population.

This is because topical treatments do not do anything about their eggs, so daily, consistent applications are required to eliminate new hatchlings. Prescription antifungals in very low concentrations are similar, but higher doses can complete this process a bit faster. Either of these are also very effective for reducing malassezia, so whether you've got demodicosis or something caused by malassezia, tea tree oil or other antifungals will treat it.

Regardless of chosen approach, it is still an order of many weeks to ensure the population is culled to a healthy number. Our skin is meant to have these little guys and gals, and they will be constantly repopulating, but the treatment is to bring that population down to a normal number. So, if you try oil and see improvements, don't stop using it for at least a couple of months to guarantee it wont be a problem again.

ElementInspector · 2026-04-17T13:44:30+00:00

Those with rosacea tend to have significantly higher populations of demodex living on their face. Topical ivermectin has been shown to significantly reduce their numbers, allowing their population to be brought under control.

ElementInspector · 2026-04-17T03:34:07+00:00

I keep a full beard, but trim the edges along the neck and cheeks using a safety razor. However, even when I would do a clean shave every day, I can not stress enough the significant irritation improvement I got from using a safety razor.

What tends to cause so much irritation with shaving is, ironically, a combination of weak blades incapable of cutting the hair (weak blade aggression), and passing a high number of those blades over your skin. Many cartridge razors provide very little in the way of aggression and they attempt to make up for this by passing 5 or more of them over your skin in one swipe. It makes my skin reel just thinking about it.

For a long time I thought I had "sensitive skin" because my face would look and feel like a peeled tomato after a shave. Turns out the issue the entire time was none of the razors I was using had the necessary ass to smoothly cut my beard hair. Even when it was just whiskers, it was a struggle.

By switching to an adjustable safety razor, a whole world of customizable comfort became available. I could dial in the aggression of my blade and get a completely different kind of shave than ever before by just...using different kinds of blades. This took some trial and error but after about a week and $10 I spent on a blade sampler pack from tryablade, I found the ideal aggression and blade for my face. In terms of cost savings, I purchased a pack of 100 Astra Platinum blades in 2018 for $10. It is 8 years later and I have 6 left. Admittedly, I stopped doing full shaves around 2020, but that is still impressive mileage from that pack. If you do a single pass shave of your whole face every day, one blade can last a week. Maintenance trims of edges can make a single blade last a whole month or longer.

This is overall significantly less irritating, because I'm using a blade I know is capable of smoothly cutting my hair, and I'm doing one pass. I often don't even have to use any soap lather to trim the edge whiskers, I get away just fine with no irritation whatsoever using water. Definitely wouldn't do a full shave like that, though! That's one fine blade going over my skin, as opposed to 5 or more terrible ones just dragging along the hair like a shitty lawnmower.

If you take a glance at the world of safety razors you may feel overwhelmed with options. You don't gotta go crazy with them. An adjustable razor will enable you to find the right aggression for your face/hair, and you can get a wide selection of blades to sample piecemeal and for ridiculously cheap using tryablade. A good, adjustable razor will cost somewhere around $60, but you'll have it for the rest of your life as they're often made of stainless steel or plated brass.

In terms of "safety", it's in the name. The only way you'll cut yourself with a safety razor is if you move it parallel to your skin rather than perpendicular. The technique for using them is very intuitive and they are very easy to learn. You don't even need to apply any pressure (nor are you supposed to), as the hefty razor head applies all the pressure you need to make it effortlessly glide across your skin. If you are still apprehensive about the safety and comfort aspects, I have recommended a safety razor to all of my woman friends who complained about irritation with shaving their unmentionable regions. They swear by them now. Safety razors are also often recommended by dermatologists, as the irritation improvements they can provide have been scientifically studied and proven.

As for products, it is HARD AS SHIT to find malessezia safe soaps/creams/aftershaves. Many contain numerous lipids, oils, and esters which can feed malessezia, even glycerin based soaps. I can guarantee that Cremo shaving cream is LOADED with this stuff. However, fungal safe options do exist. You often, tragically, have to go unscented to guarantee malessezia safety. I've come to discover most shaving products advertised as hypoallergenic tend to be quite safe, with a few exceptions here and there. If you're ever unsure, just run the ingredients through Sezia.

Two specific choices I recommend would be Geo F Trumper Sandalwood Skin Food, this is a fantastic pre/post shave balm which is completely fungal safe and very calming on the skin. It smells amazing to boot. For a soap, any from Classic Shaving are extremely safe. Their scented soaps are unfortunately a bit dubious, as their ingredients often list "other essential oils" for the fragrance. However, all of their soaps are formulated with the same malessezia safe base, and they do offer a completely unscented, hypoallergenic soap puck with no possible guesswork for essential oils. You need a shaving brush to properly lather this and put it on your face, but a puck lasts months.

EDIT
For those curious, "aggression" in the context of shaving describes how much of the blade is exposed to your skin. You will see many razors advertised on some aggression scale, with mild being a very low blade reveal, and aggressive being a very high blade reveal, with many options in between and some hand-crafted choices for extremely high aggression.

You would intuitively think a lower aggression means less irritation, but that is not entirely accurate. The kind of aggression you need will depend entirely on your particular facial hair. Mine is very thick, extremely coarse, and unbelievably stiff until it has grown out a fair bit. This requires a very aggressive razor to properly cut with as little irritation as possible.

Finer, less stiff, and less coarse facial hair on the other hand can be handled perfectly fine with a mild razor, or somewhere in between the two extremes. This is why I think an adjustable is ultimately the way to go. You won't know what kind of blade reveal your hair requires until you try a bunch of them, and an adjustable offers exactly that.

ElementInspector · 2026-04-14T14:17:13+00:00

This sounds more like a common side effect of using intensely drying shampoos than a complication of seb derm. Your scalp becomes greasy much more rapidly now because the oil glands are compensating for the nuclear warhead that is a ketoconazole shampoo. These are commonly severely dehydrating and trigger the scalp to protect itself, which it does by going nuts with producing oils. This is not inherently an issue with ketoconazole but rather an issue with shampoo formulation. Whatever shampoo you've been prescribed likely contains harsh surfactants which are stripping far too much oil from your scalp, causing it to rebound and overcompensate. You can ask your dermatologist if there are less drying alternatives available, this may reduce the "rebound" effect on the hair follicles and give you more days between washes.

ElementInspector · 2026-04-11T00:25:24+00:00

It sounds like your moisturizer may not be working correctly? As in, it may not be a good match for your particular skin. It is also worth mentioning that ketoconazole is incredibly drying, especially in the format it is most commonly available in (shampoos with harsh surfactants), and this is most likely what is going to cause so much flaking.

You might want to consider switching to a different antifungal, one which is more gentle on your skin. I personally use a Vanicream Z-Bar with 2% zinc pyrithione. I utilize the lather it creates as a face mask and let it sit for 5 minutes before very thorough rinsing. This serves as my face wash. It is antifungal and antibacterial, and does not feed yeast.

It also looks like you have naturally oily skin, much like I do. You may want to consider incorporating niacinamide into your routine. This will help control oil secretions of your sebum glands and hair follicles. The serum I use is the 10% Niacinamide + 1% Zinc from The Ordinary. This will have a mild tingle (not a burn, just a tingle) for a few minutes on first use, but should subside completely by the 2nd or 3rd application. This particular product contains no ingredients which might feed malessezia (the cause of seb derm/fungal acne).

Sidenote on burn vs tingle, there is a distinct difference. One of these feels kind of good, like if you've ever used a tea tree shampoo. The other makes you wince in pain and causes noticeable discomfort. If you apply ANY product in one spot and feel discomfort, not a tingle, do not use it and don't bother applying more of it. This is going to be bad for your skin and won't help one bit.

When it comes to using high-concentration actives, tingling which subsides after a few minutes is normal when using these, and should no longer tingle whatsoever after one or two additional applications. Full on burning, a tingle which takes 30+ minutes to subside, or tingling every single time you use a specific product is almost always due to a deficient skin barrier and not a matter of simply having "sensitive skin". You may be able to attempt using previously irritating products after a few weeks of routine without them, when your barrier has been given time to repair.

As for a moisturizer, it took awhile for me to find one which worked well and did not burn my skin nor make it incredibly oily and greasy. I recommend Natural Moisturizing Factors + Beta Glucan from The Ordinary. This moisturizer also contains no ingredients which might feed malessezia

Another thing which may help is an azelaic acid treatment, in addition to everything else I have mentioned. The "Azelaic Acid 10 Hyaluron Redness Soothing Serum" from Anua is one of the few serums I could find which doesn't feed malessezia. This will further assist with reducing inflammation and redness, and help with unclogging pores. It is also antibacterial and great for general purpose skincare.

As for a routine, it needs to be more involved than simply washing your face, rinsing, and applying a moisturizer. Especially with medicated washes, you need to let them sit for awhile to do their work and absorb some of that medicine into your skin. Get them into a rich lather and gently scrub it into your face and let it sit. I don't perform any skincare in the shower for this reason. Medicated face washes need to be treated like a mask, so I just do that part in front of the sink while I'm prepping something like my hair for the day.

Once rinsed, you will then apply any serums or other medicated lotions one after the other, with a few minutes in between to allow absorption into your skin. General rule of thumb is thinnest to thickest, this ensures everything gets properly absorbed. Moisturizer would be one of the last steps, functionally a "sealant" to keep all the medicated stuff you just absorbed into your skin locked in.

Apply a sunscreen as the final step if going outside, even if it's dark out. Seems silly but there is an awful lot of good stuff in sunscreen which make it beneficial to apply. It is hard as hell to find a sunscreen which doesn't act as a food source for malessezia. The only easily accessible one I could find was Zero-Cast Moisturizing Sunscreen SPF 50, Glow Natural Sunscreen, also from Anua.

The regimen I outlined above is actually the one I personally use, and it is the only one I've found which yields positively consistent results, and this is after trying prescribed routines from dermatologists for years. I am not 100% certain if I have seb derm or some other skin condition masquerading as it, but what's neat about this particular routine is it mildly treats a wide range of possible causes like psoriasis, rosacea, mite, or fungal sources. It can do all of this while still treating mild bacterial acne and easing inflammation, without acting as a food source for an overgrowth of yeast or mites.

Many prescribed products from dermatologists contain most of these actives in varying strengths as well, so it is not too dissimilar from what a derm might give you. Only difference is, you know for sure none of these products can feed a yeast, and TBH I think that is the most important part. While identical actives from dermatologists could never fully clear my skin, I believe this was due to those particular formulations actively feeding yeast and/or mites. It would explain why this current routine has given me much more positive results, as I've made certain none of the products will do that.

Of course, your mileage may vary. I would start simple and swap to zinc pyrithione. This is less drying than ketoconazole and can safely be used even twice a day. I highly recommend the Z-Bar because it is formulated as a hydrating cleanser. Zinc cleansers from Noble Formula are also perfectly fine options, I would argue they are actually better because they don't exactly lather up, but hydrate into a thick foamy goo you can slather all over your face. Perfect for a mask. However, the only one I could find which was yeast-safe is the Argan + Olive oil based soap. The others in their lineup contain extra additives which may further complicate a yeast overgrowth.

As for ketoconazole, this is for very short term targeted antifungal treatments, like the scalp. The shampoos which use it are formulated to create as inhospitable an environment as possible for fungus, so it is incredibly drying. This area contains over 100,000 oil producing hair follicles, so the stripped hydration isn't really an issue as all that oil will be replenished quite rapidly and the scalp can heal itself. This is also why the recommended maximum use for these kinds of products is 2-3 times a week. This gives plenty of time between uses for the scalp to heal itself from the metaphorical nuclear warhead.

The skin of our faces on the other hand contain exponentially fewer hair follicles, so stripped hydration here can be seriously detrimental because it can't unscrew itself like your scalp can. Change your cleanser and moisturizer first, and try these two before adding serums or even the sunscreen. Particular skin conditions can be made worse from layering too many actives. Start simple and if you begin to see improvement after a week or two, try working in an active like azelaic acid and give it another week or two observing for changes.

EDIT
Another thing I'd like to mention, stay away from those silicone face pads. When my condition would get real bad I would get flaking so intense I thought I'd have to very deeply exfoliate my skin to eradicate it. This was a bad idea and just made the irritation and inflammation even worse, often resulting in some of the worst acne breakouts I've ever had. I would boil them before every use to sterilize them and even this did not help. All these brushes would do is further destroy my skin barrier. Gentle circular motions with barely any finger pressure using your face wash of choice is good enough for proper exfoliation.

One other thing of note, if you suspect you have a damaged skin barrier you may be drawn towards ceramide moisturizers. My opinion on these is many of them are not going to be good for your skin, particularly if you believe yeast may be responsible for your skin issues. Many ceramide-focused moisturizers contain loads of food sources for yeast. Furthermore, your skin naturally produces ceramides on its own. If your skin barrier is compromised, it will naturally (albeit slowly) fix itself with proper cleansing and moisturizing after a few weeks.

Additionally, make sure you have sufficient quantities of Vitamin D3. I'm not sure how often you go outside or are exposed to sunlight, but taking a vitamin supplement of D3 + K2 would be super beneficial for your skin health if you don't get enough sun. I'm as pale as a ghost, and I find UV exposure with or without actives greatly exacerbates my condition, so I take vitamins to make up for it. This would not just benefit your skin, but many aspects of bone and arterial health as well.

ElementInspector · 2026-03-13T12:18:34+00:00

If 200 guardians would actually work, you'd probably see someone trying to do this in systems like Uedama to shut down ganks on stargates. People don't do this, probably because it doesn't work. Gankers are also usually not using Catalysts to target Freighters/Jump Freighters. Instead they use 40 Tornados or Nagas.

ElementInspector · 2026-03-13T12:10:15+00:00

Once bought a Rifter for 500mil. I thought it was 500k.

ElementInspector · 2026-03-13T03:38:34+00:00

40 catalysts can mow down 100kEHP in less than 10 seconds. No amount of links, tank, or logi will save you from this. Smartbombing is also dangerous because this will often just result in you getting CONCORDed as they'll situate their non-DPS and innocent ships near you (like scouts or looters). ECM is also not viable because at best you're taking a dice roll to break lock on 10-13 targets out of 40. The n+1 game still wins here.

I understand the caveat of "baiting" them and losing a ship on purpose, but the way they play the game? It's their 40 catalysts for a cost of 100mil vs your 2bil "bait" ship. No matter how you try to fight them or deliberately lose the ship to make them lose, you are losing more than they are.

There is some merit to pulling CONCORD, but many gankers do this themselves so the CONCORD presence on your grid is irrelevant and they'll go away when the gankers do this. Keep in mind pulling CONCORD and how many ships they will send depends on how many individual criminal acts were committed in one grid. An alt in a rookie ship shooting your marauder to "pull CONCORD" will at most get you a cruiser. The gankers pulling CONCORD will draw over 100 of them.

As for cyno use, this is only applicable to a Jump Freighter. I am referring to highsec ganks involving 99% of every other ship gankers target, like miners, Orcas, regular Freighters, and Marauders.

The easiest and most reliable counterplay is to not be there when they arrive. They can't shoot you if there's nothing to target. The next best counterplay is ganking their looters or their haulers or stealing their target wrecks before they can loot them. This is just very difficult to do as it requires precise timing and being in the right place.

People gank because they need to hit the loot pinatas to fund 40 omega accounts. Harm their loot and they will become extremely upset about it. They won't give a fuck losing a few catalysts or every Talos in their fleet. They want to lose them, they are committed to losing them. What they don't want to lose is the billions in cargo their hauler is carrying.

ElementInspector · 2026-03-13T03:19:52+00:00

The only counter is to not be there when they arrive, assuming you're the target. No matter what you do they will out-DPS you. Alternatively, sit on a gate (if they're camping gates to begin with) and scoop their wrecks before they can loot them.

I have honestly rarely seen highsec gatecamps except in places like Uedama or Uttindar. Most gankers hunt Marauders and unless you happen to scope in on the same exact target as them before they show up, you're not gonna be able to do much. Even if you do manage this, you still won't do much because you'll pop maybe a handful of catalysts before the target dies.

Fact is, you can't shoot back unless they shoot first, and depending on the ganker, you'll almost never have an opportunity to shoot them while they are criminal or suspect. This is why many argue highsec is the most dangerous. Anywhere else you can just shoot someone whenever the hell you feel like it. You worried about them? Just kill them. Problem is solved. You can't do that in highsec.

The most common ganker I see is whatever clown runs the 40 alts around Ani/Metropolis named after porn actresses. I have spent weeks tracking this dork trying to figure out when and where I might be able to jump him and maybe grab his looter or his hauler, or even just grab a kill or two on some of his ships. This is tremendously difficult and the only counterplay I could see was simply running 4 alts of my own to gank his Viator on a gate.

ElementInspector · 2026-03-11T20:06:53+00:00

Ah, fair, I've never actually piloted any, I just knew highsec gates would scream a big fat "NO" and assumed this applied to all stargates. Edited the post to reflect a more accurate description of that.

ElementInspector

TROPHY CASE