I counted every time I touched my face for a week

I've never really been a fan of taking pictures.

Being a single male most of my life, this wasn't ever really a problem.

And then, I had children. Two beautiful girls to be exact. Naturally I wanted to be in pictures with them. Not just for me to share on social media to show them off, but because I wanted them to have pictures with their dad smiling at them.

But there was a problem. My skin.

As if it wasn't hard enough to get a picture of the three of us looking in the same direction at the same time. I also had to worry about how the blemishes around my forehead looked. Were they especially inflamed that day? Was my rosacea even redder than usual?

I had a bunch of theories. Maybe it was the glasses that I began wearing, and so I needed to wash my face more. Maybe it was diet. We, like almost everyone else, were eating a lot more kale and there's all this talk about oxalates that might be causing it. Maybe it was more time in front of the laptop, meetings off camera, wandering attention, all of this. Maybe it was my own hands, which I'd catch at my face now and then and not think much of.

Of course, without loads of testing, time, and lab equipment I'd never have, or want, there would really be no way of telling what the problem was.

Around the time of the Pandemic, I had my first physical with my primary care physician in a few years. He noticed the acne and diagnosed it as such. To my surprise, he suggested I treat it, which for him was weird because he's usually the type to be more holistic and lifestyle focused. He prescribed a regimen of clindamycin cream in the morning and moisturizer at night, along with twice daily face washings. After a month or so, the protocol worked, and by that, I mean it cleared out the acne at the top of my face. This was obviously a good result.

However, it kind of bugged me. We never really observed any other changes that might have had a bigger effect. We didn't study other potential causes. For instance, I believe this was around the summer so I would have been hiking a lot less (too hot), or doing so in either early morning or late evening so I wouldn't be wearing bucket hats that hadn't been washed in way too long. Maybe I started eating differently, like not having half of a bag of bacon-cooked kale with eggs and cheese each and every morning (the pandemic was great, wasn't it?).

During the pandemic, I went on a Civilization 6 bender to beat the game on Deity with every civilization and leader. While I "succeeded," it did mean a lot of time staring at a screen doing some repeated mid to late game sequence. A bit brainless, and a perfect time for my hands to wander. And wander they did.

I'd had a history of mindless touching, picking, whatever we want to call it. When I was younger, it was a small cyst in my ear lobe. But now, with these breakouts, I would spend a lot more time exploring, touching, squeezing, and general fiddling with all these new blemishes. I'd notice that I'd make them even more inflamed, to the point of embarrassment. More blemishes would cluster around.

And it would frustrate me. I mean, I'm not a monk. I'm not going to be perfect. But there was something particular about this one. A visible, daily reminder that I had no real idea what my own hands were doing. I really wished there was a way to at least make myself aware of what I was doing and maybe, learn to stop myself.

Over the next few years or so, my skin was mostly fine. I'd have a localized breakout here and there, but nothing to worry about.

Then around the time my wife was pregnant with our second girl, I got a new breakout that I couldn't seem to shake. I ran out of my old prescription, so I had to adjust my regimen. Secondly, I had a new primary care as my previous one went full-on holistic and off the insurance grid.

The prescription he gave me was a gel as he couldn't find the old cream formulation. This was a twice a day application, so already a little different. That said, I was game and adhered to the instructions. However, we got nowhere.

I sought out a specialist and we moved on to more exotic stuff. Still limited results. I washed and treated religiously. Eventually I ended up on some light antibiotics — the "safe" kind, I was told. They showed a little early promise. I was never comfortable with that route, but by then I was willing to try most things.

And the hands were still going. Worse, if anything, because there was more to fiddle with.

Then, some life happened.

First I needed to get a colonoscopy. And the prep kind of ruined the antibiotic streak I was on. Thankfully everyone came out alright in the end.

Then shortly after that, the family and I went to Paris for a few months. (it's not as glamorous as it sounds, but it was pretty great). This led to several immediate lifestyle changes.

First, I stopped going to the gym five times a week. Consequently, I quit showering at the gym five times a week while overheated.

Second, the record French heatwave meant no hot showers. That and having limited free time with 2 kids and no childcare meant no daily hot showers either. Maybe TMI, but I think we'll all live.

Also, I wasn't on Zoom or having long hours in front of the computer. I still did work, but I was super-efficient and focused and worked in bursts throughout the day.

Third, we ate more like locals.

And almost like magic, my face cleared up. Despite not taking any of the medications, or really, washing my face (forgot to bring the CeraVe).

My best result in five years came from the least controlled experiment I have ever run.

Now, there could be a lot of reasons why. And in fact, the skin and human body being a complex system, there are likely a lot of reasons why. And to be honest, I don't really care.

What bothers me is the same thing that bothered me the first time. I had a good outcome and no idea what produced it. Five things changed at once in Paris. Three had changed the summer the clindamycin worked. Every time something got better, I couldn't tell you why.

Many of the factors, including genetics and climate, are out of my control. Even if we think it's stuff in our food, I could only change that by leaving our home and family.

But one variable was different. The hands were the only suspect on my list that a camera could actually see — and I had a camera pointed at my face most of the day anyway. There had to be a way to take advantage of that and count the number of times I did it, when I did it, and maybe how to stop it.

I did what any tech curious person does. I built a tool. And it wasn't very good.

The first version fired every time I rested my chin on my fist, and missed most of what I actually wanted it to catch. It took a few months of evenings, and a fair amount of arguing with my own data, before I trusted the numbers it was giving me.

I knew I wanted it to be private, that is, not constantly sending your picture to some far-off server every millisecond. Luckily, technology has advanced enough that AI models can run on your local machine privately and securely.

So, what does the tool do?

Absently uses your webcam to watch for your hands going to your face. When your fingers get close enough it starts counting, and it keeps counting until your hand has been away for a couple of seconds — so fidgeting at one spot registers as a single event rather than a dozen. It notes how long each one lasted, whether your fingers were moving or resting, and roughly where on your face they were. Nothing leaves the machine and no video is ever saved. It counts, and it shows you what it counted. It doesn't interrupt you, score you, or diagnose anything.

I built Absently for myself, because I couldn't attribute anything else. I still can't tell you what cleared my skin in Paris. But I can tell you exactly how often my hands go to my face, when, and for how long. That's one more thing than I knew a year ago.