BFRB Awareness Week runs October 1–7 every year, an observance organized by the TLC Foundation for BFRBs to bring attention to body-focused repetitive behaviors like skin picking, hair pulling, and nail biting (TLC Foundation for BFRBs). A body-focused repetitive behavior is any repetitive self-grooming behavior — biting, pulling, picking, or scraping hair, skin, lips, cheeks, or nails — that causes physical damage and persists despite repeated attempts to stop (The TLC Foundation for BFRBs, "Learn About BFRBs").
Face picking is one of the most common forms. It usually starts as an attempt to fix a blemish or smooth a rough patch of skin, then turns into a cycle driven more by the urge itself than by what's actually on the skin. During BFRB Awareness Week, the TLC Foundation and allied organizations run educational events and social media campaigns aimed at exactly this gap: most people with a BFRB have never heard the term, don't know it's a recognized category of behavior, and assume the picking or pulling is just a personal willpower problem rather than something with an established treatment approach (TLC Foundation for BFRBs). The seven habits below come from that treatment approach, adapted into steps you can start this week.
1. Notice the urge before you act on it
Most picking happens outside conscious awareness — a hand moves to the face while the mind is on something else. The first skill in any BFRB treatment approach is simply noticing the moment right before the behavior starts, not after it's already happened (IOCDF, Comprehensive Behavioral (ComB) Treatment). A mirror check, a long drive, scrolling on your phone: these are the moments to pay attention to, because they're when hands drift toward the face without a decision being made first.
2. Track what sets it off
Picking rarely happens at random. Clinicians who treat BFRBs assess triggers across five domains — sensory, cognitive, affective, motor, and place, sometimes called SCAMP — because the same behavior can be set off by boredom for one person and stress for another (IOCDF, ComB Treatment). Writing down what was happening right before an episode — bored at a desk, anxious before a meeting, alone in front of a mirror — turns a vague habit into a pattern you can actually plan around.
3. Use a competing response
Once you can feel the urge coming, the next step is replacing the picking motion with a different action held for the same length of time — making a fist, sitting on your hands, gripping a pen. This is called a competing response, and it's one of the core techniques in behavioral treatment for BFRBs (IOCDF, ComB Treatment). It doesn't need to be complicated. It just needs to occupy the same hand, for roughly the same amount of time the urge would otherwise take.
4. Change what your hands can reach
If a magnifying mirror or bright bathroom lighting reliably triggers a picking session, the fastest fix isn't willpower — it's removing the mirror, or dimming the light. This is called stimulus control: changing the environment so the behavior is harder to start in the first place (IOCDF, ComB Treatment). Cover the medicine-cabinet mirror, keep tweezers out of the bathroom, or move your desk chair away from a mirror you check throughout the day.
5. Give your hands something else to do
Boredom and idle hands are one of the most common triggers reported for BFRBs. A fidget tool, a stress ball, knitting, or even doodling gives the hands a job that isn't picking, which matters most during the exact situations — watching TV, sitting in traffic, waiting on hold — where picking tends to happen automatically.
6. Put a barrier between your fingers and your skin
A physical barrier removes the option entirely for a while. Some people use a thin bandage over the spot they pick most; others wear a ring or bracelet that reminds them a hand is moving toward the face. The goal isn't to hide the skin forever, just to interrupt the automatic reach long enough for the urge to pass on its own.
7. Track your progress and don't do it alone
BFRBs are common, and they're driven by the same handful of triggers across most people who have them, which is exactly why a dedicated awareness week and organizations like the TLC Foundation exist. Keeping a record of picking-free days, and knowing where to find community and clinician resources when things get harder, both matter more than willpower alone over the long run. The TLC Foundation maintains a directory of clinicians who specialize in treating BFRBs, which is worth a look if picking is frequent enough that self-directed techniques alone aren't moving the needle (TLC Foundation for BFRBs).
None of these seven habits requires waiting for October to start. Awareness Week is a good prompt to begin, but the techniques themselves — noticing, tracking, competing responses, environment changes — work the same way in any month.
How FaceQuest helps
FaceQuest's mechanics map directly onto the steps above, for touching and picking alike. Every time you catch an urge before acting on it, logging it with I CAUGHT AN URGE builds your streak and gives you a concrete record of the moments you noticed in time — the awareness step from #1. If you slip and pick anyway, OOPS, I SLIPPED logs it just as honestly. Trigger tagging lets you mark what was going on right before the urge (stress, boredom, thinking, autopilot), which is the same pattern-finding described in #2. And RESIST THE URGE is a competing response in app form: a 10-second hold you use the moment an urge shows up, instead of acting on it, which is #3 above. None of this replaces professional treatment for a diagnosed BFRB, but it gives you a daily habit of noticing, which is where every other technique starts.
This article is for general information and isn't medical advice; talk to a licensed clinician or dermatologist about diagnosis or treatment for skin picking.
This guide is for general information only and is not medical advice. If you’re concerned about your skin or a compulsive behavior, talk to a healthcare professional.