Tia Zakher, a 22-year-old woman known on TikTok for a skin care routine that involves doing nothing to her skin — not even washing it — would like you to know she is fine.

And that, as of five days ago, she has started using water to clean her face, she said on Friday 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, rumors began swirling that there was something seriously wrong with her skin, or that her skin care journey was fake. It also highlights, yet again, the tension that arises when health care and social media collide.

On March 14, after years of trying different skin care approaches to heal her acne — from topicals and peels to microneedling and exfoliation — Ms. Zakher decided to stop doing anything whatsoever: stop touching her face, stop picking at any scabs or dead skin and also stop washing it. She did not post about that decision to her followers (a group that has swelled to more than 125,000 in recent weeks). It was only in April, when her skin started showing visible changes — discoloration, a buildup 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 the video, 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 and that she had seen it elsewhere when researching skin care routines.