Helpful Things

As already mentioned, every affected person “tics” differently. What is helpful for one person may not be helpful for another. Below, we have compiled a list of a few products that affected people in Facebook groups have reviewed as positive and helpful. These are products that our scientific advisors do not believe to be untrustworthy per se. If you disagree, please feel free to reach out to us. We are also open to reviewing other products.

General

These products can be used for various BFRBs.

Sensory Stimulation and Fidget Toys

Fiddle Pack
This product contains 18 items that satisfy auditory, tactile, visual, and kinesthetic sensory needs while engaging the hands. A sheet giving tips and suggestions for the best use of each item is included in the pack.
Special Supplies Therapressure Therapy Brush
This brush provides sensory stimulation as a distraction and is designed to alleviate or prevent the onset of symptoms while simultaneously reducing stress.
Sapphire ONO Roller
This toy is designed to help relieve stress and alleviate symptoms by keeping the hands busy playing with the roller.
Motivational Stress Ball
This gadget can be used as an anti-stress ball and is suitable for distracting and reducing symptoms through sensory stimulation of the hands.
Flippy Chain Fidget Toy
This metal bicycle chain fidget toy can be used as a distraction as well as a tool to reduce stress.
Sumind Fidget Bean Toy
This “squeeze-a-bean” fidget toy may also be used as a keychain, allowing it to be used on the go.
PILPOC theFube Fidget Cube
This cube-shaped gadget has six sides, each with a different function, to keep your hands busy and create distractions.
Push Pop Bubble Fidget Toy
This “push-pop-bubble” toy allows bubbles to be pushed in with the fingers.
PlayableART OSM – Forever turning kinetic sculpture
This kinetic sculpture can be twisted and reshaped in an endless, magical loop for visual and sensory stimulation.
Crazy Aaron’s Thinking Putty
This putty is available in various degrees of hardness and can be used to keep your hands busy and reduce stress or tension. The putty can be stretched and sculpted, and it can be shaped into a ball and bounced, much like a bouncy ball. It is also easy to take with you and can be used anywhere at any time.
Calm Strips
Calm Strips look like ordinary stickers, but their textured surface feels like soft sand when touched with the fingers. According to the company, sensory stimulation of the fingers is distracting and stress-relieving, helping to alleviate the onset of symptoms.
Sensory Finger Rings Acupressure
Sensory stimulation of the fingers through acupressure massage rings can prevent nibbling and chewing, reduce stress, and boost attention.
Tocuh Wake Up Night LED Light
Many affected people report that dimmed light helps minimize visual triggers and avoid seeing blemishes.
PILPOC Fidget Pad Controller
This fidget toy can be used to provide sensory stimulation to the hands to distract from skin picking.
Aquamarine Gemstone Pendant Necklace
This necklace comes with a stone pendant that may be used to provide sensory stimulation for the fingers in order to prevent skin picking.
Gemstone Bracelet
Jewelry like beaded bracelets or necklaces with beads have a lot of texture and are very tactile. The beads can be easily moved back and forth on the elastic bracelets, so they serve to keep the hands busy as well as provide sensory stimulation. Zipper bracelets can also be helpful.
DUGATO Artist Paint Brush Set
According to affected individuals, brushes can be useful as sensory tools to refrain from skin picking. Other types of brushes or combs can be used as well (e.g., hairbrushes, toothbrushes, nail brushes, massage brushes, paint brushes). The brushes can also be used to massage the scalp.
Magnetic Rings Fidget Toy Set
This fidget toy can distract through sensory stimulation of the hands and fingertips, reducing the urge to bite nails.
Anti Stress Ring
This ring can be used to reduce stress as well as habits like nail biting and skin picking. Also, the ring can promote relaxation by moving the beads around.
(The ring has been explicitly recommended to us by psychotherapists)

Beauty and Care Products

Hemp Cream
Hemp oil is said to have a regenerating and calming effect. It can be applied to irritated and sore skin areas, including the scalp, to speed up the healing process and relieve pain.
Acrylic nails
Many people report positive effects from wearing artificial nails. These prevent nail biting and make both skin picking and hair pulling more difficult.
DenTek Professional Dental Guard
Wearing this dental guard can not only stop teeth grinding, but also prevent the possibility of nail- and cheek biting.
Face Mask
Wearing a face mask can help prevent skin picking and chewing or biting your hair, skin, or nails.
Moisturizing OverNight Gloves
You can wear gloves at home during the day or while sleeping to cover your fingers completely. This can prevent you from picking your skin as well as chewing your nails. Cotton gloves are especially comfortable because they are very soft and your hands will not sweat in them.
Wrist Weights
Wrist weights can help you become more aware of your movements because they make movement more difficult. This can be especially helpful with automatic behaviors.
FUFUYOU Infinity Cube
This “Infinity Cube” consists of eight small cubes that are connected to each other. The cubes can be unfolded, bent and rotated in various ways, thus promoting manual dexterity and reducing symptoms.

Apps, Online Programs and Gadgets

I Am Sober App
This free app can be used to enter and monitor the number of days that have passed since one’s last skin picking, hair pulling, or nail biting. The timer can act as a motivating factor to resist the urge to pick, pull, or bite.
Slightly Robot App
This app connects to a wristband and monitors hand movements. If problem behaviors occur, the wristband vibrates.
Keen-Bracelet by Habitaware
The Keen wristband from Habitaware monitors the movement of the hands. It vibrates if symptoms occur unconsciously or consciously. The wristband can also be connected to an app that can accurately record your own movement patterns. An initial small-scale study demonstrates its effectiveness against a control group.
Smart Light Bulbs
If a particular behavior is performed mainly in one room, such as the bathroom, you can put a timer on the light switches in that room so that after 5 minutes the light goes off and the behavior is interrupted.
Setting a (Smartphone) Timer
Set a smartphone timer for your morning and evening routines in the bathroom. If you are tempted to pick your skin in front of the mirror, you will be interrupted when the timer rings. 
Cover your mirror or view only from a distance
Cover the mirror with a towel so that you have to intentionally remove it to use the mirror. This extra step can remind you of your goals and help prevent you from skin picking. Distance from the mirror can also play a role. The closer you are to the mirror, the more details you can see and the more likely you are to find a perceived blemish that can cause you to pick your skin. It can be helpful to stand at least an arm’s length away from the mirror.
Origami Story Club
This club’s weekly sessions last approximately 50 minutes and are held via Zoom. Children aged 6–11 can participate, and each group usually has a maximum of five children. Each series lasts 6 weeks. Each week a new story is read aloud, during which the children can fold different origami. Origami is a great way to keep the hands busy, and it is accessible, affordable, and can be shared with others!

Trichotillomania

In forums, many people affected by trichotillomania have reviewed the following products as helpful.

Beauty and Care Products

TOPPIK Hair-Building Fibers
TOPPIK consists of colorized hair-building fibers made of keratin that blend inconspicuously with your own hair. The product can be easily applied to the affected areas to give the hair more fullness and volume.
Maybelline Total Temptation Eyebrow Definer Pencil
If the hairs of the eyebrows are affected by skin picking, eyebrow pencils can help to create natural-looking eyebrows.
Aloe Vera Gel
Aloe vera has a moisturizing, soothing, and anti-inflammatory effect. The fresh gel can be applied to the scalp to soothe sores and inflammation.
EarthShine Hair Growth Serum
This serum containing biotin is designed to promote hair growth.
Paul Mitchell Extra Body Firm Finishing Spray
According to some, this hairspray is a good fit for thin, brittle hair. It adds volume and fullness to the hairstyle starting at the roots, allowing thin or bald spots to be concealed.
Handcraft Castor Oil
Castor oil is a natural cosmetic product for hair, skin, eyebrows, eyelashes, and nails. The oil moisturizes and nourishes.
Scalp Massager
Scalp massagers have a relaxing effect and thus result in stress reduction. Stimulating the hair creates a somewhat similar sensory experience to pulling out hair and is therefore said to reduce the urge to pull hair.
Oral B Essential Floss
Instead of sliding your hair through your fingers or teeth, you can use dental floss.

Accessories

Head Bands
Affected individuals report that head coverings such as hair bands can reduce the compulsion to grab or pull out one’s hair. Many experts, however, consider this measure to be a form of avoidance; it should therefore be used as a last resort.
Extentions
These hair braid extensions with can be used for sensory stimulation and can be wrapped around your wrist or finger or on a barrette or hair tie.

Apps, Online Programs and Gadgets

Trichstop.com
Trich-Stop is a private online therapy program by trained therapists for individuals suffering from trichotillomania. It is an evidence-based form of therapy (cognitive behavioral therapy) that has been shown to be effective in the treatment of body-related impulse control disorders. The contact with the therapists takes place via text messages and is therefore location-independent.
TrichStop App
This app can increase your awareness of your behaviors. The app allows you to document the times when you feel an urge to pull your hair, and times when you do pull your hair can be noted as well. A clear presentation of the collected data in the form of graphs and charts makes it easy for you to recognize your typical patterns.

Skin Picking

Many individuals affected by skin picking have reviewed the following products in forums as helpful.

Beauty and Care Products

Freeman Feeling Beautiful Cucumber Peel-Off Gel Mask
Removing peel-off masks offers some people a sensory experience similar to skin picking and is said to reduce the urge to touch one’s own skin.
Acne Cover Patches
These pimple patches are applied to pimples and blemishes, which can prevent them from being touched or squeezed.
Honey Wound Cream
This product is designed to activate and support the body’s own wound healing process.

Apps, Online Programs and Gadgets

SkinPick App
The app can be used as a tool to track your skin-picking behavior. According to the developer, the first step to overcoming skin picking is becoming aware of your own “picking patterns.”
Skinpick.com
There is a private online therapy program for those picking their skin. It is an evidence-based form of therapy (cognitive behavioral therapy) that has been shown to be suitable in the treatment of body-related impulse control disorders. Contact with the therapists takes place via text messages and is therefore location-independent.
StopPicking.com
StopPicking.com is an online behavioral program designed to help individuals reduce unwanted skin picking, nail biting, and lip-cheek biting. The program is designed to help individuals identify situations associated with their picking or biting behaviors. It also recommends strategies that might help change the behaviors. It is not considered therapy in a strict sense and is not intended to replace individual behavioral therapy.
Pimple Popper Toy
This toy simulates pimple squeezing and popping and prevents you from damaging your own skin. It is refillable (only proceed if the original urge to squeeze pimples decreases).
PICK STONES Picky Pumice Stone
This lava stone is close to the real picking experience according to people affected by BFRBs. The holes or “pores” of the stone are pre-filled with a latex-based substance that can be pulled or peeled out of the stone.
Picky Party Plate
The Picky Party Plate is a calming way to satisfy your urge to pick and remove pieces. It also helps with fighting boredom and to calm you. This gadget can be decorated and filled with picky paint to pick out. The bundle comes with a picky party plate, picky paint, a jar with beads and extras,  a picking stick and a pair of tweezers.

Nail Biting

Many nail biters have stated in forums that the following products are helpful.

Beauty and Care Products

Burt’s Bees Hand Cream
This cream moisturizes the skin and nails and can promote nail growth.
OPI ProSpa Nail & Cuticle Oil
This nail and cuticle oil moisturizes and contributes to the healing of affected areas.
No Bite Nail Polish
This nail polish contains a completely harmless bitter substance, which makes nail biting hardly tolerable by the taste. Nails and cuticles thus get the opportunity to heal and grow. The effectiveness of bitter substances has been proven many times.

Protection for Fingers and Nails

EvridWear Fingertip Protection
According to reports from affected individuals, covering the nails with a fingertip protector can prevent nail biting.
Band Aid Adhesive Bandages
These adhesive bandages can help prevent nail biting and nibbling and aid in the healing of injured cuticles.
Chewing Sesame Seeds
Instead of biting your nails, you can chew sesame seeds. Eating or cracking sunflower or pumpkin seeds can also help to stimulate the mouth and fingers.

Joint Cracking

These products/tips could be helpful for individuals who crack their joints.

Rollerball/ballpoint pen
Similar to fidget toys, rollerball or ballpoint pens may be useful for reducing symptoms. The engagement and disengagement of the retractible pen/cap provides a sensory experience similar to joint cracking and reduces the urge to crack the joints in many sufferers. Staplers have also shown positive effects.