Natural skin care

I have so much I want to post to this little blog right now, SO MUCH, but I figured the best place to start would be with finishing up all my 'draft' posts because, well, as a mama of two little I need to feel like I can finish something. Anything. Hehe.

Anyway, to the point :)

Much like anything else natural skin care can be done many different ways and on many levels of crunchy. Personally I like to think our bodies know best and that less is more. When I was a teen and even in to my early twenties all I did was rinse my face with cold water now and then. Seriously. I always got compliments on my skin. Never had teen acne. This is even at the peak of my dance commitment when I was dancing over 20 hours a week.

Unfortunately as an adult I allowed myself to be convinced this wasn't enough, that I was going to end up looking like a prune by 25 if I didn't 'take better care of my skin'- meaning 'slather it with chemicals'. The result of this has been many years of trouble skin. Too oily, too dry, breakouts, rashes, you name it. I stopped using harsh/toxic products on my skin about two years ago (two and a half maybe?) and am still trying to get my skin to behave like it did when I was younger. I figure part of it is a change in hormones and what not, but also a detox process much like you go through switching to no-poo. You see commercial cleansers act much like commercial shampoos- they strip all the oils from your face only so you can replace them with synthetic ones. In fact often acne is caused by this- your skin is stripped from oils so your body over compensates and makes too much oil. Please don;t get me started on proactive. So when you stop using these products your body, your skin, needs to find a new norm. Anyway, I went on a search for natural ways to help my skin out and of course found a million opinions.

I learned that oil is not bad for your skin and does not necessarily cause acne. That most oils can be used as a moisturizer, a few favorites among the natural living community like extra virgin olive oil (affectionately referred to as EVOO). I learned that you can use honey to wash your face. I learned that hot water and chlorine are killers for your skin. Seriously, tons and tons of info out there. Feel free to do your own research.

The conclusions I came to was that the #1 best way to care for your skin is to care for your body (I know, you're shocked). Drink water, eat fruits, veggies, and healthy fats. Exercise. Get plenty of sleep. You know the drill ;)

The #2 (in my humble opinion) is the oil cleansing method. Much like no 'poo this has been covered to death by many people much smarter than me, so I'll give you a couple links instead of breaking it down myself:

theoilcleansingmethod.com 

The oil cleansing method @ Simple mom 

I am currently trying the dry skin ratio from the first link, with grape seed oil and Castor oil. I'm still pretty darn dry, but I'm also not getting enough water (hello nursing dehydration) and we have crazy amounts of chlorine in the water here that just kills my skin (we went to Canada for a week and my skin evened right out). I'm looking into chlorine filters but in the meantime just trying not to run much water over my face in the shower. I might also try EVOO with my next batch and see if that works better (though what I'll do with all the grape seed oil I don't know).

Update 02/12: Still oil cleansing a couple times a week, using about one part castor oil to two parts EVOO. If I dry out in between I use a little grapeseed oil.