suncream, zits and wrinkles: rolling skincare thread?

think i might give this homemade oil cleanser a try. my skin is so blah and has been for a while. i did notice that since my dairy consumption has dropped about 90% in the past couple of years, i hardly ever get big zits - but my pores are still blocked, i still have clusters of minor blemishes and i get these dry patches on my cheeks.

i've also developed rosacea on my cheeks :/ if this is hereditary, then i def got it from my mum.

I know Jaq has some experience with oil cleansers, she'll probably weigh in soon. I believe they can actually be quite drying, paradoxically.

Went to the Badescu counter today and topped up my cleanser, plus a day moisturizer with 17SPF and a night cream with none. Feeling very posh right about now, tbh!

I was out of everything and had been using a liquid Dr Bronner's plus whatever nice triple-milled bar we had in the bathroom, and my skin has been kinda freaking out?? I think that's also partly from not changing my sheets for going on 2 weeks now; even though I shower at night, anything that touches my face & neck eventually causes problems.

Haha the counter lady said, "You have very fair skin, and I also see a lot of redness." Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. Welcome to my world.

bronner's baby is the only shit my skin can deal with. it is the light blue one. the others are way too drying for me. it has been my daily soap for ~5 years (also sls free-sls breaks me out a bunch).

I've been trying to wash my hair less, partly b/c I'm cheap, and the last shampoo/cond set someone gave me is Aveda but a little too drying. Haven't thrown it out b/c it's expensive shit and I just didn't want to buy new, but not washing my hair is TERRIBLE for my skin. More breakouts all around hairline and nape. Embarrassing, I am a 35-yo grown-ass woman, why do I have teenager skin??

Otoh someone said they thought I was 25 the other day, so my oiliness must be doing something right/protective.

sls free obviously mean sodium laurel sulfate free! GET LAUREL OUT OF MY SOAPS

this is lindsay btw, hi! come to kathleens bday with me tomorrow?

Esp given that I've been smoking for like 15 years and am not at all careful w my skin.

xp HEY THAT'S LAURYL TO YOU.

xp2: Maybe! Special Agent Cooper and I have a date to go to the Times Sq protest but maybe later!

GET LAUREL OUT OF MY SOAPS

otm

well. it's at franklin park. i think you live around there now?? misssss u

Missssss u tu!

I live within biking dist of there, if it ever stops raining! Plus <3 <3 Kathleen, obv.

aw can you tell kathleen i said happy birthday (if it is the kathleen i think it is!)?

hi trza! it is :) and i will (or hopefully WE will cmon laurel)!

hey laurel, maybe try dampening a cotton pad with witchhazel and wiping your hairline/nape every evening/morning? it'll pick all those oils.

i find it too drying to use all over my face, but i swipe my t-zone/hairline with some every other day

I know Jaq has some experience with oil cleansers, she'll probably weigh in soon. I believe they can actually be quite drying, paradoxically.

Thank god I can FINALLY answer to this! OCM has been great for me, but it is drying and slightly detergent. I think it's bullshit that extra virgin olive or any other oil will "nourish" your epidermis btw. Castor and jojoba oils were both way too heavy and sticky to do any good for me - you want an oil that is lighter weight than the natural oil your skin produces. The oil you apply will dissolve and carry away your skin's excess oil and the crud it harbors in the upper reaches of your pores. Without causing your oil-producing glands to go into overdrive. OCM is magnificent at clearing blackheads - not just the oil dissolving business but that it provides enough slip to keep your massaging fingers from doing a lot of damage AND provides enough resistance to work the crud loose.

What it can't help so much with - hormonal issues. Those things are going to happen. The best you can do is keep the redness and inflammation down. I used to use a vitamin K gel, which will cut redness over time. But once I started doing neem experiments, it is now my go-to. It's anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, anti-viral, anti-fungal - super soothing for any itchiness too. For god's sake, don't use the neem oil though - stinks like you would not believe! Get neem leaf tincture or make your own oil or water or witch hazel based extract. You can buy ground up neem leaf in capsules at health food stores. Massage the tincture into areas of trouble - usually it's glycerin based so has a slightly sticky feel. It is very green in color and smell. Itchiness, redness, and inflammation are noticeably decreased in 10 minutes or so. The stuff has no known toxicity, but tastes TERRIBLE.

So what do you use instead of jojoba or castor, jaq?

I tried a home made face peel thing with gelatin and soy milk - idk, my pores still look dirty

I just use a lighter weight olive oil (not ev, some lesser and cheaper one). And an occasional diluted cider vinegar rinse, for when I want to feel especially salad-like :)

I started out using the modified olive oil from DHC, which is excellent btw, but then moved on to a home-brewed grocery store solution.

Sweet almond oil was okay to blend with the light olive oil, but I ran out of it. I think argan oil would also work really well, but it is $$$.

I put a little lavender oil in mine, since I do the OCM at night. I was worried about tightness from getting my face wet intrude morning shower and not moisturizing, but it's been fine. I do look quite tired though.

For me, the feeling of tightness always came from either stripping out all the oil with an alcohol toner, or using an alkaline pH cleanser and not re-acidifying. I only do OCM a few times a week and just rinse my face well 2x/day. I don't use any makeup though, so don't have to worry about taking that off my skin.

Normally I can't get my face wet unless I can moisturize right away - it gets tight and also flaky

Sweet almond oil was okay to blend with the light olive oil, but I ran out of it. I think argan oil would also work really well, but it is $$$.

would lick any of you guys' faces, you all sound delicious

I bought a La Mer product...ONCE and they gave me a teenytiny sample of La Mer creme and it has been the only reason I really wanted money ever since. The other product I bought was forgettable and a waste of heard earned cash.

I have an oily complexion but it can get really dry using stuff that is supposed to control oily skin. My skin gobbled up the La Mer and it was the first time I felt and saw a really positive reaction to a facial product. In one week my complexion was beautiful, lovely, dewey, just perfect and I felt I looked 10 years younger. Then I ran out and it was back to... meh.

La Mer is the one thing I would ever risk stealing. It is always behind glass. Then if I ran out, have to steal again or go try and sell myself. As pricey as it is though....that wouldn't work, teehee

I agree- DHC's modified olive oil is really, really good. I did see improvements with it. Though nothing magical.

*sigh* this OCM isn't working out: i still have dry patches (increased from before) and it's giving me red-rimmed eyes, which makes me look stoned and tired all day, and my face just feels kind of dirty.

It sounds like you are having an allergic reaction to the oil you're using, if your eyes are red.

Hey y'All here's something nuts: I noticed my skin has improved by 1000% and couldnt work out why until I realized I've been drinking a whole lot of milk lately. Go cows!

loool my skin started improving when i STOPPED consuming so much dairy!

Have any of you ever used Lush's Ultrabland cleanser? I am trying it out since my skin gets so incredibly dry in the winter. So far, it's p nice.

I'm a Kiehl's gentle foaming facial cleanser (which does not actually foam at all) gal year-round. I am liking the Cerave PM cream after washing, but my face is not uber dry. My hands, on the other hand. . . constant winter battle.

Jenny - ultrabland is v nice! I've used and liked it in the past. I guess Cetaphil is my go to but I switch things up a lot.

I use Cetaphil or Cerave cleanser half the year, but I basically desiccate starting about now until April. How is the Cerave PM?

The hand battle... Dear god. It's endless. Q, what is your hand cream of choice? I like L'Occitaine.

oh god the hand battle :(

My cuticles haven't recovered yet from the constant handwashing/hand sanitizer assault on them during my last job.

I try to hand moisturize at night so it can soak in, but it's not enough. I think I need to start drinking CRAZY amts of water, I don't know what else to do. I overwhelming prefer this weather to anything that happens between late June and early September, and my skin prefers it too and is the best in fall, but my hands get wet too often to survive.

my face exploded this week. i have not had a breakout like this in as long as i can remember. i am sad.

I keep this at my desk and reapply it PRN throughout the day: http://usa.loccitane.com/FO/shea-butter-nail-cuticle-cream.htm

There's no way I can justify spending $18 on cuticle cream right now, though.

try some olive oil, christine

I do like the l'occitane shea butter hand cream! I had forgotten about that. But really, other than "I can tolerate the texture and smell vs. I cannot tolerate the texture and smell" hand cream issue, it really hasn't mattered ime. I think the only way I could possibly win the hand war is to keep them coated in a thick layer of vaseline under a pair of gloves 94/7.

Ha, yeah.

That cuticle cream is pricey, no doubt. The tube I have has lasted over a year, though, so there's that. I am always on the lookout for cheaper drugstore alternatives.

I sample sized tube of Bliss (I think? Is that a brand?) hand cream but it smells strongly enough that I feel bad using it in public. I keep a giant pump bottle of Jergins original scent at my desk so I can reapply every time I wash my hands. That helps, but it's not quite enough in the winter. I used to regularly do the moisturizer and gloves trick but I read a lot of ebooks on my iPad now, which is incomparable with nighttime hand moisturizing.

The idea of sleeping in gloves kind of weirds me out for no good reason. But I should try it, because not only do my hands look like those of someone twice my age, it *hurts* to have cracked/chapped hands!

And then you try to fix it with cream and the cream STINGS when you apply gah

Jeff always makes jokes about sleeping next to Minnie Mouse when I do it but it does help.

Also I get why that would weird you out. It's weird. I usually pull them off during the night (I am an inveterate nocturnal clothes puller offer though).

Hahaha I just envision waking up in the middle of the night and having the overwhelming urge to pop some jazz hands.

IRL LOL

And, another thing--hangnails and skin cracks can let germs into your body just like any other broken skin can. People have contracted some pretty nasty infections that way.