Beauty Saturday

Warning!  This post has to do with my skin.

This is take-two after the first picture I placed here was a bit ghost-facey.  But look at my hair!  Although it looks lightened, this is really just a product of two things.  First, the shitty light sensor in my webcam, and second, a cheap beauty product diy bender.

Let me explain.  Every once in a while I read about all the toxic chemicals in beauty products these days and some of those times, I feel determined to take matters into my own hands.  I never do it, that is, until today when I checked the health rating of my face lotion here.  This prompted me into a google chain-search from home made face lotion to "the oil cleansing method" to castor oil for keratosis pilaris, a skin condition I have.   So out I went into the world, to buy a bottle of castor oil and a jar of coconut oil (my new remedy for my skin condition), and the ingredients to wash my face with oil - the "oil cleansing method."  Health toxicity craziness aside (I really tend to not give a shit after the first 5 minutes of thinking about this stuff. I mean, while I don't want my future kids to develop a third eye from too much ingestion of whatever, trying to live without absorbing crazy chemicals is completely futile), while a good chunk of my practical behavior would seem to say that I don't care or don't like to take the time to care about how I look, there is a good 35% of me that wants to try to care.  And I would also like to try to care in the cheapest way possible.  This led to:

Regimen


Oil swishing of teeth with sunflower oil - is backed by research actually using the scientific method!  I read several pieces of source material this morning, but I mostly wanted to try it because it seemed so weird.  I did, however, gag and almost throw-up approximately 6 times.

Oil wash of face with olive oil - meh

Oil wash of face with mix of coconut oil and castor oil - very sticky

Hair wash with only cider vinegar and baking soda (bikarbonat) - like washing with sand!

Lotioning myself with coconut oil/castor oil mix - almost painfully sticky

Results

Can't really say anything about the bacteria count in my mouth, so I'll hop over the oil swishing.

Oil wash with olive oil - I didn't really do this right, so I was naturally a little underwhelmed.

Oil wash with coconut oil and castor oil - actually pretty amazing because my face feels clean and not dried out, but doesn't feel greasy at all.  I even put on a light patting of the mix on my face after I showered, as my face felt a little dry after wiping away with a towel (google "oil cleansing method"). No visible blackheads on my nose (where I usually see them), and no shininess where I am usually shiny from oil production after washing with soap.  TMI?  Sorry.

Hair wash with vinegar and baking soda - see above picture!  I had been wanting to do this for awhile mostly just to see but also because all the harsh sulfates in shampoo make me itch like crazy (i use very simple soap without lathering sulfates for this reason - although I have a few shower gels I really like and use occasionally for their smell).  SO, my hair feels all light and fluffy in a good way, and is not at all dried out even though it sort of looks like it in the picture, and most importantly, it is not greasy or dirty feeling in any way.  It basically feels great.

Lotioning - this was rather difficult.  It felt like I was trying to pull my skin off because the castor oil is so thick it creates a load of weird friction.  But the oil soaked in rather well, I'm not greasy, and I assume it will take some time to help with the keratosis pilaris, so I'll have to get back about that later.  I did rub pure castor oil into a scar I have on my shin, which is about a year old.   Maybe I should take before and after shots to see if the scar really does fade over time.  The most important thing is: I am not itchy!  I am usually always itchy after showering from getting dried out, even after putting on regular lotion.

Conclusions 


While I'm down a lot of money from recently buying a new jar of regular face lotion on top of today's purchases, today's purchases were still cheaper than the regular face lotion and will probably last 3 times as long.  I am super happy that I do not feel greasy or itchy, but this whole process took more than an hour, which is a lot to ask of someone who only can seem to care about 35% of the time.

Don't ask me for a definition of "the time."

UPDATE:  I really feel like I should add that I was particularly not-clean before all this.  I hadn't washed my hair in maybe 4 or 5 days (whereas I usually wash it every 3 days at the most) and had also sprayed in dry shampoo earlier in the morning before I went out to buy this stuff.  My dry shampoo, although it works, tends to make the hair feel dirtier, with a coating of weird chemicals, even though it looks better.  I also hadn't washed my face with soap in probably 2.5 days, although I do frequently wash with just water and a wash cloth.