photo by fdecomite

A few weeks ago, I was reading on another blog and she happened to mention that she “washed” her face with oil and she linked to a website called, The Oil Cleansing Method.

As a girl who has struggled with acne most of her life, this sounded really odd to me.  I mean, what has been shouted from the rooftops my whole life is that, especially for acne prone skin, you need to remove as much oil from your skin as possible, because it’s the excess oil that causes blemishes.  Right?

However, I was intrigued enough to go check it out.  Here’s a little taste of what the website says about modern skincare products:

The reasons we have so much trouble with mainstream skin care products are numerous, but two reasons, in particular, lead the pack. These products strip the oil out of our skin, leaving our largest organ trying to repair itself by replacing the oil stripped away. This leaves us in a cycle of being tight and dry followed by the inevitable oil slick. Each time we strip the oil away, our skin over-compensates for the lack of moisture by creating more oil. On top of the drying effects, these products are highly-scented. Fragrance is one of the top skin irritants and strangely enough, even the so-called “unscented” products usually contain fragrance. See for yourself and check the labels. Dry, irritated skin replaced by oily skin, inflamed and trapping debris?

Kind of eye-opening isn’t it?  After reading the website, I decided to try it.  I figured, all my life I’ve had problems with my skin and I’ve been trying basically the same thing over and over.  Maybe it’s time to try something drastically different.

And you know what?  It works.

My breakouts have dramatically decreased over the last weeks.  My skin is soft and not even greasy feeling like I’d feared.  It feels good.  I’m sold.  Plus, it’s totally cheap AND natural!  I spent less than $15 on the almond oil, caster oil and the vitamin E gels.  And they will last me forever since you use such a small amount.  Essential oils will cost you more, but those are optional.

On the website, it talks about the different oils that you can use and how and why to come up with your own ratio, so I won’t get into that.

However, I did get a suggestion from a lady who had been doing this for over a year to add vitamin E into the oil, so I sort of came up with my own recipe, which I’ll share with you.

1 Tablespoon Caster Oil (You can find this in any grocery store in the first aid section where the constipation medication is.)

3 Tablespoons Almond Oil (I believe their recipe calls for sunflower oil, but says you can use Almond– Almond is much easier to find.)

3-4 Vitamin E soft gels, punctured and squeezed in

5 (give or take) drops of essential oil (this is purely optional, but I find the caster oil to have sort of a weird smell. I tried lavender at first, but didn’t really like it… I felt like it smelled like “old lady”.  But then I tried tangerine and I like that one way better.)

Mix these all up in a small bowl and then pour carefully into a clean squirt bottle.  (I used an empty travel sized Purell bottle, for whatever that’s worth.)

Follow the application instructions from the website.

Enjoy your new skin!

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