Hey Mama, Give Your Face a Break

Maybe you’re like my mom, or my friend Sarah, and you’ve had only a handful of breakouts your whole life. Or maybe, just maybe, you’re like me and if you even think about sleeping in your make up, it’s zit city.

I’ve struggled with my skin for a long time. More than 20 years long time, and that’s not an exagerration. Add in a year of sleep deprivation and aging into my mid-30s, and my skin was a hot mess.

Back in February, my friend Jill said that she was going to try the oil cleansing method. I was skeptical. Extremely. Washing my face with oil? To quote one of our favortite commercials, “That’s hippie talk.”

But since she’d had some success with it, I decided to give it a try.

Well, I was pretty much an immediate convert.

Because I have very (very) dry skin, and it was winter, I started with a ratio of 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil to 1 tablespoon of castor oil. (As we made our way into summer, I adjusted to 2 olive oil to 1 castor, because I found my skin didn’t need as much moisture.) I also add a few drops of Tea Tree oil, which acts as an antibacterial. (If you’re not break out prone, you can skip this, unless you like the smell of TTO, and maybe you do. I do!)

I mix it all up in a salad dressing bottle that I got at Target. I pour about a nickel-sized amount in the palm of my hand and rub it all over my face. I then take a hot (as hot as you can stand) washcloth and lay it over my face for a few seconds. Some sites say to leave it on till the wash cloth is room temperature, but I rarely do that. I usually just rinse the cloth and wipe my face till all my make up is off.

I can tell a huge difference on the nights I am too lazy for this routine and just wash up with the Aveeno cleanser I used for years.

My face is no longer tight and itchy. I no longer have to use moisturizer at night, and I no longer have to repeat wash my face in the mornings.

There’s also the added bonuses of it being a natural cleanser and a cheap cheap alternative, but those aren’t the main reasons why I tried it. I tried it because everything I read said it helped with acne.

And gloriously, I very rarely break out anymore.

Which means I’ve been able (best part of all!) to stop using foundation.

< insert choir of angels here >

For years, I’ve struggled to find a good enough foundation. The ones I really liked (MAC’s Studio Fix or a cream compact foundation from Chanel) were way outside our budget, so I limped along with drug store brands. (Though I will say the Age Defying compact foundation from Cover Girl is pretty good.)

Now that I can use tinted moisturizer again, I picked up a travel size tube of Laura Mercier at Sephora when I was in Dallas last month, and it’s great, but it wasn’t perfect.

I was at Target a few weeks ago when I spied this on an end cap:

Maybelline BB Cream. (Otherwise known as beauty balm.)

I’d heard in various conversations and seen on blogs this new thing called “BB cream,” but I’d honestly never paid it much mind, because hello, I needed a LOT of coverage.

But at less than $10 a tube, I figured it was worth a try.

The tube says that it moisturizes, provides coverage, smooths lines, gives a glow AND has SPF protection. It says right there—”skin perfecter.” It couldn’t be a miracle product in a tube, could it?

IT COULD.

Supposedly BB cream (which can also sometimes stand for blemish balm) has been big in Asia for decades, but has only recently started showing up in Western countries.

I am a convert.

My skin looks fresh, glowy, smooth and covered. It looks, if I dare say it myself, like it is NOT the face of a 36-year-old woman who (ahem) smoked for a few years and has seen the inside of many tanning booths.

In all my years blogging, I don’t think I’ve ever written about a beauty product. I hardly ever even give much thought to beauty products to be honest. But this … this is the stuff.

Go forth ladies and BB it up.