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Fav cruelty free moisturizer!
Heyho!
Does reading about new skincare products get you in a giddy mood too?
Especially cruelty free brands hook me to my screen, because let’s face it, those options are just not as versatile!
I’m here to share with you what i’ve been using for the past 5 months.
Which is – insert drumroll - Beauty Without Cruelty’s Vitamin C & Q10 cream!
Read the rest of this entry
How I entomb my oily face.
Hellooo WordPress!
First of all let me start off with some good news, because of these migraines all week i’ve been put on medication for the first time.
All should be better soon. ^_^
Then!
Because I seem to’ve been a walking oil-machine ever since I turned 13, and there wasn’t any decent interwebs around at that time to just google solutions: i’d like to now share what i’ve found works for me!
Maybe it’ll work for others as well.
Even when I clean my skin perfectly, when I wear no make up I will have slippery skin some 5 hours after I get up.
However here’s how I keep that in check as much as I can:
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Clean your skin
Obviously you’ll want to get the dirt off every day to keep it in good condition. Especially if you live in the city like me.
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But not too much!
As with your hair, sebum will turn up on your skin as much as your skin THINKS it needs it.
So cleaning your skin with a harsh cleanser, or cleaning it too much, will only make you produce more of it.
Make sure your skin feels smooth after showering, pull weird faces to check this if needed!
It shouldn’t feel tight, a toner does that, it should feel elastic and smooth but dirtless.
I actually like using cleansing milk for sensitive skin even during the colder months.
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Tone & moisturize
You don’t have to use toner, but it is nice to close up the pores. It’ll make sure you have less blackspots by not letting any oxygen reach the sebum!
Then as for moisturizer, don’t be afraid to moisturize good during the night after your shower.
In the morning you can use something really light, just to give your skin a boost.
But the fact that you have oily skin doesn’t mean your skin can’t be nourished during the night!
Give it a richer night cream, and wash your skin in the morning to get rid of any excess.
I like using a toner to clean my skin in the morning, before my moisturizer.
That way it won’t be deprived of nutrients/moisture and won’t overcompensate, like I said with the cleanser.
I get a LOT of blackspots when my skin is malnourished!
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Scrub
When your skin is really thick, which happens with oily-skinned people, it sometimes needs help getting rid of the dirt and dead skin cells.
Get rid of that top layer of skin once a week by scrubbing, I even dare use a light scrub 2-3 times a week, depends on how scruffy my skin feels.
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Mask
If I really can’t do anything with my skin, as in blackspots, but also uneven and flaky skin, I use a green clay mask.
Clay masks are your best friend with oily skin, to draw out all that’s obsolete once a week!
When I really feel like a couch potato, I like to clear my face (and mind) with a hot shower, scrub, and then a green clay mask.
Smooth like a peach!
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Water based vs oil based moisturizer
For daytime wear, you’ll want to keep your skin clear of oils as long as possible right?
You don’t need any more..
The best way i’ve found to do that is to use a lightwear moisturizer that’s based on water, with as little oil in it as possible.
Check the ingredients list for this, and remember what’s first on the list is the main ingredient, the last one is the tinest amount.
Or just feel the substance if you can’t make out the ingredients. If it feels thick, instead of lightweight, it’s probably not water based based.
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Water based vs oil based foundation
Then the same goes for foundation, oil based foundations are your nemesis.
Especially if you’re putting an foundation with water on top of a moisturizer with oil, or vice versa.
Those two clash and they’ll slip ‘n’ slide!
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Powder down
Even the stars do it!
I do think that’s face powder at least.. hehe.
Get some powder onto your t-zone to absorb oil wanting to get through, and take some with you on the way if you like.
There’s special blotting papers and powders that don’t cake, however the Kryolan anti-shine works all day long for me!!
That’s it! ^_^
Let me know if there’s anything I forgot!
I’ll tell you what that scrub is missing!
As I might’ve mentioned.. oh once or twice before.. I HAVE OILY SKIN.
To maintain that, and not get blackheads we oily skinned people need a good cleanse and a nice scrub.
I’ve browsed scrubs, high- and low end, and always come back to the same one.
Why?
It doesn’t suck.
Way too often brands label a product as a “scrub”, even when there’s only a couple of actual scrub grains in there!
You know the feeling?
Having high hopes, applying the scrub, working it in, and then noticing the fact that there’s only one little scrub particle being rolled around over your face?
How’s that supposed to get rid of any dead skin?
Which is why I keep coming back to the Hema scrub cream:
Don’t even mind the little red particles, look at all the see-through ones!
A bunch right?
I’m actually not the only one around here that grabs for this low-cost drugstore cruelty free scrub again and again.
Tons of people vow to it!
Ingredients
Packaging
A nice hygienic tube!
Smell
Very fresh and light, like my granny’s night cream actually.
In a good way.
Texture
Creamy, it doesn’t run, with a ton of scrub particles in it.
But they aren’t scratchy though, they just do the trick of removing the top dead skincells.
I have a friend over at Brown eyed blondie with sensitive skin and she loves this stuff as well, so it’s gentle enough.
The only other scrub that was heavy duty enough for me, was a Clinique one.
However this one is cruelty free and costs a million times less, so I know which one i’ll go for!
This one can be found at Hema, €2.25 for 100 ml.
(Their website is fun by the way, just sit back and wait for the magic to happen.)
A homemade scrub works great as well, you can put as much sugar in it as you desire to get that great consistency, and then it’s natural even!
Montagne jeunesse chocolate mask
Quick post before I go out for dinner and drinks with Hippo! We’ve been together for 4 years now, so time to pop a bottle! 
The day before my interview I decided to slap on a mask, it really felt like I needed one. Little bumps everywhere, flaky nose and forehead, blackheads all over. Very weird, you’d say my skin went on a little party tour.
I would’ve gone for the fruit smoothie mask, however they didn’t have that one in stock so I went for the deep cleansing chocolate mask instead. My intention was to get something that would give me a bit of a cleanse, but at the same time give a serious nourishing boost!
Purpose
The choclate mask is supposed to be a creamy delight, with crushed Cocoa and ultra-moisturising Shea to leave skin silky soft. The Mediterranean Clay makes sure your skin gets cleansed and the sea salt gives it a nice glow.
Packaging
Same as the other Montagne Jeunesse masks. There’s a good amount of product in the sachet, and it’s very hygienic, but still annoying! It was even worse with this one though.
Well, no it wasn’t, it was exactly the same. Only this time there was brown creamy stuff slathered all over my hands and the sachet. Which made it 10 times worse in my head.
Smell
Ick, didn’t care for it at all. Artificial sweetness, not really chocolaty.. not fresh either. Just off!
Texture
Same as the fruit smoothie mask. Creamy, easy to apply!
Formulation
A clay mask again, so it hardens out to seal your skin off from air temporarily which makes the nutrients penetrate the skin better. It doesn’t harden out as much as the previous ones though i’d say. It stayed fairly creamy.
Besides that, no noticable effects once it was on my skin!
Effect
With the dead sea mud pac, I could really feel my skin prickling, that mask was really drawing everything out that shouldn’t be there! However when feeling no active ingredients in this one I kind of predicted it wouldn’t cleanse much, and as expected it didn’t. It did remove superficial dirt though, some of the blackheads were gone. But a real cleanser, definitely not.
After washing it off, my skin did feel pretty nourished again, which was goood since I brought a light, water-based foundation to wear the next day. A pretty watery foundation, so I couldn’t have any of it getting stuck behind the skin flakes! (Mmh, tasty.)
The verdict
It’s not a horrible mask, but if you want your skin to be nourished, there are tons of other Montagne Jeunesse options out there! And for a cleansing one that nourishes as well, i’d still rather go for the fruit smoothie.
Generally I don’t feel like this mask did much for my skin, it was an okay pick-me-up with the shea butter in there, and the sea salt did make my skin look fresh.
But there really are much better options out there!
A 20 gram mask runs for £1.09 on their website. As a customer, you’re able to select masks according to skintype, ingredients, etc. as well as see which ones are vegetarian, and vegan.
Face mapping, find your way back to the roots
It’s painting time again, and studying Lush products in between so busy busy days! However I came across a post on facebook this week that I shared, it was about face mapping.
But I really wanted to go into it a bit deeper!
The fascination with Chinese medicine was passed down to me through my genes so to speak, and i’ve always been a great believer of energy-flow being the base of a healthy organism, and therefore also everything in the body being connected and having an influence on each other.
It’s because of this reasoning that I can see how our general organs can have an influence on the biggest organ we have, our skin!
Face mapping is about mapping the areas where you have problems with your skin, with the intention of developing better insight into what’s causing them.
I truly believe that in a lot of cases it’s the key to not only improving the skin, but also our health overall.
If there’s a blockage going on inside our body, we can’t expect everything to look silky smooth on the outside right!!
I’ll cover a few common ones that I pay attention to below.
- Forehead
Congestion here can mean you need to get a detox in. Toxins aren’t finding a clear exit out of your body, so they’re going for the skin. You could try drinking more water, and light exercising, or simply going on a detox-session for a while!
Less meat, proteins, and alcohol can help with this as well. Although if you’re actually reading my blog, there’s a chance don’t eat meat anyway!
For flakiness in this area, try lubricating your digestive tract. In general that means more fibers and less processed foods.
Another cause for issues in this area is stress though. Maybe a better sleeping-cycle and doing relaxing-exercises will help.
(Easier to say than do, I know I know!)
Hats or greasy hair can cause problems in this area as well.
- Temples
Try eating less greasy foods.
- Between your brows
Flakiness between your brows, possibly indicates your liver having a hard time. Ingesting things that are hard on your liver like fatty foods, alcohol, chocolate or smoking can be a reason for this.
- Mouth
I used to have continuous problems with this, our mouth-area (even our lips!) mirror our intestine, and the bowel.
What’s really helped me relieve this issue is taking my daily dose of fibers via a supplement with a glass of water in the morning.
Gone oiliness and congestion!
- Nose
This is a hard one, blackheads don’t necessarily count as they just loooove them some nose. But flakiness for example, could be solved by getting yourself more vitamin B or eating less meat.
- Cheeks
In case you’re experiencing a rash on your cheeks, try looking up some breathing exercises to pump more oxygen into your system, it might clear the unevenness!
Some believe there’s a difference between the left and right cheek as well, the left cheek acts up when you’re stressing out, or having liver-issues.
The right one can indicate your body asking for less sugar.
In general, both cheeks can also be a sign of your body asking for less sugar, meat or dairy, or even you having an allergy to something.
I tend to get bumps on my cheeks, right next to my nose, when i’m around cats a lot.
- Chin
The biggest problem-area for me, this one is directly connected to the kidneys and/or hormonal imbalances. It’s extremely rare for me to get this area to be completely clear.
You can’t always rule out hormone fluctuations, they happen throughout the month. One week your chin can be a beautiful piece of artificial-looking chin, next week the grand canyon.
Stress is also a cause for this area to act up, it helps cause adrenal fatique, so maybe you’re under a lot of stress?
- General
For all of these areas though, try using a face-wash and moisturizer, no joke! In case any males are reading this, you too! You can have a secret cabinet with your own face-product!
With all of the crap that’s in the air these days, water sometimes isn’t enough.
Another general cause for skin-issues is hair products transferring to your face (wax, hairspray or grease etc.) or dirty bed covers. So keep it awaaay from the face!
Two easy things to try out!
Of course we can’t generalize skin issues, flaky cheeks don’t necessarily mean you need more oxygen, or don’t wash your sheets. You may just need to see a dermatologist.
But I think they’re definitely worth looking into though, as it costs nothing and my mouth-area has personally cleared up by paying some attention to my digestion.
Maybe my post will sound a little bell in your head, whenever that spot pops up in the same freaking area AGAIN!
