New Face Care Routine

I’m one of those poor souls that has to put up with both acne AND wrinkles. I swear, once I turned 30 my skin decided to get back at me for all the years that it was rather normal. So I went through all of the different brands. I think ProActive was the only one I didn’t use. I ended on Philosophy. Their basic products made my skin worse than it had ever been. It turned me into a glistening ball of oil and I got a new breakout every day. Everyone kept telling me how wonderful it was so I tried changing to another line they carried. The results were….meh. Too dry, my skin started to look chapped. The moisturizer wasn’t enough to make my skin look healthy again.

Then I started getting into all the alternative homemade personal care products. The baking soda shampoo and apple cider vinegar conditioner were the beginning. Then I learned how to make cold-process soup with Maya from Soul Flower Farm. There went the commercial body washes. Another batch got made with our farm-helper Brandy during a meetup. We definitely have enough soap to last us awhile.

But I still needed something for my face. The cold-process soaps that I had seemed a bit harsh for my face so I wanted something different. On a whim I stopped by a soapmaker’s booth at the farmers’ market. I got to talking to her and ended up purchasing two goats’ milk and oatmeal bars.

But I needed a moisturizer. I had heard that coconut oil was really good for your skin. We have a bucket of food grade virgin coconut oil so I decided to give it a try. You can also get non-food grade coconut oil, but I’m hesitant to use it not knowing if hexane was used to extract the oil or not. With the food grade virgin oil, it’s cold pressed and not refined or exposed to any heat.

I knew caffeine was good to reduce redness and I wanted to add some oatmeal as well. I put a tablespoon of fresh roasted coffee and 2 tablespoons oatmeal and put them through the coffee grinder until they were a fine grind. It was a hot day so the oil was already melted (coconut oil is normally a solid fat with a melting temperature of 72 deg. F). I put the coffee and oatmeal in a cheesecloth bag and steeped in the oil for 10 minutes. I squeezed as much oil out of the bag as possible and threw it out.

I immediately noticed a difference. My skin is so soft and supple and it seemed to be clearing up. I haven’t gone a whole month yet using this new program, but so far I’m totally impressed with how my skin is responding to these two relatively simple products. I can’t say it will for everyone but it’s definitely worth a try.

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