soap free face care

Here is a gross confession... I haven't used soap to wash my face in 2 months!! Ok, so maybe it's not as gross as it sounds. But here's the deal. I don't know who's idea it was to wash faces with soap in the first place. We are trying to clean mostly oil off our skin when we wash it. In chemistry, we learn that like dissolves like, so it would make sense that the best thing to use to dissolve facial oil is another oil, not an oil-stripping cleanser that actually stimulates skin to produce more oil. Think about it, your skin feels tight and itchy after washing, and you can't wait to get your moisturizer on it. By the end of the day, we are battling that oily-slick look, which leads us to wash our face to get the oil off. It's a vicious cycle. I have always had terrible skin, I had acne in high school which morphed into combination skin in college. (I'm talking schizophrenic combination, as in my cheeks were severely dry and flaky, the rest of my face continued to break out.)

So there's a lot more science about this, but I'll just get to the good part. I wanted to try making my own cleansing oil with equal parts of castor and olive oils, but I'm in my 3rd trimester and I'm constantly exhausted (lazy). So I just used what I had in my house, which happened to be this:

Before I get my face wet in the shower, I pour a nickel-sized amount in my hands and massage it onto my dry face for about a minute, sometimes more because it feels so good. :) When I am done massaging, I turn the shower water to hot and wet a washcloth with the hot water. I rest the washcloth on my face as long as I can, then I wipe the oil off my face. It will feel like your face is super oily the first few times you get out of the shower, but you will get used to it! 

I wish I had before and after pics to show how amazingly this works, but I honestly didn't think it would work so I didn't document my skin before. Now, it is even-toned and I rarely ever have breakouts or clogged pores, AND I don't have to use moisturizer or face wash any more! Just one step and my skin care is done! Give it a try, I dare you!