Hi Friends! Happy Friday! Today, I wanted to share a little bit about my new skincare regimen and what products have helped the healing of my skin from all my skin woes as well as the dreaded mask acne. I have always had combination skin and it is also really sensitive. Most anything can make me break out. New makeup, touching my face after a sweaty workout, too harsh exfoliators..you get the point. Insert the pandemic and now wearing a mask all of the time (yes I still do) and it made my skin freak out. Probably like most people. My skin had much more congestion, bumps around my chin and jaw that I never had before, enlarged pores, and dryness. The works. It was really frustrating and started to affect my confidence so I decided I was going to try some new products over time and see if they would help. For many years, I have been called to switch all the products I use in my home and on my body to clean and nontoxic versions. This spans from detergent to skin care, to fake tanner, to make-up, etc. I find this deeply important for my own health and the health of our planet.
I also want to acknowledge two things, acne can be caused by many things like food/ dairy intolerances, too much sugar, gut imbalance, not enough water, and other internal factors. So me being me, aka a researcher at heart I have worked on these too but after ensuring it wasn’t really an internal issue this is when I moved on to products. Secondly, when I show a photo of my skin I know many would say I have wonderful skin and hardly any acne etc. People have it SO much worse and that is true as with all things but each of us has our own insecurities that are related to our specific circumstances so please be gentle. This photo below is an “After” starting to use the products showcased above, I didn’t take a before. As you can see, I still have a lot of hyperpigmentation (hello should’ve been using sunscreen), acne stains, pores, small breakouts, and more.
I have always loved skincare and trying new products but felt like nothing ever really “worked” for my skin or at least didn’t work for an extended period of time. Until now, skincare is so subjective to the person and their body chemistry so the fact that these products have helped me won’t necessarily mean they’ll help you but I wanted to share. I really reduced the number of products I put on my face. I no longer do a different mask a few times a week and different toners etc. I stick to a very strict routine and for me, this has been helpful. I really only have an evening routine as in the morning, I just rinse my face with water and apply a little moisturizer. Not having multiple routines has helped me significantly. I only use the cleanser in the graphic above once a day, in the evening, over-cleansing was stripping my skin too much, then I use a toner that has acids in it like AHA’s, a serum also has acids in it, and a very gentle not thick moisturizer. Adding exfoliating acids to my toner and serum drastically improved the texture, the congestion, and reduced any acne. This might be too intense for your skin so be sure to try them out slowly. Also if you are going to use acids make sure you wear sunscreen. I do religiously now.
Lastly, I included makeup in the title because I think this is really important as well. I used to wear whatever makeup interested me from Sephora not caring about the ingredients because I didn’t know how harmful they could be etc. But if you are caring about the skincare you are using, specifically making it clean and non-toxic that should translate to your makeup as well. Makeup can be filled with chemicals, skin-clogging/ aggravating ingredients, etc. So I also slowly made the switch to makeup products that didn’t include the yuckies and it’s absolutely made a difference. Some of my favorites are Merit beauty, Kosas, & Saie beauty. I use Kosas foundation and concealer, merit beauty blush, and SAIE beauty cream bronzer. I am still in need of a clean powder. But we’ll get there 🙂 I hope this has been helpful if you are also having some issues with your skin. I know how hard it can hit your confidence as it definitely hit mine and still does at times.
Let me know what clean beauty you use!
-M
Whimsy & Willow 