So. In my last post, I mentioned that I’m cleaning my face with a laxative these days. When my husband read that, he read the sentence back to me, with a combination of appall and disgust, even though he knows full well what I’ve been cleaning my face with! I may have similarly dismayed some of you, so I thought I’d address this change to my beauty regimen first.

As I discussed in my previous posts, I was looking for ways to reduce the number of dangerous, suspect, or iffy chemicals in my bathroom, while also reducing my dependence on corporate products and the amount of money I spend to keep myself looking gorgeous good enough.

I should just admit right now that I’m no beauty maven. I wear mascara most days when I’m not just working on the farm, but that’s about all I ever wear. That said, I do care how I look and keep good care of myself. I like to think of myself as generally non-repulsive. How’s that for high self-esteem?!

So, disclaimers out of the way… I’ve been using oil-cleansing method for my face. You can read all the how’s and why’s in this great post, but basically, I’m using about 1/3 castor oil (which is a powerful laxative if taken internally, but is an especially cleansing oil on the skin), and 2/3 almond oil. I’ve added a few drops of essential oils to make it smell nice.

I massage this mixture into my face for a while. Then I hold a washcloth that is soaking with fairly hot water onto my face for a bit. After that, I use the other side of the washcloth (which is presumably not as oily), to wipe off my face.

Previously, I’ve always found that a nightly wash with a commercial facewash inevitably leads to major break-outs. So, for years, I’ve been just washing my face with soap in the shower, but otherwise not really bothering to do more than rinse it off unless I had sunscreen, make-up or lots of sweat on my face.

I’ve been using this method most nights for about 4 weeks and I love it. It leaves my face feeling incredibly soft and clean. One of my favorite benefits of this method is that I no longer have any use for a separate eye make-up remover. The oil takes off waterproof mascara with much less hassle and pulling on my skin than the Neutrogena Eye Make-up Remover that I’ve been using for years!

I still want to tinker with my recipe a bit. My skin is a little on the dry side and I find myself putting on moisturizer after oil-cleansing sometimes, so I might try avocado or almond kernel oil rather than almond oil as recommended in the link above. One mistake I made was to mix up a 4 oz bottle of the stuff to start. This reduces my ability to experiment much, so I’d recommend mixing up one or two use portions until you get your recipe right.

I’ll share more natural beauty tips as I try them out. Stay tuned!