Off Topic Tuesday: Oil Cleansing Method

Our first Off Topic Tuesday! Every Tuesday, I'll try to write a post with a random topic. It might be a long lengthy post, or maybe just one picture, but will give a little glimpse into other interests, projects, events, or anything else.

My bottles of oil mixtures! From left to right: nighttime oil, morning gentle soap, morning moisturizing oil

Tomorrow, the first of August, will be 5 years since I started doing the oil cleansing method to wash my face! I always feel like a Proactive commercial, but this really really worked a miracle for me. The summer of 2013 is when I got into natural, holistic living and was doing a ton of research. I stumbled upon this and was mystified but intrigued. How could OIL clean your skin? How could it be better than the dozens of other face soaps I'd tried? 

I've never had problem skin like some people, but it does tend to be oily and breakout a lot. I *had* a lot of pimples, and they just seemed to come and go at their own whim, but I usually always had one area that was mid-breakout. So I decided to give this a try, after doing a bunch of research, and came up with a recipe/regimen that I thought might work for my skin. I ended up making an oil mixture to wash with at night, thats the bottle on the left. In the middle is my morning wash, which is a gentle soap mixture. And the small bottle on the right is another oil mixture for moisturizing after washing in the morning. Luckily, I hit the nail on the head the first time with my mixtures, and my skin responded AMAZINGLY (Sometimes, you have to experiment to find the right mixture for your skin). It took 3 weeks to a month for my skin to adjust, and during that time it was pretty oily, but after that adjustment period, my breakouts were gone, my skin tone evened out, and my skin really glowed. The magic behind it is this: oil dissolves oil. My research spelled it out as simply as that. Oil dissolves oil. It was such a simple concept, but something totally opposite from what is drilled into our heads about skin care. "Always get oil free", "Oil makes your skin break out"...I'm sure you remember. Yes, soap dissolves oil too, but it dissolves ALL oil, good and bad. That leaves your skin dried out, and it responds by producing more oil. Which then requires harsher soap, and then your skin responds by producing even more oil. To break this cycle, you have to do something that feels really wrong. Slather your face with oil, and lots of it! 

Now, the type of oil makes all the difference. There are so many different chemical make-ups of oils. Some will clog pores, and some will do the opposite. The basis of this method is balance, so the key is to find a balance between castor oil (which is the drawing, cleansing oil. For this one, its important to get cold-pressed oil, otherwise you risk getting harsh solvent residues), and the moisturizing oil, which is your choice. I used 75% castor oil, and 25% jojoba oil in the beginning. Jojoba oil is a great moisturizing oil choice for oily breakout prone skin; it's a really thin oil. This got me through the adjustment period, and now I do about 60% castor oil, 15-20% jojoba oil, and the rest sweet almond oil. Sweet almond oil is a great choice for aging or dry skin. I add in some sweet orange, lavender, lemon, rosemary, and vanilla essential oils, and voila! It smells amazing too. In the summer I need a little more castor oil, and in the winter I need a little more moisturizing oil. I wash and take my makeup off at night with that, and in the morning I use the soap mixture. To make that, I grate plain glycerin (if I can find it, goat milk glycerin is my favorite), and mango butter bar soaps, and melt them in a mason jar's worth of filtered warm water. I make sure its good and mixed, pour it into my mason jar, add some essential oils as it cools, stir, and again, voila. The morning moisturizing oil is even easier, I just pour some jojoba, sweet almond, and essential oils into the little dropper bottle and shake it up. 

The beauty of the oil cleansing method is that its 100% customizable depending on your skin type, and I've found it to be cheaper in the long run. Its a little expensive to get all the oils the first time but after that its cheaper. If your skin changes, just change your mixtures or method a little. Sometimes I get lazy at night and don't do it the right way, but my skin is still better than it used to be, even if I don't do it properly. When I do it properly, it works like a miracle and really creates a glow. 

Feel free to drop a comment below if you're one of the "crunchies" that do this, or if you want to give it a try!

Monday Model: Bay Paint Dark Horse Surprise

Bay Paint Dark Horse Surprise:

So, I really wanted to do a different, more special model for the first Monday Model, but I didn't get pictures in time, and tonight ended up being busy. So I'll save him until next week ;) 

This week, we have the 2018 Breyerfest Surprise model! I thought he might be fitting since we got the run numbers today. I did not attend Breyerfest, but had this guy picked up for me, and he stayed a surprise. I was initially slightly disappointed, until I saw his nice color and shading. And I was even happier today when I saw his final run number, as one of the more rare ones. This is a matte, and there were 575 of him produced. The other run numbers were: Palomino splash pinto-1050 matte, bay appy- 850 matte, bay pinto-575, flame decorator- 425, and most rare was black- 225. It would have been really neat to get a glossy of any color, but I actually really like this guy. He has very few flaws, and very nice shading. The only issue was the masking on his mane is a little messy on his left side, and has a fuzzy edge, but this sounds like a common problem. I'm hoping to be able to have it touched up. I also wish they had painted the bases dirt color! Maybe I can swap it for my Smarty Jones base if I need to. 

I just had to get one of the palomino splash pintos as well, and he arrived today. I was happy with him as well, very very pretty!

Check back tomorrow for the first Off Topic Tuesday!

Studio Project Introduction

Here's a quick photo tour of the projects (and messes!) in my basement studio space:

This is what I call a "sizing halter". This probably isn't the best or most efficient way to size halters, but I'm going with it for now. I made a halter to fit the Victrix resin, and I try that on any mold I want to make a halter for. If it doesn't fit, I make a "sizing halter" and a pattern for it. Any time I find that one halter size fits more than one mold, I write those extra molds on my pattern. When I'm done making the sizing halter and happy with how it fits and the pattern, I cut the ribbon off the hardware and save it for the next sizing halter. Obviously this one isn't done, but it will fit the Breyer Andalusion Stallion mold and may or may not have something to do with the nameplates below ;)

My first halter nameplates! And I see my mistake! I'll pry the sticker off and re-do these, cutting around the whole plate, or just put them on my own halter. At least I'll know how to make the next 2-3 for sales pieces, and any other nameplate halters moving forward. (I recently bought my own printer, after not having a functioning printer for 8ish years. The non-functioning printer was bought 8 or so years ago when I was in 11th grade I believe, and it has never worked. Not. One. Day. I didn't buy that one, so I couldn't do anything about it. This spring, it worked for maybe a month, so I lined up some projects I needed it for, and when I went to use it, it didn't work again. Massive *eyeroll* So I bought my own and I really love being able to print things again, including fun things like these stickers and fabric transfers!) The long metal strip is for making girth roller buckles, and I got my first tack making injury while trying to cut that strip. Thankfully it was just a REALLY small cut. I'm trying to get up the courage to trim it again, because it's not quite even. 

These are the buckle sets for the Professional's Choice girths I'm making, and they are my first sales pieces! I'm using Rio Rondo english girth buckles, and adding a roller and tongue. Then they get some ribbon, elastic, and the rest of the girth. It's been a fun experience to make these for people and send them out! Although the rollers are a PAIN. Three and a half more to go for this round, then this half of the tack mat will get a different project for a while.

These will be chevron pattern halters, and will be sales pieces. 

Onto the painting half of my table! The stablemates in front are in various stages, and the one on the right is my boyfriend's project. The big guy in back will be my third painted model, and I'll be aiming for a dark, shaded, dappled bay on him. I'll be experimenting with dapples and some mixed media, neither of which I've done before, and hoping the whole time that he turns out good enough to be a sales piece. I started sanding the logo off on him, but that's about as far as the prep has come. I paint in oils, so once I start painting him, I'll be able to switch back and forth between tack and painting while the paint dries. 

This project is almost done! This is my NaMoPaiMo 2018 model, and I'm just finishing up sealing and glossing her now that the oil paint has cured. She is almost done, just one more layer of gloss on her eyes, then I have to do her hooves, and then she can graduate to my shelves upstairs. The silver paint pen was a PAIN and I wasn't happy with how it turned out, so I'll be trying a Micron pen next. 

This is the unpainted resin shelf. From left to right is Upton, Last Tyme, Valor, Thunderbutt, Victrix, Veronka, Call me Ringo in resin (aka The Tippy Jerk That Has To Lay Down), and a Carol Herden Steer. I have an Aerosmith upstairs, but he is my favorite, so he gets to stay in my room. The steer will be going to it's painter soon. Most of these will probably stay unpainted for a long time. I'm going to do all of my experimenting and learning on cheap Breyer bodies until I get good at painting. If I can never learn to paint well enough to do these beauties justice, they will go to the professionals. 

In this pile of bubble wrap is 4 medallions. Once I feel good enough with my painting skills to graduate to resin, I'll paint a few of these as practice with resin before moving onto a full (read: expensive) resin horse. 

The Body Box! Honestly, I forget everything in here. The Cleveland Bay on top USED to be in my collection, until he jumped off the shelf, injuring both himself and my wall. Lets just say my wall was damaged, but not his ears. 

And last, the other nooks and crannies of my space that need to be ORGANIZED. I'm actually good at it, but its usually low on the list :( These drawers will all be labeled at some point. The top label is still accurate, but the 1/8 inch nylon tag needs to be removed because I quickly outgrew that little drawer for nylon ribbon.

And for the most unorganized area of my space, this box. I actually call this The Giant Box Of Stuff. I honestly don't remember what all is in here either, but most of it is new. The Giant Box Of Stuff was born only about 6 months ago, and I know there's lots of Michael's and Hobby Lobby treasures in there, I just don't have the.........energytimemotivationgumptionstoragespace to go through it all just yet. ONE DAY, I will conquer this box. 

That's it for today's studio space and project tour! There's a few other nooks and crannies, but that's about it. The projects I'm making the quickest progress on are the girths, since they were orders, and the Prism halters. Everything else is "as I have time", for now. Time always seems to be the most limiting factor though.  

Come visit next week for "Monday Model" and "Off Topic Tuesday"! 

And So It Begins...

Welcome all, to my…..second blog post!

If you scroll down, you won’t see any other posts. There’s no magic going on here, I promise. A blog is something I’ve wanted to do for a really long time. Years. And years ago, I did start a blog, as a sophomore in college. I think I posted twice. So maybe that introduction sentence should say “third post”? The reason I never kept up with it is because, at that time, I didn’t have anything to write about. Who wants to read about how terrible homework is?!

Fast forward to now, and I do have something to write about. I’ve been sucked into the model horse hobby fast enough and completely enough to leave my head spinning (From what I’ve heard, I’m not alone with that). I couldn’t do a thing to stop myself along that slippery slope. But, there’s a parallel here. A pattern of interest, a time gap in that interest, and then an explosion in that interest. I was very much into model horses as a kid. I would drag out my “carpet herd”, barns, and tack boxes every Saturday and Sunday morning. I would sew blankets for them, braid bridles, breastplates, and reins. My favorite thing to do was dress them up in different pieces of tack, then take it all off and see what the horse looked like with different tack. So maybe I was halfway down that slippery slope to begin with.

Clearly, my first foray into model horses was much more extensive than my first foray into blogging. It’s probably rooted in the fact that starting in 4^th grade, I was that horse crazy kid, begging for lessons or a horse. No one in my family has any connection to horses, farms, large animals, or riding, so my parents settled on lessons, and that hasn’t changed. One day I’d like my own horse, when I can afford it. For now, I’ll settle on model horses (although I’m not sure if they’re actually THAT much cheaper?).

Like real horses, there’s A LOT to learn about the model horse hobby. This blog will be, in essence, a journal as I learn to paint models, make tack for them, other trials and errors, disciplines in the real horse world that I have little knowledge of, and just general involvement in the hobby. I will try to do a “Monday Model” post and an “Off Topic Tuesday” post each week, at a minimum. I have a few current projects going on in my studio space, and will try to write a post for them some time later this week.

I’d be thrilled to have you all along for this wild ride I’m starting by clicking that big, daunting, orange box that says publish.