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!