My skin is kind of a disaster. Always has been. When I was in grade school my mom would constantly remind me to put on chapstick and hand lotion, but I could never quite manage to remember it often enough to make any difference.
I’ve always been a bit of a germ freak, too, so constant hand-washing didn’t help matters much. In high school, I worked at a Pizza Hut, which meant hand-washing to the nth degree, and nowadays I sometimes bake cakes for other people and am über-paranoid about giving somebody salmonella, so the hand-washing madness continues. As of late I’ve tried using food prep gloves, but water still seeps in around my wrists if I try to wash with them on. I did finally break down and buy some cute pink rubber elbow-length gloves for dishwashing, though, and they’re awesome! Now if only they magically made me WANT to do the dishes, they’d be the perfect kitchen accessory. 
In addition to my poor cracked and bleeding hands and sad chapped lips, I also have generally dry itchy skin across the rest of my face and body, occasionally interspersed with bouts of eczema. Not fun. So for about a year now I have been on a quest to find products that get me nice and squeaky clean without ripping my skin to shreds. Believe it or not, I have only used cleanser on my face a handful of times since May of 2010. At that time I replaced my dermatologist-recommended Purpose cleanser and moisturizer with – surprise! – oil. Yes, oil. An approximately 3:1 mix of olive oil and castor oil, to be exact. [Small side note: I sent Andy to CVS to get the castor oil for me, and he was mortified when he asked for help finding it and they directed him to the children’s laxative section. If you try to track some down, consider yourself forewarned.]
I was worried that I would break out in horrible acne, but the internet told me I probably wouldn’t, because acne actually can, in part, be caused by letting your skin get too dry (as often happens with regular cleansers), which prompts your glands to go into oil overdrive, which is why most people have to use cleansers in strict conjunction with moisturizers. Putting oil on your face and gently wiping it back off simply moisturizes. Your own glands are free to kick back and relax. And your face still gets clean, because “oil dissolves oil”.
I tried to take about a week’s worth of progress photos so I could note any alarming or amazing changes. Frankly, I didn’t notice any, aside from the simple fact that my face rarely had that frustratingly tight, dry feeling. I would offer to share the pics, but they’re pretty goofy. So I won’t.
My general bedtime routine was to take a nickel-sized amount of oil and rub it in all over my face, then drape a steaming hot washcloth over it for a minute or so. Then I would just wipe it all off, and in the morning I could splash my face with water and go. Then I decided it was easier to do the oil bit during my morning shower, so I would apply it while I was in the shower and let it soak in while I washed my hair and stuff, to let the steam do its work before I rinsed it off and hopped out.
Both of those methods were incredibly easy, but I am lazy and almost always pressed for time. So what revolutionary simplifying change did I make?
I stopped using any kind of cleanser or moisturizer whatsoever on my face. I wash with water. That’s it. It is so far from being problematic that it’s laughable. Some caveats:
- If I do start feeling really dry, I will rub in a couple drops (a little goes a loooong way) of oil before I put on my makeup in the morning, but that’s honestly very rare. Maybe once a month? And mostly in the winter.
- I don’t wear heavy makeup to begin with, so I don’t have much to wash off. Could be totally different if you use liquid foundation or something.
- I didn’t have a major acne problem when I started this. I still get a few occasionally, but they are almost always brought on by stress or hormonal changes, same as they have been for the last few years.
This has only been step one in my quest for amazing, natural, and frugal body care products. I’ll bet you’re on the edge of your seat, trying to figure out my secret for fantastic hair. Err, well, if you’ve seen my hair, “fantastic” may be stretching it. A lot. Sigh. I’m all for truth in advertising, but trying to get my readership (Ha. I don’t really take myself seriously enough to use words like that without a bit of a snicker.) pumped up for information on how to achieve “adequate” hair seems like an effort in futility.
In any case, stay tuned for my next couple of installments, where you can at the very least find out which of my mistakes you do not want to repeat.
