Oil? I'm already oily!

For those of you who don't know me well, I'm a pasty, oily-skinned, fine-haired, acne-prone (oh yeah, even the backne) white person.  Everything on me turns red, red, red, from hair dyes and makeup to having too much iron in the water.  I have red bumps all over my arms and legs, and usually have a rash or five somewhere due to something unknown.

At least, that used to be me...

My whole life I've looked for the magic facewash, 3 step program, bodywash, etc. that would clear up my ridiculously finicky skin.  I believe I have tried almost every product under the sun, all natural stuff included.  Then someone put me onto parabens.  (Thanks, mom!)  I've been avoiding those nasty suckers for 3 weeks now, and my skin looks the BEST it's ever been! Look at my brand new face!

Parabens are loaded into your cleaning products.  They are mostly in moisutrizers, but they have a nasty habit of sneaking into your laundry detergent and other soaps, too.  I even found it in my face powder!  Eeps!  So, as things have been running out around the house (sometimes with help into the garbage can), I've been replacing them with sulfate and paraben free products.  Okay, I've been going a lot farther than that... they're as chemical free as I can get them!  And the results speak for themselves.

I chose sesame seed oil because it is fairly cheap, but still better for your skin than mineral oil.  I've actually just started coating up with this in the shower to replace my lotions altogether.  Seriously.  Best.  Skin.  Ever.

That's right, I have replaced ALL of my lotion with oil.  Even my face lotion.  At first I was using sesame, and my skin soaked it up.  While that initially actually cleared my skin of acne, I started getting it again after a few weeks.  My brother recommended jojoba oil, and I've started applying that with a cotton ball. On days when my face is drier, I just don't rinse the excess oil off.  My face looooooves it.

Some of the oils I've tried are coconut, mineral, Alba (it's a mixture, and heavenly, but too pricey for regular use), sesame, olive, canola, and jojoba.  The sesame for my body and the jojoba for my face were the most economical options that didn't give me acne.

Switching to oil was... weird.  I like the thicker consistency of lotion better.  To help facilitate the change, I started using Gold Bond Ultra Healing lotion.  The stuff is wondrous.  Not as chemical free as I'd like, but free of the big offenders that are in most store-bought brands and way, way better than any of the natural brand products I've tried.  Anyway, I used Gold Bond on days when I didn't want to be bothered by oil or forgot to put it on in the shower.  Now that I've adjusted to oil, though, I hardly use the lotion any longer.  The long winded point I'm trying to make here is this:  Make this change as easy on yourself as possible.

Dr. Bronner's Soaps - 'Cuz everybody's doing it

Did you know your skin absorbs three fifths of what you put on it?  Now go read what's on the label for your lotion, shampoo, and body wash.  Eeeeew!  Time to change.

Every site I've visited mentions Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps.  They are the ultimate in multitasking, granola products.  I have purchased one of their body bars before out of curiosity more than for any health-conscious reasons, and I remember my reaction being "meh."  However, since apparently lots of all natural, super healthy, safe, plant derived, blah, blah, blah stuff doesn't actually work, I figured I'd take the safe road and try this first as a body wash and as a shampoo.

I got a bottle of peppermint castille soap (it was soooo hard to choose between peppermint and citrus!).  Most websites suggested diluting the soap to half soap, half water before using it.

Now, Dr. Bronner's products are famous for being versatile.  Unfortunately, since I already bought all of the Shaklee cleaning products (which ran about the same price as Dr. Bronner's would break down to for their laundry detergent, and their Basic H multipurpose cleaner was actually even cheaper) I did not plan to use the castille soap for housecleaning.  I did, however, need some me cleaners.


Body Wash
I squirted a few drops of this on my loofah and scrubbed like I normally would.  I was surprised that the soap lathered a bit as I thought soap only did that with artificial whatevers added.  The peppermint made the soap tingly and wonderful!

I had heard that castille soap can be a bit drying, but that was not the case.  New favorite body wash!


Shampoo
This is coming out in a later post.  Click here.


Shaving Cream
This stuff was FABULOUS as shaving cream!  I've been using oil like my mother before me, and this was so much better!  Don't dither or dally... run, run to the store.  You will never shave with anything else.  Evar.  It is not like shaving with other kinds of soap that leaves your skin irritated.  I was serious about running to the store.  Why are you still reading this?


Shower Cleaner
After a fun scrub-a-dub bathtime with my new soap goodness, I thought I'd try to clean the tub with the soap.  This failed miserably.  I even left the soap on for a while to see if it would do any better at cutting through the accumulation on our tub walls  (I later learned that soap moves dirt around, while detergent and baking soda cut through soap for scrubbing!).  Shaklee products will still be my cleaning products.  However, Dr. Bronner's body products have far surpassed Shaklee's body products for effectiveness.  I'm ridiculously pleased.

Overall the castile soap was a winner.  It's very economical because of all the things it can do.  Plus, the peppermint smells fabulous!  There are a gazillion "recipes" for all of the possible uses for the stuff online.  Buy a bottle, have some fun, and no longer worry when your cats or kids eat things they shouldn't.

Going Granola?

We all have those friends who do things that are just plain strange.  With the advent of social networking, the strangeness can become pervasive.  Seriously, every time I open my browser one of said friends has recently been posting about all the stuff she ISN'T using... diapers, shampoo, conditioner, chemical cleaners, and so forth.  She gets a lot of interesting comments from other strange folks who are doing the same thing.  Now, I've tried to use all natural products here and there, with limited (okay, no) success.


Recently, some health concerns have me ready to try, try again.  With that being said, I'm not brave enough to buy all the strange ingredients to make my own, well, everything.  So I started off by buying Shaklee housecleaners and laundry stuff.  I love their vitamins, so Shaklee's homecare line should be good too, right?  I mean, how different can they be?  Actually, this little chemical-free endeavor went really, really well!  I was inspired, and continued on my quest to eradicate unpronounceable ingredients from my house. 


At the end of this "going granola" experiment I plan to post a page with all of my favorite recipes and what works the best!


Update:  Said page is done!  Click Here.