Cleansing LESS.
I’ve come to believe that skin adjusts itself to how you treat it. For example- if you scrub your skin day and night it will adjust itself accordingly. Which might mean producing excess oil to balance out the dryness of scrubbing. Like a cameleon, it changes to fit with its environment. I’ve never questioned the routine that I grew up with. Cleanse, Tone, Moisterise, day and night and NEVER EVER go to sleep with make up on. Those three steps seemed to be all any girl would need to get her skin glowing, blemish free, flawless.
But my skin has- for the most part- been seriously dry, even scaly. No matter how much moisteriser I used to slap on made any difference. Don’t get me wrong- I don’t for a second think that the perfect skincare regime will be the end to everyone’s skin woes. But I do think that skincare has a fundamental effect. As far as skin traitors go, I have been up there with the worst of them. I’ve scrubbed endlessly, squeezed and picked, steamed like no other but it has gotten me nowhere.
Recently I came across an idea called ‘the caveman regime’ on The Love Vitamin. It involves doing nothing to your face. No washing, no moisterising, no dabbing, no rubbing, no make-up, not even splashing your face with water. Nothing. The idea is that once you stop doing all these things to your skin, it can get back to being itself, back to the way it should be, living and breathing, adjusting and correcting itself. What if with all this stuff we put on out face- out skin spends all of its time simply coping rather than being content?
So hate on me for being narrow-minded and a stickler for habit, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do absolutely nothing. After all, sometimes I like to wear make-up. So I went for a nice medium, I’m experimenting cleansing my face only at night. There are a couple reasons why I’m happy to do this:
- Currently I don’t have a job- I don’t feel embarrassed about walking around everyday without anything on my face or without washing it for that matter.
- I cleanse my face with olive oil. Cleansing at night means I don’t have to worry if my cleansing routine leaves my face a little too oily- it’ll be gone by the morning. (if I cleanse my face with oil in the morning I have to either use fairly hot water to wash it off or I have to flannel for longer which often leaves my face slightly drier-I don’t like it)
I’ve been doing it for a little while now and I am loving it. I feel like my skin has more time to be and it seems less agitated. Every night I use a fresh flannel, (I used to use muslin cloths but concluded I hated them) I have a stock of grey and white ones- yum. I make sure to use the flannel super gently on my face as if my skin was silk (I imagine dabbing away the days impurities.) On days I’ve worn make-up I simply do the process twice but use one side of the flannel for the old make-up and the other for the second cleanse.
So, I understand if this cleansing once a day is not for you.
But please do this one thing for me, be GENTLE.