Naked truth: I can be a lazy bum. Especially when it comes to skin, hair and other body care.
Maybe I focus my attention first and foremost on what’s happening inside the body, or maybe I just have no patience for beauty regimes. Either way, if it’s complicated I just won’t do it. Ask my hairdresser. No matter how beautifully she styles my hair, up it goes into my messy 2-second “mom bun” pretty much every morning.
This applies to just about everything that happens in the bathroom. I’ve always been lazy with this kind of stuff, and having a baby has exaggerated this tendency tenfold. I barely have time to shower let alone moisturize.
So imagine my sheer delight when I learned of a gentle, highly effective skin care regime for your face that is quite literally five steps in one:
- make-up remover
- cleanser
- toner
- moisturizer
- fancy overnight serum
And get this: you use oil.
Yes, I’m talking about the oil cleansing method. You clean, tone and moisturize your skin with oil.
Too good (or too weird!) to be true? I thought so. But it was one of those things that kept popping up until I couldn’t ignore it anymore. Article after article expounded on the amazing benefits of this technique. I posted a question about it on facebook and the response was amazing. People are loving it!
So I tried it for myself.
Oh my.
Now if you’re like me, you don’t put the words “oil” and “cleansing” together unless you’re talking about cleaning the grill on your BBQ.
The idea of cleaning your precious face with oil is extremely counter-intuitive. Haven’t we all been trying to scrub our faces free of the stuff forever? (I can still remember how all my girlfriends and I carried around bottles of Sea Breeze in our backpacks way back in junior high, running into the bathroom at every opportunity to swab away any errant oil secretion.) Oil was the enemy and its eradication was the ticket to beautiful, clean skin.
Turns out we were wrong.
You see annihilating the oils in our skin actually does way more harm than good. When we strip the skin of oils, it goes into overdrive to repair the damage, and produces even more oil to compensate. This even applies to those with acne-prone skin. Using these harsh drying methods only to slather on moisturizer to counter the damage also speeds up aging, something none of us are keen to do. Seems like a lose-lose-lose proposition to me.
Enter oil.
Some oils are astringent and others are moisturizing. Typically you’ll use a combination of two or more oils to find your perfect blend. Here’s the formula I use:
2 tablespoons coconut oil
2 tablespoons sweet almond oil
4 drops lavender essential oil
4 drops frankincense essential oil
In my formulation, the two essential oils are the astringents, and the others are moisturizing. This is a good blend for your basic combination skin. There’s a whole art to figuring out your perfect blend, which my friend Sherri at Overthrow Martha has done a great job of explaining.
Once you’ve found your perfect oil blend, simply wet your face with some nice warm water, and then pour a dollop of the oil blend into your palm (about the size of a quarter). Apply it to your face and rub in circles just like you would with a cleanser. Then, use a clean washcloth in very hot water (as hot as you can take it without burning yourself) and hold it over your face until it becomes room temperature. Wipe the oil off your face with the cloth, wet the washcloth again and repeat a second time.
Voila! You’re done! Your skin should feel silky smooth, clean and moisturized. I find when I do this at night, I wake up in the morning with the most glowing skin. If I shower in the morning I’ll sometimes add another dab of the oil blend as a moisturizer afterwards. But basically that’s it! Easy peasy.
Have you tried oil cleansing? What did you think?
If you’re up for a little more DIY pampering, here are some great masks and face treatments to try:
Honey face mask by The Nourished Life
Better than botox facial scrub by Kula Mama
Homemade body butter by Life from the ground up
And here are some ways to boost up your oil cleansing by Holistic Health Herbalist
Love this!! Definitely going to do this ..Can I ask you where did you get the little bottle in the picture you put the oil in?
@Charlene — I actually didn’t take the picture this time. It’s a stock photo…. but it’s a cool little bottle isn’t it?? 🙂
I LOVE oil cleansing — it is a little piece of heaven I treat myself to every night. I like this recipe, I think I will try it for my next batch. I really love that it is so many steps/products in one! Thanks as always, Margaret!!
I love oil cleansing. I have one other to add.
Coconut oil mixed with lavender and lemon then mix in baking soda. I use this twice a week and love it.
I’m just as lazy as you about my beauty regime 🙂 – also do the “mom bun”.
Just curious how much of this do you mix up at a time, if you recommend doing smaller batches more often?
I use exactly the amount I specified in the recipe. It’s a small batch, but I like that because it keeps it fresh.
Would you recommend grapeseed oil? I cant decide if i should try grapeseed or sweet almond or both on my face.
I’ve been washing with only coconut oil for months now and it’s been great, but now winter is coming it dries my face out and doesn’t absorb so well. I was thinking of combining them all, or combining of of those two with my coconut oil. What do you think?
I personally love the sweet almond oil, but you can always play with it and see what your skin loves best. It’s a very personal thing
Is this good for oily skin?
Patricia, it actually really is. You might have to play around with the oil combinations a little bit, but it’s so worth a try. I used to get a super shiny forehead every afternoon – drove me crazy. I never have that any more now that I’m using this method. It’s really a game changer.
hi?
i love coconut oil and use it for eating, cooking, oil pulling, skin except face as it can clog pores ( + i have sensitive skin with occasional breakout and roscea)
mayb i’ll add another non comedivenic oil to this & try it out
all the best⭐️
I was looking for something like this thank you so much for sharing,I will try it tonight!!!!
Glad we could deliver on your need! Let us know how it goes.
Would this be good as a moisturizer before you put on your makeup?
Absolutely!
Can i substitute frankesense oil with any other oil…?i noticed my face is getting drier…
Of course – play around with different oils to see what works best for you.
It may be the coconut oil drying out your face and not the frankincense. Maybe try almond or jojoba oil. Coconut oil can actually clog your pores because it’s comedogenic. You should always use a non comedogenic oil on your face
good information to have. I might need to update my cleansing process