Oil Cleansing Method (OCM)

Hi Beauties!

Today I'm going to write down my experience with Oil Cleansing Method. This post in fact is related to my previous post on Hormonal Acne and My Acne Condition.

As you can read from my Post-Birth Control Acne post, I had suffered from massive breakouts and after continue using Benton Snail Been High Content Essence and Hyaluronic Acid serum for layering skin care, I think my skin got even worse after the 1 week. In the first week, my redness subsided but I noticed I started to get many tiny white head bumps below the skin and it hurts me when I washed my face. My face was rough and bumpy.

After I went for my detox facial, my beautician suspected my face was sensitive to products and she told me to stop using all products and see if the pimples subside. I also stopped wearing make up altogether to let my skin heal. I was pretty sad and afraid to reveal my red marks and bumpy face to my colleagues. But for the benefit of my skin, I be brave and let my face go naked. Till now, it's near to 3 weeks without make up and layering of products on my face. My face started to heal. Those bumps had lessen a lot. Now, my face is still not pretty with all the dark marks from the pimples.

I started to go natural with my skin care when I was at Genting holiday. There was warm water sink so I decided to start Oil Cleansing Method with face steaming (I had stopped doing this for long time ago). I was relieved that time because the first oil cleansing had make my skin felt so soft and clean. I was thinking that probably I should go back to basic skin care with just Grapeseed oil and Rosehip oil. I had used oil cleansing for about nearly a week now. During the few days at Genting, I did twice oil cleansing during the day and night. I noticed that my skin started to feel dry (probably due to the frequency). Thus, now I only oil cleanse once a day at night and in the morning, I will just splash my skin with water or wash my face with honey and moisturize with my face oil.


What is OCM?

Oil Cleansing principle comes about from the idea of oil dissolves oil. Oil can be used to dissolve the oil that has hardened up on your skin. The steam from the warm cloth will open up the pores to help these hardened oils to come out easily, leaving your skin soft and smooth.

 

The whole idea about oil cleansing it that washing our face with the soap cleanser (with lots of chemical ingredients - some you would not even know how to pronouce or even know it), will remove all the oils from you face. You face will need oil for its normal function. If your skin's natural oil is removed, your skin will counter this by producing even more oil. If the excess oil produced coupled with dead skin cells, then your skin is more prone to clogged pores and with inflammation, you'll get acne.

OCM is a cleansing method with oil to help  remove the dirt and excess oil gently without stripping off the skin's natural oil. In addition, by choosing the right oil, you can trick your skin that your face has enough of its natural oil, and it will also reduce over production of face oil. OCM will eventually make your skin oil balanced out. Your face will not be as oily as before OCM. This, I totally agree as my face now is not as oily as last time when I used moisturizer like lotion or serum.

 Ok! Let's talk about my Oil Cleansing Oil Blend.

I have read lots of different articles and reviews on OCM. Some wrote that castor oil is a must for OCM, while some said castor oil is a no-no as it causes purging and some oil was not produced the right way-causing toxicity?! I had used my oil blend with castor oil before but when I noticed a little breakout, I stopped using oil blend with castor oil but only grapeseed oil. I will try again with castor oil once my breakout subsided to see if castor oil is the culprit. FYI also, castor oil is a cleansing and drying oil. So, watch out for the ratio is your skin is drying out.

My own oil blend:

• Pure grapeseed oil - great for acne prone skin
• 10-20 drops of lavender and tea tree essential oil - anti bacterial and reduce acne scars

 I mix these oils in a pump bottle and shake it up real good before use.

IF you want to use castor oil, then the ratio is as below based on your skin type:

      Normal skin = 1:1 Castor oil to carrier oil
      Oily skin      = 2:1 Castor oil to carrier oil
      Dry skin       = 1:3 Castor oil to carrier oil

The ratio of castor oil to carrier oil to use for your old blend is pretty much depending on your skin. There's no fixed ratio. Let your skin tell you; if you feel your skin is tight, the probably you need to adjust the castor oil ratio lower and increase your carrier oil. If you started breaking out, you might want to stop and retest to confirm if the oil is causing the breakout. You might need to consider the Comedogenic Rating of Oil (the higher the rating, the more likely it will clog pores and cause breakout).

I have read some good articles of choosing the right carrier oil for acne prone skin by Minimalist Beauty. She talked about oil composition higher in oleic acid (Omega 9) and linoleic acid (Omega 6). Acne prone skin should use oils higher in linoleic acid, she said.

How I Oil Cleanse My Face?  

To Oil Cleanse, I will need things below:

•  My oil blend
• Soft microfibre face towel
• Warm/ hot water
• A bowl ( I got no hot tap at my sink, so I boil water and put in a bowl at the sink)

The OCM steps:

1. On a dry, dirty or  make up face (yep- OCM can also help to remove makeup -2in1 step), pour a small amount of my oil blend and massage it gently all over my face to remove dirt, makeup and oil.  
2. Then, warm up the microfibre cloth with the warm/hot water (you adjust your own temperature, not too hot as it can scald your precious face). Wring off the water and quickly put the cloth to cover my face. The steam will open up the pores to help those clog oils easier to come off.
3. Then, very gently wipe off the excess oil. Do it gently to avoid hurting the face. Check out the benefit of using of microfibre cloth in OCM HERE. Repeat steaming and wipe-off if necessary
4. DONE!
5. If I feel like my skin need extra moisturizing, I will just use a few drops of my favourite grapeseed oil for moisturizing. I use grapeseed oil for my face and dab a few drops of rosehip oil for my eye wrinkles. If your skin is fine without the extra oil, then after OCM, that's it!

Note: I'm now using Dermatix Scar Gel for my scars. Dermatix really lighten scar very fast.

 My grapeseed oil

 I add this essential oil into my old blend for extra benefit

 My rosehip oil for face scars and eye wrinkle

This is how rosehip oil looks like.

I'm going to reveal the face progress after I started on OCM. My skin still bumpy but it's not because of OCM. OCM in fact made my skin heal faster and smoother. After I had my detox facial, I broke out crazily as the detox process improved. It's normal to breakout after detox facial my beautician said. I will continue to update this post to show the progress with OCM.

MY CHIN

 MY LEFT CHEEK

 MY RIGHT CHEEK

Hormonal Acne Post-Birth Control

Hi everyone.

After posted previously on my natural skin care regime, I'm going to drop an update on my skin condition. In the previous post, I had mentioned that I started to break out due to the Juju Aquamoist product I used. But, though I had stopped the products and currently using the natural regime for my skin, I still suffer my breakouts but it's just not as crazy as before. When come to think about this, I did wonder what actually happened.

As I noticed, my cystic acne normally pop out along my jawline, and more on the right side of my face. After my last facial done in December, my large cystic acne had lessen. There are still cystic ance popping out occasionally. As usual, it's on the right side of my face. I began to question myself; what could be the cause of the sudden 'outbreak'? I Googled the cause of breakout based on face mapping. Hah! The root cause of my jawline cystic acne are probably hormonal acne as I have tried various skin care products and even pimple cream but it didn ot subside. But what cause my hormonal acne to be so terrible?

I traced back to the sequence of event, where I noticed that after I stopped taking my birth control injection, this condition began to flare. Then I started to Google for acne post-birth control. Yup! Most articles I read stated that it is perfectly normal that the hormone changes after stopping birth control. Birth control method like pills and injections control the levell of androgen (male hormone) in the body. Excess androgen will increase oil secretion in the skin and make the pores easily clog. The birth control methods will suppress the androgen in the body, thus, the skin will be perfect. =) After stopping birth control, the androgen level will increase, causing excess oil production and causing large cystic acne.

Now, after stopping my injection since last year October, it's been about 1/2 year already and my skin is still terrible. It will take some time for the hormone to balance out. But I can say that it has improved a lot from the beginning when I got a lot of cystic acne here and there. I went for my recent facial a week ago and the beautician still said my skin is very bad. But compared to before, it has improved. My face currently is filled with white heads, focusing mostly on both side of my cheeks and forehead.

I really hope that my skin will improve in time. I had started using essence and serum as I see no improvement from my face oil. I add snail and bee Essence from Benton and Hyaluronic Acid Serum to help my scars fade faster, with the hope that it will calm my acne down a bit.

 

I had used the Snail Bee Essence and Hyaluronic Acid for 1 week already and I can definitely feel the difference. My skin is healing faster, though the bumps are still there, but it's clamer, less red. Hope it will be better soon before my Genting Trip and also Bali Honeymoon in April. Just to update on these two products, I have stopped using them after my Beautician told me my bumps on my whole face could be associated with these products. She told me that the Hyaluronic Acid may not be authentic and had other ingredients in it causing breakouts. She asked me to stop using these products to see if the bumps subsided after the facial.

My Acne Story & Updated Natural Skin Care Routine

Hi. This is going to be a long blog post about my acne and how I improve it. I’ve read quite a number of stories from people who shared their experiences on battling their acne, what they have done to improve their skin condition, and also read a lot on DIY remedies to heal their skin. In this blog post, I’m going to share some of my own experiences and what I have gone through to improve my skin.

Just a little bit of my skin background first; I have oily/ combination and acne prone skin. I started to have acne when I was in secondary school at the age of 17. That time, I was depressed and stressed with my own skin condition. I envied my classmates who have flawless and spotless skin. I cried and I dare not take any pictures as the acne was all over my face. My face was bumpy, red and painful. Do not believe me? Take a look at the picture below. Scary isn’t it?

I was very sad with my skin condition and I had begged my mother to bring me to see a skin specialist. I’ve seen dermatologist, Dr. Henry Foong in Ipoh. I was given some skin care products and also antibiotic for my acne. My mother had spent over RM1000 for a few consultations with the dermatologist. My skin had improved after that but then, it came to a point when I started to wonder, do I have to rely on the antibiotic for clear skin? I’d started to default the appointment and medication. My skin condition turned back to square one; acne came out again. I knew the drug is not a long term solution and thus, I’d decided to go for another alternative, which is visiting a beautician. 

The beautician I visited was my classmate’s aunty. She’s really good. The facial session had helped my skin to improve a lot after that. She had also introduced some oil balancing cleanser, antibacterial toner and blackhead serum. The serum is not working for me, it did not help with my blackheads as all and it made my nose super oily. But the cleanser and toner were really good. I’ve used the same cleanser all the way to university life when I was 19 years old. After the cleanser finished, the beautician had changed my cleanser to a normal skin cleanser as she said my oily skin had normalised. This cleanser was not that good as it made my skin drier and tight. At this period in university, I had started to try on MANY types of products. Yep. All sorts of drug store products, from Garnier, Clearasil, Oxy, Neutrogena, Simple, Nano White, Fruit of the Earth Aloe Vera Gel, St. Ives Scrub, Naruko, Olay, Himalaya, Hada Labo and etc. You name it!

Out of all these products, Garnier’s night cream, Simple’s toner, Aloe Vera Gel, St. Ives Scrub and Himalaya’s Neem Mask were good products that I’m still using now.  From university life till now, my skin condition was ‘on-and-off’, sometimes clear, sometimes bad. So, I’m not very sure is it the products causing it, or is it my hormone. 

Anyway, I had started to use Grapeseed oil as part of my skin care routine early of this year, but I had stopped using it after the oil had finished. Back then, my skin was at the best state, clear, smooth and glow from within. See my face in the picture below. 

 

But, as the oil had finished, I was ‘itchy’ and switched to Juju Aquamoist product. I bought the whole set from groupon at RM100 for 5 items knowing that it’s cheap. The product was really hydrating and calming. But, after using for around 2 weeks, my skin started to break out crazily…! OMG! Yes, crazily. I had acne everywhere on my skin… and my beautician had a long time extracting all the white heads and cysts. Yes. It’s cystic acne everywhere. I was very sad and cried on the spot. My beautician was concerned also that I used concealer to cover the acne marks and redness. She had asked me to stop concealing the acne. Let my skin heal itself. I could not take it at all. 

The next day, I had wore a face mask to cover my skin (as if I’m sick) for I was afraid my colleague will be asking me what happened to my clear face. They do not know all these while I use make up to fake my clear skin. I had told my beautician about using grapeseed oil for removing make up and as my moisturizer previously. They had commented my skin was glowing back then. So, they had asked me to try to use back my grapeseed oil to see if the skin is better.

 I had started back my grapeseed oil as makeup remover and also moisturizer, so far, it had helped my complexion a lot and the scars had faded dramatically. I still have to use some concealer for obvious scars but those light scars, I had left them naked. 

At the same time, I had started back on my Himalaya Neem Face Pack for spot treatment at night before sleep. I am determined to go natural with my skin care now. I’m going to omit those chemical cleansers and creams once and for all. I’ve decided to start of a new DIY skin care regime for my skin. 

Make up remover = Castor oil (1/3) + Grapeseed oil (2/3) blend

Cleanser = Honey/aloe (morning), Oatmeal (Night)

Toner = Rose & green tea toner

Moisturizer = QV lotion + Sunscreen (Day), Grapeseed oil (Night)

Eye serum = Few drops of Grapeseed oil/Rosehip Oil

Spot treatment & Mask = Himalaya Neem Mask

Scrub = St. Ives Blemish Control Scrub/ DIY Sugar Scrub

Eyelash serum = Apply castor oil to eyelash in the morning and before sleep using mascara applicator

I will start and stick to this natural skin care regime from today and follow up to see if my skin condition will be better with this natural skin care routine. During the day when I have to go for work, I will still wear some concealer for my acne marks but I’m using it with limitation; just a small dot on the scar and use my finger to smudge the concealer around the scars. I will ensure the first thing I do after I come back from work is to remove all the make up with my DIY makeup remover (castor oil & grapeseed oil). These oils work wonder on my skin, they remove all traces of make up from my face. I will use about 2 pumps of the oil, gentle rub it between my palms and then rub it all over my face. Using circular motions, I massage the oil over my face about 2-3 minutes. Then, using a clean tissue paper, I gently wipe off all the excess oil with make up from my face. Sometimes, if I had worn heavier make up with foundation, I will do this process twice to ensure all make up is removed. Then, I will cleanser my face with my DIY honey & aloe vera cleanser. This cleanser is to remove the excess oil which the tissue paper did not take off. After cleansing, I will quickly rub on 2-3 drops of grapeseed oil as my face moisturizer.  

Below are pictures of my naked face with quite a number of acne scars on my chin and jaw line on 30^th December 2015. The picture was taken fresh after removing make up and with grapeseed oil moisturizer. The acne marks on my cheeks had faded DRAMATICALLY…. Now only left the scars on the chin and jaw line.

     

I'm very lucky that my scars and acne are not that visible from far!

My Current Natural Skin Care Routine Previous skin care routine

Day Routine :

1) Cleanse my face with my aloe vera & honey cleanser

2) Tone with my rose  green tea toner

3) Moisturize with few drops of grapeseed oil + my sunscreen lotion for both face and neck. Apply a drop of grapeseed oil below my eyes for the wrinkles.

4) Treat acne with tea tree gel (Thursday Plantation)
5) Apply eyelash serum (castor oil) using mascare brush & Q-Tip. 

6) Simple makeup by concealing the acne marks, draw my brows and eye liner. Apply Vaseline on my lips to moisturize it.

Night Routine :

1) Cleanse my face with oatmeal

2) Tone with my rose green tea toner

3) Moisturize with few drops of grapeseed oil. Apply a drop of grapeseed oil below my eyes for the wrinkles.

4) Treat my acne with Himalaya Neem Face Pack.
5) Apply eyelash & eyebrow serum (castor oil) using mascare brush & Q-Tip.

Weekly Routine :

1) Scrub my face 3x a week with either honey sugar scrub or St. Ives Blemish Control Scrub

2) Apply a face mask 3x a week after scrub. My choice of mask: aloe vera gel mask, honey mask, Skin Food Rice Mask, Himalaya Neem Face Pack, Freeman Black Sugar mask, green pea mud mask, dead sea mud mask.

Now, I'm looking into customizing my own face oil blend. I had read Cruncy Betty's post on Simple Homemade 3-Ingredient Face Oil, so I thought of getting back my previously loved 'Rosehip Oil'. I should have another 15ml left but I had accidentally spilled it till zero left. Sobz. It's an expensive oil and I had wasted it. Crunchy Betty's facil oil blend will need 3/4 carrier oil, 1/4 nourishing oil & 7 drops of essential oil.

Thus, I think the best oil bled for me will be Grapeseed Oil (my favourite), Rosehip Oil &Lavender Oil. It was stated that both Rosehip Oil and Lavender Oil are great of acne prone and scarred skin. *fingers crossed, hopefully it works for my scars*

Oils are so expensive, especially nourishing and essential oils. They come in small amount and usually very expensive. It's not easy to get 'over the counter' and most of the time, I have to buy it online. I got both my castor oil and grapeseed oil from Natural Wellbeing Malaysia. Their products come in various volume and sizes and their products are not very expensive compared to other websites in Malaysia. I got some of my oils from Lelong as well when I see the price is not what I wanted! =P

 Ok. Let's have a look at my recent picture taken about 2 weeks ago.

 

 The skin is clearer with some scars only. ^^

For now, on and off I still get cystic acnes but it's not as crazy as before. Mostly the cystic acnes appeared along the jaw line on both sides. No idea why is that so. But, I just try to apply frequently the tea tree and lavender essential oil and rosehip oil. My skin care routine is very much the same but I have started to incorporate back my QV lotion blend with the face oil before applying to the skin. The lotion healps to heal the dried up acne scars and helps the 'dead skin' peeled off easily. Face is less patchy! Pray hard that the current routine will help my skin to be clear again like before!

Just to update,  I had changed my routine a bit as I tried for 1 month plus the previous natural skin care routine did not work well for my skin. I still suffer from breakouts again. I just recently discovered the root cause of my massive breakouts which I will share in another post. Thus, I has changed my skin care routine a bit to treat the problem:
  

My Current Natural Skin Care Routine My NEW Skin Care Routine

Day Routine :

1) Cleanse my face with myPhysiogel Gentle Cleanser

2) Tone with my rose green tea toner
3) Apply Snail Bee Essence from Benton + Hyaluronic Acid Serum from MingShuang

4) Moisturize with few drops of QV lotion + my sunscreen lotion for both face and neck. Apply a rosehip oil below my eyes for the wrinkles.

5) Treat acne with tea tree oil
6) Apply Dermatix Scar Cream (this is verrryyy good)
7) Apply eyelash serum (castor oil) using mascare brush/ Q-Tip. 

8) Simple makeup by concealing the acne marks, draw my brows and eye liner. Apply Vaseline on my lips to moisturize it.

Night Routine :

1) Cleanse my face with Snail Cleanser/ oatmeal

2) Tone with my rose green tea toner
3) Apply Snail Bee Essence from Benton + Hyaluronic Acid Serum from MingShuang

4) Warm a few drops of Rosehip oil and pressed in all over my face

5) Treat acne with tea tree oil
6) Apply Dermatix Scar Cream (this is verrryyy good)
7) Apply eyelash serum (castor oil) using mascare brush

Weekly Routine :

1) Scrub my face 3x a week with either honey sugar scrub or St. Ives Blemish Control Scrub or Peeling Gel

2) Apply a face mask 3x a week after scrub. My choice of mask: aloe vera gel mask, honey mask, Skin Food Rice Mask, Himalaya Neem Face Pack, Freeman Black Sugar mask, green pea mud mask, dead sea mud mask.

 

This was taken on 9th March 2016. As you can see, large cystic acne are not so prominent, but I still have lots of small white heads all over my face and I hope that this condition will improve soon..!

Wish me luck!