One of the best things about being a girl is the beauty products available to cater to every imaginable beauty issue. My first ever brush with makeup was sneaking my mum's fire-engine red Chanel lipstick from her handbag and slapping a clown smile on my lips, completely not intentional, I was 7 and didn't have steady hands back then. The first time I felt like a 'grown-up' was my first facial cleanser experience when I was 12, it was my mum's avacado cream cleanser and boy, was that an exciting time in the bathroom. I thought being old enough to use, without permission, facial wash was a teenage girls' rite of passage. In hindsight, I should have treasured the days I did not have to bother with the whole cleanse, tone, moisturize routine, the days when being young meant the skin took care of itself without having the aids of cleansers, toners and moisturizers to keep it looking youthful. Yes, my mum's stuff featured prominently in my beauty experiments. Although I have 2 older sisters with, then, more current beauty products to 'borrow' from, it was my mother who never locked the door to her bedroom to keep a so-called annoying (unfairly named I might add) little sister from going through their stuff. Hence the products I experimented with was always for the 'advanced' age group.
My first cleanser, bought with my own allowance money, was from the Japanese brand Biore. Well, I believe it's a Japanese company. I thought I'd go in a different direction from my mum and settled on a gel based cleanser. Ice-cool, it was the tingly kind, the type that made your whole face tighten up like it's been seran wrapped. Of course, at that point in time, I was reading all these teen mags like Sugar and Bliss which advocated getting the right cleanser for your skin type. Back in my teen years my skin was of the more sebaceous nature, I was more prone to the oily t-zone conundrum. Not so much now. In my twenties, I have since discovered with age and more than a few trials and errors, the skin does not remember so much its youthful state.
When it comes to beauty products, I'm a brand loyalist by nature and although it's good for the companies of the brands that I buy, I can't always say it's the same for myself. I have a tendency to buy in bulk once I believe I've found my holy grail product range, especially cleansers, but its taken me till this year to realize that it's not the smartest move skin-wise nor financially. I have realized my skin has a low acceptance threshold when it comes to cleansers in particular. I can usually use a cleanser for a little over a year before my skin becomes, for lack of a better word, 'immune' to the cleanser's properties. I've also realized that I've been misdiagnosing my own skin-type, I kept on using products made for the oily/combination skin set so suitable in days of yore when I should have moved on to products for sensitive skin. I had a bout of adult acne on my chin area this year and for the life of me could not figure out what was causing it. Originally I thought that it was caused by a few dentist visits I made earlier in the year for some dental work I had done and all that face-touching, albeit gloved, was causing my chin to flare up but after a month of pimply recurrences, I figured there was something else up. I then started making slight changes in my diet, drank more than the pre-requisite 8 glasses of water, stopped using makeup, tried multiple types of acne solutions and still an annoying pimple will pop up on my chin. It's usually just the one every other week but the irksome thing about them was the lingering black mark it left which would take ages to heal.
Now, as I've previously believed I was more of an oily/combo skin person, I never used any type of moisturizer in my daily beauty routine as I was afraid it would aggravate my oil glands. The times I have dabbled with moisturizer, they have all been the oil-free kind and in a matter of 1 hour I would look not so matte. So, it is understandable that I am hesitant to slather any creams on my skin. However, at that point the acne marks were doing my head in. I figured I needed to put something on them to make them heal faster and that's when I threw caution to the wind and bought this dark spot lightening moisturizer from the Garnier Skin Naturals range. I also started slathering on base with spf to counter the sun's effects on my marks, it get's so hot here sometimes I don't doubt the sun factor contributed to the slow healing. In another fit of inspiration that hit me while I was browsing Walgreens during my summer holiday, I also ditched all acne cleansers and bought a USD2.95 bar of facial soap for sensitive skin by the brand Basis. And cue some revelation music when my face started calming down. For a while there I thought I'd have had to give up on my relationship with Benefit.
I still get the monthly zit caused by PMS but now with the pared down routine, it disappears faster. I don't even use any zit cream on them, I find that for me the cream/gels contribute to the pimple darkening effect, like a burn. From the countless of beauty/fashion magazines I've read, I knew the skin changes as you age and so I did not understand why I stubbornly clung to the same types of products for as long as I did. Perhaps it was an unwillingness on my part to accept change, even though the change was good as my skin condition has improved significantly without all the sebum control actions when using the acne solutions. I guess the overdrying effects of the acne products caused my oil glands to work overtime and that's the reason behind my un-matte look after a coupla hours. I kept Johnson & Johnson in business for quite a bit with my bulk purchasing of their oil-control sheets :D I also came to realize that it's not necessarily the expensive products that are going to help you, if it's not suitable, it just won't work. Drugstore brands are just as culpable, Clearisil can say you should appear clearer in 3 days but I trudged along for months and as time went on I felt it kept teasing me with the promises of clear skin but never quite getting me there. Well, that was my experience anyways. In the end it is just about figuring out what works for you, whether it cost USD26 or USD2.60 is not the issue.
Now, I just use the Basis soap which should last me till the middle of the next year as it's such a giant bar (how financially-savvy of me), Kiehl's Blue Herbal astringent (though I'm not sure I'll be sticking to them once my bottle finishes, I can't decide if it does anything or not) and the Garnier Skin Naturals moisturizer. For facial scrub which I try to do weekly, I just lather the Basis soap and sprinkle a 1/3 teaspoon of baking soda in the lather (a tip I got from Cosmo and reaffirmed when I read Camilla Morton's 'A Year In High Heels'). It works great at sloughing off dead skin as well as tightening pores. I also do a fortnightly clay mask and a regenerating tissue mask every other week using products from Garnier (I'll always find a brand to be loyal to though I don't do the bulk-buying so much anymore). I'm hoping that I can keep to this routine for more than a while.
My first cleanser, bought with my own allowance money, was from the Japanese brand Biore. Well, I believe it's a Japanese company. I thought I'd go in a different direction from my mum and settled on a gel based cleanser. Ice-cool, it was the tingly kind, the type that made your whole face tighten up like it's been seran wrapped. Of course, at that point in time, I was reading all these teen mags like Sugar and Bliss which advocated getting the right cleanser for your skin type. Back in my teen years my skin was of the more sebaceous nature, I was more prone to the oily t-zone conundrum. Not so much now. In my twenties, I have since discovered with age and more than a few trials and errors, the skin does not remember so much its youthful state.
When it comes to beauty products, I'm a brand loyalist by nature and although it's good for the companies of the brands that I buy, I can't always say it's the same for myself. I have a tendency to buy in bulk once I believe I've found my holy grail product range, especially cleansers, but its taken me till this year to realize that it's not the smartest move skin-wise nor financially. I have realized my skin has a low acceptance threshold when it comes to cleansers in particular. I can usually use a cleanser for a little over a year before my skin becomes, for lack of a better word, 'immune' to the cleanser's properties. I've also realized that I've been misdiagnosing my own skin-type, I kept on using products made for the oily/combination skin set so suitable in days of yore when I should have moved on to products for sensitive skin. I had a bout of adult acne on my chin area this year and for the life of me could not figure out what was causing it. Originally I thought that it was caused by a few dentist visits I made earlier in the year for some dental work I had done and all that face-touching, albeit gloved, was causing my chin to flare up but after a month of pimply recurrences, I figured there was something else up. I then started making slight changes in my diet, drank more than the pre-requisite 8 glasses of water, stopped using makeup, tried multiple types of acne solutions and still an annoying pimple will pop up on my chin. It's usually just the one every other week but the irksome thing about them was the lingering black mark it left which would take ages to heal.
Now, as I've previously believed I was more of an oily/combo skin person, I never used any type of moisturizer in my daily beauty routine as I was afraid it would aggravate my oil glands. The times I have dabbled with moisturizer, they have all been the oil-free kind and in a matter of 1 hour I would look not so matte. So, it is understandable that I am hesitant to slather any creams on my skin. However, at that point the acne marks were doing my head in. I figured I needed to put something on them to make them heal faster and that's when I threw caution to the wind and bought this dark spot lightening moisturizer from the Garnier Skin Naturals range. I also started slathering on base with spf to counter the sun's effects on my marks, it get's so hot here sometimes I don't doubt the sun factor contributed to the slow healing. In another fit of inspiration that hit me while I was browsing Walgreens during my summer holiday, I also ditched all acne cleansers and bought a USD2.95 bar of facial soap for sensitive skin by the brand Basis. And cue some revelation music when my face started calming down. For a while there I thought I'd have had to give up on my relationship with Benefit.
I still get the monthly zit caused by PMS but now with the pared down routine, it disappears faster. I don't even use any zit cream on them, I find that for me the cream/gels contribute to the pimple darkening effect, like a burn. From the countless of beauty/fashion magazines I've read, I knew the skin changes as you age and so I did not understand why I stubbornly clung to the same types of products for as long as I did. Perhaps it was an unwillingness on my part to accept change, even though the change was good as my skin condition has improved significantly without all the sebum control actions when using the acne solutions. I guess the overdrying effects of the acne products caused my oil glands to work overtime and that's the reason behind my un-matte look after a coupla hours. I kept Johnson & Johnson in business for quite a bit with my bulk purchasing of their oil-control sheets :D I also came to realize that it's not necessarily the expensive products that are going to help you, if it's not suitable, it just won't work. Drugstore brands are just as culpable, Clearisil can say you should appear clearer in 3 days but I trudged along for months and as time went on I felt it kept teasing me with the promises of clear skin but never quite getting me there. Well, that was my experience anyways. In the end it is just about figuring out what works for you, whether it cost USD26 or USD2.60 is not the issue.
Now, I just use the Basis soap which should last me till the middle of the next year as it's such a giant bar (how financially-savvy of me), Kiehl's Blue Herbal astringent (though I'm not sure I'll be sticking to them once my bottle finishes, I can't decide if it does anything or not) and the Garnier Skin Naturals moisturizer. For facial scrub which I try to do weekly, I just lather the Basis soap and sprinkle a 1/3 teaspoon of baking soda in the lather (a tip I got from Cosmo and reaffirmed when I read Camilla Morton's 'A Year In High Heels'). It works great at sloughing off dead skin as well as tightening pores. I also do a fortnightly clay mask and a regenerating tissue mask every other week using products from Garnier (I'll always find a brand to be loyal to though I don't do the bulk-buying so much anymore). I'm hoping that I can keep to this routine for more than a while.
