Feb
22
2011
Now We’re Cleansing With Oil

Using oil to clean my oily skin is one of the most counter intuitive things I’ve read about in a long time. But if people on the internet jump off a bridge…

Actually, some of the arguments made sense (oil dissolves oil, using products that strip away all your natural oils makes your skin produce more oil, etc…) and when I mentioned it to Dave, rather than looking at me like I was crazy, he started going on about the Romans and how they used oil in their baths, and used a special tool to scrape it off and blah, blah, blah…  That he didn’t immediately think it was a stupid idea was enough for me, I didn’t need any further details about ancient cultures and why does he know all of this useless information about ancient cultures when he can’t remember that I want cream cheese to spread on my bagels?

I started doing research about the appropriate oil mix for my skin type, but laziness and fear of making a royal mess and commitment threatened to end this oil cleansing experiment before it began (didn’t feel like shopping for different oils and mixing a proper concoction myself seemed like a recipe for oil spilling disaster and would leave me with a lot of oil). Then Cave Girl came to the rescue and suggested a premade product. She warned that it would be more cost-effective to mix my own oils, but since I’m skeptical about this thing and I’m lazy, I opted for ordering a small amount of Touchy Oil Cleanser for oily skin. Hopefully, the amount I ordered will last me long enough to decide whether or not it’s working for me. Some of what I read online about this is repulsive, yet strangely fascinating. Apparently after a few minutes of massaging the oil into your skin, you will start to feel sebum plugs that have been released. Repulsive, no? Oh, but how I had hoped this would actually happen. Die blackheads die!

I had a feeling that this would either be one of the stupidest things I’d ever done or one of the greatest things ever, but so far (about a week in) it just seems like it takes a lot longer to wash my face than it used to and that I need to buy more washcloths (neither Dave nor I use washcloths, so we only have a few for guests and I’ve already gone through them all this week). I’ve done the oil cleanse three or four times since I started (I’m doing it every other evening as much of what I read online suggested). I had sort of convinced myself that my skin might look a minuscule amount nicer after the first few days, but by the end of last week I realized it looked the same. No blackhead improvement and actually a few small break outs. I am also disappointed that I don’t seem to be getting that sebum plug removal that many online reviewers mentioned. It’s not that I’m not being thorough, the first night I massaged the oil into my skin for 15 damn minutes. I thought I’d give myself carpal tunnel. My arms started to feel the weight of holding them up so long. I’ve since been doing it for about 10 minutes each time. Then I steam with the hot washcloth 3-4 times and wipe my face. My face feels clean after, so think I’m getting all the oil off.

I had been hoping I’d produce less oil, but so far no dice. In the mornings, my face is as oily as ever, perhaps a little more. I think I might look a little less shiny though.

I’m also confused about this process in terms of skin care overall. In the mornings, I’m OK with just rinsing with warm water, but in the evenings I really need to wash my makeup off. So if I’m not supposed to oil cleanse every night and I’m not supposed to use soap, then what? One night I did a very abbreviated oil cleanse but that’s still a pain because of the time (and washcloth!) it takes to remove the oil. A couple of other nights I just used my usual Dove. I also assume that I can still use my regular sunscreen, but I couldn’t find guidance on this (what I’ve found online is to use a tiny bit of the oil as a moisturizer if your skin feels tight, but I haven’t found guidance about sunscreens that are compatible with this method).

I hate when I get all excited about a new personal care product (Biore strips anyone?) and then it doesn’t deliver, but I plan on giving the oil cleansing method a couple more weeks, at least every other night, no soap, no Oil of Olay, just my sunscreen in the morning. It needs to show much better results than it has to this point if I’m going to stick with it though, because it’s pretty time consuming.

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4 Responses to “Now We’re Cleansing With Oil”

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