Keeping your skin looking its best can be a full time job, and the beauty industry wants you to pay a premium for it.
Billions of dollars are spent every year to advertise new cosmetic products that claim to fix our every insecurity, from blackheads and pimples to unsightly dryness. Watching their advertisements, it’s easy to believe these products can produce miracles, and millions of women spend thousands of dollars a year for these chemical-laden products.
But here’s the problem. Despite buying the best commercial skincare products available, millions of women are still breaking out. Instead of performing miracles, the sad truth is that most beauty products in the drugstore today only work superficially and soon return your skin to its dull, grimy and blemish-filled appearance.
How can this be? Why is the skin care industry sending out such a misleading message?
The simple answer: if you knew the truth, you wouldn’t buy their products.
The problems with your beauty products
As it turns out, commercial skin products have skin care all wrong. They work to scrub the natural oils off your face with harsh chemicals, just like a detergent in the dishwasher. These products are filled with harsh artificial fragrances that irritate skin and leave you with more skin problems than you started with.
If you’re ready to stop stripping your face of what it needs most, there’s a new radical form of skin care that is completely changing the rules of the game. Instead of scrubbing off every ounce of oil from your face, you will ADD in oil to get a glowing, healthy complexion that’s breakout free.
It’s called the oil cleansing method, and it’s going to change everything about your skin care routine.
What is an oil cleanse?
The premise of an oil cleanse is simple. After a day of dirty living, your face is full of greasy sweat, pollution and other impurities. By massaging hot oil into your skin, you dissolve the oil that’s already present and fully open up your pores to allow them to let go of all the deep grime inside. This leaves your skin cleansed, healthy and renewed- all without turning to harsh soaps.
Why use oil instead of water or soap?
There’s no reason to fear extra breakouts when adding oil to your face. Oil isn’t responsible for your skin problems, the material that gets trapped in the oil is to blame. Skin naturally produces oil as a necessary moisturizer to keep it in the best shape, and adding oil to your cleaning routine will help your skin perform even better than natural.
Strange but true, oil has actually been used as a natural cleanser for as long as soap. Until the 19th century soap was difficult for people to access, so many cultures relied on the oil cleanse method instead. In fact, the ancient Romans used to rub their skin in hot oil and scrape it off with a stick in order to cleanse themselves before enjoying a public bath. It wasn’t until the creation of industrial soap products that people began to turn away from the natural benefits of cleaning with oil.
How does it work?
The logic behind the oil cleanse method is actually fairly straightforward. Basic chemistry tells us that substances that are chemically alike can dissolve each other. Because oil dissolves oil, the best way to remove unwanted oil from your face is to add other oils. By adding the right kinds of oil to your skin, your dirt-filled natural oil dissolves and can be wiped away. Adding heat through a steam washcloth opens up your pores and allows you to gently wipe away the impurities that become dislodged.
Unlike conventional products that leave your skin stripped and aching to produce more oil, the oil cleanse method keeps your skin in a moisturized equilibrium and stops your body from going into oil producing overdrive.
What are the benefits?
The oil cleanse method is a great way to take care of your skin without having to rely on damaging commercial products. Below are some of the top benefits your skin will get when you use this method.
- Less exposure to synthetic chemicals: Unlike soaps and detergents that strip your skin and leave you prone to new breakouts, an oil cleanse relies on natural, plant-based materials that won’t cause a harsh reaction.
- Easy ingredients list: When it comes to regular cosmetic products, reading the ingredients list rarely helps you truly understand what you’re putting on your body. In contrast, the oil cleanse method just uses oil, ensuring that you know exactly what you’re using.
- Cheap and easy: Tiny bottles of cosmetic cleaners can come at extravagant prices, but facial-friendly oils are available right from the grocery store at wholesale prices. Even better, these big bottles of oil will last you months, so you’ll rarely need to restock.
- Acne-free beauty: By opening up your pores, the oil cleanse method helps your skin to get breakouts under control and keep yourself glowing.
- Easy makeup remover: No matter how thick you’ve caked the concealer on, the oil cleanse method will whisk away every trace of makeup in a flash.
Best oils to use
The best way to get the full advantages of the oil cleanse method is to combine two types of oil for your cleanse. Most people get the best results when they use castor oil as their primary oil. Castor oil is a rich oil filled with anti-inflammatory properties that help with healing and cleansing. Because it’s so thick, it can overpower your skin and dry it out, which is why many people dilute it with a second oil.
There are plenty of options for your second oil, and some of the most popular varieties are listed below.
- Jojoba: good for all skin types, especially those prone to acne
- Grapeseed: all skin types, but not recommended if you have a blood clotting disorder
- Sweet almond: oily skin types
- Sunflower seed: all skin types
- Avocado: dry or aging skin
- Apricot kernel: dry and aging or normal skin
- Olive: all skin types
When buying oil, quality matters. Always try to use organic, cold-pressed oils that are full of fatty acids and have no additives. To add extra scent, you can also mix in four drops of essential oil into each ounce of oil. The ratio that you mix these oils together depends on how naturally oily your face is. Your best bet is to follow these guidelines to make the best mixture for you.
- Dry skin: 10% castor oil with 90% lighter oil
- Normal skin: 20% castor oil with 80% lighter oil
- Oily skin: 30% castor oil with 70% lighter oil
Start by making tiny batches of oil so that you can experiment with different mixes to see what works best for you.
The steps for success
Following the oil cleanse method couldn’t be easier. After you’ve mixed up a batch of oil, follow these steps to put your best face forward.
The best time to do an oil cleanse is usually right before bed because it allows you to remove a full day’s worth of nasty grime and old makeup from your face before getting your beauty sleep. Start the cleanse by pouring a quarter sized amount of your blended oils into your hands, rubbing them together to warm the oil.
Gently massage this oil onto your dry face and take your time to really work the mix into the depths of your skin through circular motions. It takes several minutes to fully dissolve the oils on your face, so stay patient while completing this step.
After your skin is saturated with oil, soak a clean washcloth in the hottest water you can find. Hold this washcloth over your face until it cools completely and use it to gently wipe any lingering oil away. Don’t scrub unless you want to cause more irritation.
Once you remove the washcloth, feel your face to see if the skin is tight. If so, add a small amount of oil to your wet skin and blend it in. No other moisturizer should be needed, so your skin is cleansed and ready to go!
For most people, following the oil cleanse method twice a week is ideal because it leaves their skin soft without drying it out. Feel free to experiment with timing to find the routine that works best for you.
What you need to know before starting
For some people the oil cleanse method is an instant success on the first attempt, but others need extra practice to fully figure out how to make it work for them. You can follow these tips to learn what works best for your own skin and try some changes along the way.
- The results can be slow. An oil cleanse won’t transform your skin overnight, and some people actually find that their skin gets worse for several weeks through an ‘adjustment period’ before the overall results start to sink in. If your skin starts to feel greasier than before, mix up your oil blend mixture and keep trying. The results will be worth it!
- Quality matters. Your skin is your body’s largest organ and an incredibly porous structure. Treat it right by investing in top quality ingredients and the benefits to your body will be more than skin deep.
- Get ready to do some laundry. The oil cleanse method is an easy and effective way to keep your face clean, but it requires plenty of washcloths. Be prepared to run an extra load or two to keep up.
- It’s a time investment. Sure it’s easy to quickly wash your face with soap every night, but to get the results of the oil cleanse method you can’t rush the routine. The longer you massage the oil into your face the better, so be prepared to spend some quality time in front of the bathroom mirror.
In summary
As an all-natural way to cleanse your skin, the oil cleanse method is an easy way to rid your body of impurities and get rid of nasty breakouts. Just a few weeks of experimenting with the oil cleanse method will be enough to make you never turn back to harsh chemical-laden cosmetic products again!