Natural Acne Treatment And Skin Care

As I packed my suitcase to leave for Canada a couple of months ago, I was devastated when my yoga mat didn’t fit into my suitcase. Well, actually it probably would have fit, but I was already way overweight with the luggage allowance so unfortunately my yoga mat had to stay at home.

So I did yoga on the bare sand in Fiji, yoga on a towel in our hotel room in Waikiki, and yoga on the carpet of our apartment in Vancouver. Fortunately I’ve been staying with family in Toronto who’s house came equipped with yoga mats, but on Monday I’ll be on the road again and I do not want to do yoga on a slippery towel.

If you’re wondering what’s with this obsession I have with yoga and what the heck does it have to do with skin care, well …yoga is pretty much the answer to everything [including clearing acne] and apart from all the other benefits that I get from doing as much yoga as I can, I do notice an improvement in my skin when I follow a disciplined yoga practice.

The hunt

So a yoga mat should be easy peasy to buy right? Well you’d think so. But of course I started thinking about the environment, and uncessesary waste, and how buying another yoga mat is just contributing to land fill. So then I found these ‘eko’ mats. Yoga mats that are made out of recyclable and biodegradable material. What a perfect yoga mat to buy, and how very yogini of me.

However, the problem with these eko mats unfortunately are the price. To save the environment it’s going to cost me a bit of money. A regular yoga mat costs around CA$30, but a environmentally friendly mat will cost around CA$50. I’m a struggling traveller at the moment so I don’t really have that extra $20 to spend! Continue reading →

I typically have very dry skin, so you can imagine my horror when the weather in Toronto turned steaming hot and humid (literally overnight), and the skin on my face turned into a greasy mess.

It wasn’t so much that my entire face went oily, it was more the T-Zone area. If you’re not sure where the T-Zone is on your face, here is a pretty diagram I’ve made for you. Just imagine a T shape on your face. The top part of the T is your forehead, and the bottom is a line drawn down your nose and chin.

And it wasn’t just oily skin either, I broke out with some small pimples, with two on my nose, one on my chin and a small scattering on my forehead. Not a pretty site and very unfortunate after I’d only recently be celebrating completely clear skin.

I don’t think I helped matters much either by using my ‘usual’ amount of moisturizer on the first humid morning. I slathered on a decent amount of my Olay moisturizer which my skin usually needs in the cold and dry weather. On this very humid day it just made my skin greasy and shiny. So much so that my house mate even made a comment at how greasy my face was looking! Eww.

So the first thing I knew I needed to do was to use less moisturizer. In fact, I’m of the belief that if your skin is oily or you feel as though you don’t need any moisturizer, then why bother even putting it on. I’m sure there are beauty therapists out there groaning and shaking their heads, but I’m positive that moisturizers only work on the top layers of the skin, so they’re more for aesthetics and making your skin feel better rather than being a ‘cure all’. So if you already have plenty of natural moisture on your skin, why bother?

As soon as I started using significantly less moisturizer, and leaving my forehead out completely, my skin began to recover. I also used my Paula’s Choice 2% BHA once a day (at night), and used my Miessence Purifying Blemish gel on the small spots that I had. It took about a week for the blotchiness and pimples to go away, but they did! And now I’m happily pimple free again.

So for those of you with oily skin or oily t-zones, consider perhaps how much moisturizer you’re using on your skin. If it’s making your skin feel oilier or greasier then do you think you’d be better off with no moisturizer at all?

Here’s a video I recorded about my oily T-Zone:

Fran

Price: $19.99
Rating:
Website: Clear Skin Guidebook

FINALLY an acne treatment guide that I actually agree with. Although the author of the Clear Skin Guidebook has written in an ‘I’m talking to adult women with acne’ conversational tone, the 30 day ‘clear skin plan’ outlined in the guide will work for everyone (boys, girls, teenagers, adults …if you’ve got acne then you will benefit from this guidebook). It may not work-work, as in completely clear your severe acne, but it will very possibly completely clear mild to moderate acne, or at the very least reduce the amount of active inflammations you’re getting, and quieten down the redness and irritation of your skin.

I’m usually very wary when I purchase a new product like this because I know for a fact that the Internet is chocked full of crappy eBooks that you literally have to hunt through to find the ‘gold’. Well, with this download I did find a good one. Perhaps not quite gold but close enough to it.

What I love the most about this guide is how it’s written by somebody that has suffered from acne over a long period of time, and by somebody who knows what they’re talking about. Actually, she’s just like me …although she’s also a Beauty Editor (which I’m not) and a naturopath (which I’m not either). Okay, we’re kinda similar.

The beginning of the guide goes into great detail about what acne actually is, how it’s formed and why we get it. I thought I knew all of this stuff already and would find it incredibly boring, but she’s written in such a friendly conversational tone that it actually made the sciencey stuff a little interesting. I also learnt quite a few new things when I thought I knew just about everything acne-related already. I even found myself jotting down notes not only for inspiration for my blog, but also things that I could apply to my own skin care routine and acne treatment.

The 30 day clear skin plan

The guidebook recommends a 30 day ‘clear skin plan’ which is basically a combination of a skin care routine, diet modification and supplements. I love a guide that follows my line of thinking Continue reading →

You Canadians are nuts for living here. Last week I was complaining about the cold weather, cowering inside the heated house wearing 3 pairs of socks and 2 sweaters. This week I’m complaining about the heat and humidity, yet again cowering inside the air conditioned house, or shops and cafes.

Yes, the temperature in Toronto, Canada has climbed by about 20 degrees celsius literally overnight. Madness! But, I can’t complain too much because I am a summer girl and I do love the warmth.

However, it has not been that great on my skin. Strangely, when I travelled from Brisbane to Fiji (from kind of dry to very humid), my skin loved it. That was when my skin finally started to clear to 100%. This time around my skin has kicked up a bit of a fuss! Mind you, the air has gone from extremely dry to extremely humid so of course it’s natural for my skin to have a little bit of a panic attack.

When we were initially hit by this intense humidity, the first mistake I made was to use the usual amount of facial moisturizer in the morning. I’ve been using one and a half pumps of my Olay moisturizer and it’s still only just been moisturizing enough. So I used the same amount this humid morning and regretted it! My face felt all sticky and greasy and remained that way for the rest of the day. My house mate even commented, saying “Eww, your face is all greasy and shiny today”. Grr. Continue reading →

Okay, so this post IS about natural bubble baths, but I found this not-so-natural product on the net from Me!Bath that I just had to show you first because it looks yummy enough to eat. It’s a bubble bath bomb, that looks exactly like ice cream!!! This is the most fabulous product I’ve seen in a long time.

I can’t believe this is not ice cream. I think I’d have to stop myself from taking a bite.

So this isn’t a natural product but I couldn’t find the ingredients listed anywhere so I can’t tell you exactly how bad it is. From what I’ve read so far though, it doesn’t seem that bad. It even contains jojoba oil, soybean (apparently quite hydrating to the skin) and Epson salts.

I love how pretty this is so much that I think it would be a fantastic birthday or Christmas present. Hmmm, friends and family, guess what you’re getting for your next birthday!

However, if you’re concerned about chemicals added to bubble baths and you don’t mind something that’s not quite as pretty, there are plenty of options available for toxic-free bubble baths.

If you remember my last post on chocolate, I talked about how I lay in the bath in our hotel in Vancouver reading a chickflik and eating chocolate truffles (HEAVEN!). What I didn’t tell you was that I had filled the bath with a natural bubble bath.

I’d like to say it was as good as the ‘real thing’, but unfortunately the bubbles were very weak. I definitely did not get that Pretty Woman bubble bath satisfaction. But I did have peace of mind knowing that I was enjoying a bubble bath without putting any chemicals or toxins into my body. I also enjoyed the gorgeous aromatherapy smell that the bubbles gave the bath water.

This particular bubble bath that I used (the one in the picture) was really cheap - only about CA$2.50 and I purchased it from Capers Whole Foods Store in Vancouver. I’ve since looked around on the net and found many other brands of natural bubble baths available. So if you enjoy a soak ever now and again have a look around next time you’re in your local health or whole foods store and I’m sure you’ll find a couple of great options.

Happy soaking,

Fran