I’ve tried to contain it,
but we’re about 3 weeks in and here they come: literary references!
I was watching Harry Potter
and the Half Blood Prince on the weekend (in the scene where Harry pretends to
put Felix Felicis in Ron’s drink before a Quidditch match, my sister
hilariously asked me if they were about to play rugby - although considering
the Springbok’s performance this weekend, they could have used a little “Weasly
is our king” and some potion magic).
Yes, I was watching the
movie this weekend and I had a stroke of inspiration while watching the scene
where Harry and Ron are lying in their beds and they discuss what Ginny sees in
Dean. Harry’s response is the best: he
sayssomething like “I suppose she has nice skin”. Blah
blah blah in between and then Ron says “Hermione has nice skin”. (You can watch the clip here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrBFoo5PJL8)
Now, I fully recognise that
this is a) fictional and b) the two most oblivious fictional characters ever
created, but they have a point. Good
skin is a pretty good quality to have, and for me, it’s the very foundation of
a good makeup routine. Why? Let me give you a bit of background.
My first pimple appeared in
Grade 7. I was 12 years old. My skin type: oily enough to join OPEC. It was absolutely horrific. My face would look wet almost
permanently. So, obviously one pimple
sprouted into two. Two into four. Four into my face. All through high school, my skin was
terrible. I got into the habit of
picking and well, you can imagine just how much worse it actually was. I first tried a tetracycline antibiotic that
made my physically ill right after taking it.
It just didn’t work. Finally, my
mother decided to let me take Roaccutane and the products you would get with it
(like Differin, Ultrabase, Cetaphil, etc).
My skin cleared, but was really textured and it was obviously scarred
from years of picking.
I started my first job a
week before my 18th birthday.
A few months later, with my own little salary, I went and bought
Clinique 3 Step. I know I talk about
Clinique a lot, but I cannot describe how revolutionary their products were for
me 7 years ago. It was like I got a
brand new skin. I also learnt that my
skin had matured (and changed possibly from the Roaccutane) and was now
Dry/Combination, which meant that I was using oily skin products that was just
causing my skin to get super dry and then produce huge amounts of sebum, that
would block my pores and texturise my skin even more. Lovely.
My skin remained mostly
clear, but partially textured, particularly along my jawline and my forehead
(fivehead).
Then last year, I turned
25. Half a century. Maybe it was me, but I started noticing some
fine lines on my forehead (I don’t really have a friendly face, I’m not that
surprised). Devastated, I started
researching Botox clinics in Johannesburg.
Broke as, I started again looking for natural remedies. It was around this time that I started using
Bio-Oil. I’ve already mentioned how much
I love Bio-Oil, but I will never get tired of singing its praises. My lines have somewhat faded out (since I’m not
hitting them with a toxin, they’re never going to be completely gone) and I’ve
come to accept that Botox can only happen when I stop spending money on heaps
of makeup every month or get a very large, disproportionate increase in my
salary. So not in the near future.
This year, however, I made
an amazing discovery in terms of skin texture.
In June, Women’s Health included a full-size Lipidol Overnight Oil in
their issue. I used only a few drops all
over my face and neck throughout winter and my skin smoothed out
completely. Now, how can I be sure it
was the Lipidol? So coming out of
winter, being super dry and all, I started getting oily during the day. So I stopped using the oil at night. BOOM! Texture! So, now I’m using it again and my skin is
again smoothing out, along with some help from my favourite mask, Freeman
Beauty’s Diamond Mineral Mask from Dischem.
They’re hard to find, so I always buy the whole row when I do find them.
So, let me explain my daily
routine.
In the mornings, I take a
bath where I wash my face with Clinique Liquid Cleanser (I’m skin type 2). On Wednesdays and Sundays, I use Clinique 7
Day Scrub. When I get out, I tone. Then I use Clinique Superdefensive Eye cream
with SPF20 and then I moisturise with Clinique Dramatically Different. I let that absorb for a while and then I use
Clinique Superdefensive Moisturiser SPF20.
I only use the tiniest amounts of each, so I don’t over-moisturise.
In the evenings, I wash my
face in the basin with warm water and a few drops of Bio-Oil. I use the same 3 step care from
Clinique. I then use a few drops of
Lipidol Overnight Oil that I massage all over my face and down my neck. Lightly massaging from your temples down your
jawline and then down your neck will help your lymph nodes flush out the toxins
in your skin.
Once a week or so, I may use
a face mask. My two favourites are, as
I’ve previously mentioned, Freeman Beauty Diamond Mineral Mask and Sorbet
Firming sheet mask.
I still battle with
breakouts under my jaw (mostly on my left side?). I’ve noticed that I only really get them when
I use full-coverage foundations, like Clinique Beyond Perfect 2-in-1
foundation. I mean, that stuff is gold
in terms of a second skin, but my skin disagrees with it completely. I literally feel the pimples emerging while
I’m wearing it. If I apply a second
layer of a lighter foundation, I also find that it causes breakouts, so
basically I try to keep my skin in the best condition possible so that a
full-coverage foundation is hardly necessary.
I think the worst part of
having such bad skin for most of your teenage years is that you are more likely
to find stuff wrong with it when there isn’t.
I’ve had several occasions where I’ve had a small break out under my jaw
and I think “Get the Roaccutane!” On
Saturday, I was driving with Julian and I’d only applied some mattifying
translucent powder to my skin because we were training later that day, and
Julian turned to me in the car and told me that my makeup looked really nice. I thought he was joking at first (because I
know he’s more of a casual-look guy when it comes to makeup), but when I told
him that I didn’t have anything on, he insisted that I was lying. I realised that I’d become so focused on
perfect skin that the three little pimples under my jaw were obscuring my
vision of the rest of my skin, that was in such good condition.
The truth is, you can follow
all the rules for good skin, but at the end of the day, some things are beyond
our control. I firmly believe that no
amount of scrubbing my skin would have prevented the severe case of acne I
had. Oil plus hormones plus poor skin
habits are bound to end up like that. I
learnt the hard way, so these are my fundamental skincare rules.
Thanks for coming back to my
page. I try to post every Monday and
Wednesday, but Monday seemed to slip right through my fingers. I could have posted last night, but honestly,
I was just obeying rule #11. Also, sleep
is probably one of my favourite activities in the world. I’m one of those people who don’t surface
until nearly lunch time on the weekend if I have nothing to do.
Love and Light ♡♡♡