Drugstore.com coupon code: Trying DIY Skincare

So, due to my initial frustration with trying to find good natural makeup options that were safe for acne prone skin…

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I decided to start going down the path of DIY makeup and skin care in order to make something that satisfied all my requirements.

So I ordered a whole shwackload of ingredients and set to work messing around in the cosmetic kitchen for the first time ever!

My first haul of ingredients… zinc oxide, iron oxides, shea butter, argan oil, vitamin e oil, niacinimide, and a variety of essential oils

In the meantime, luckily I did end up finding some good pre-made makeup options to recommend. This was a relief since

• a. I knew it might take me a while to hit on a winner DIY recipe, and
• b. I knew that DIY isn’t going to be everyone’s bag

So far, I have tried a tinted moisturizer sunscreen, a foundation, a concealer, and a moisturizer concoction.

I’ve honestly been having so much fun! I can’t believe how not-difficult it is to make something wearable.

Despite that, I haven’t quite hit on my absolute winner recipes yet.

The tinted moisturizer sunscreen looked pretty good, but it also felt very oily and I started worrying the shea butter I used (despite being 0 comedogenic rating) would be too heavy for acne prone skin.

My concealer was almost a winner, but felt too drying around my eyes.

So I’m still going to work on that stuff, but my favourite thing so far has been my moisturizer concoction.

So far it contains argan oil, aloe vera, a little vitamin e oil, niacinimide (Vitamin B3) powder, and a variety of essential oils (currently lavender, frankincense, myrhh, and lemongrass… or maybe ylang ylang too, I can’t remember!)

I am really really loving the idea of just making the PERFECT moisturizer with no chemical fillers; only really healing, nourishing anti-acne and anti-aging ingredients.

I see myself refining this and continually adding and subtracting things until it’s just as nourishing as it can possibly be.

I’m very excited about it!

I Was Never That Into External Skin Care, But I’m Getting Into It…

If you’ve been following me for a long time, you’ll know that I tend to only recommend very simple external skin care ingredients.

Washing with honey. Moisturizing with one ingredient: either jojoba oil or another oil of choice.

That’s what I used to do, and then I started doing ‘the caveman regimen‘ for several years…

This basically means that you just don’t do anything to your skin at all. You don’t wash it, you don’t use any products. You just let nature do it all.

(well, except I do use sunscreen when I’m going to be in the sun for a while – PS I just started using this one for my face and love it.. the ingredients are awesome)

I found that just letting go of all that stuff and going “caveman” was very good for my mental wellbeing… just to stop looking in the mirror so much and disassociate with acne…

It didn’t seem to cause me to get more acne, and I loved the freedom of it. So I stuck with it.

But also…

I was always under the acne philosophy that external skin care could really only do so much.

I believed that most of us are making our acne worse with the products that we use, and the over-washing we’re doing, and the picking and popping…. stripping away all our natural oils and defences, causing all kinds of irritation and inflammation in the process.

So I was always of the opinion that if you got rid of all that stuff… if you were nice to your skin, stopped picking and popping, used only very simple natural things to wash and moisturize, or just did nothing at all ala caveman style …. well then you were basically doing all you could do!

Once you’ve removed the outside issues that could be making things worse, then it was all lifestyle from there.

I believed that what was going on internally was far more important to what your skin looked like than anything you could do for it on the outside.

But, I’m starting to come around and realize that your skin can definitely be nourished from both the inside and the outside!

What happens on the inside is incredibly important to clear skin, and eliminating irritation and damage on the outside is incredibly important too…. but it doesn’t have to stop there!

You can also use the advantage of healing, nourishing ingredients on the outside too to repair your skin and get it functioning properly and looking tip top.

What Sparked This Change?

Well I know I’ve mentioned Melissa Armstrong a whole bunch, but she’s honestly taught me so much.

She is a completely natural esthetician with her own clinic in Illinois, and from what I know, she gets incredible results for her clients’ skin.

Yet her whole strategy focuses on two main things: external natural skin care, and emotional healing.

While of course I encompass these things in my teachings, I have always leaned a little more towards diet and supplements.

So it got me interested, certainly, in what was possible with nourishing external ingredients.