Food on my face

Yesterday I stumbled across a thread on Mumsnet that had me hooked for hours (again). Recent virus woes and work stresses have cause a rather unattractive outbreak of eczema on my face, in particular my eyelids. Nothing seemed to be working, not even smothering my eyelids with vaseline every night in an attempt to rehydrate the tired, fragile skin.

Every night I would remove my make-up, trying to be a gentle as possible. Trying different make-up removers, just water and even baby oil. But the result was always the same. Red, angry eyelids that itched like mad. And of course itching them just inflamed them more until I looked like I'd been repeatedly punched. In both eyes.

But yet again, Mumsnet came to the rescue!

Those lovely mumsnetters yesterday educated me on the mysteries of the Oil Cleanse Method. Basically, you smother a mixture of almond oil (or another oil such as olive oil, sunflower oil etc) and castor oil over your face, give it a good massage and then wipe off with a muslin cloth soaked in hot water.

So, being the sheep that I am, I ran off to the nearest health food shop at lunchtime and purchased the necessary ingredients for this miraculous skin care regimen.

I couldn't wait for bedtime to roll round.

I decanted some of the almond oil into a small spray bottle and mixed it with some of the castor oil (I used two-thirds almond oil to one-third castor oil), scraped my hair into an attractive ponytail and got to work. The oil mixture rapidly dissolved my eye make-up and I swear my skin sighed in delight. I used a quarter of an old (clean) muslin cloth soaked in hot water to remove it and...wow. My skin felt lovely. My eyelids didn't start itching. Not a srcrap of make-up was left on my skin (not that I wear a lot of make-up admittedly, but waterproof mascara can be a bitch to remove sometimes).

This morning, my skin still felt lovely. All the horrid dry, flaky patches around my nose (left over from a streaming cold  at the weekend) had disappeared and the redness across my eyelids had definitely faded.

So I can't wait to see what improvements the next couple of oil cleanse sessions bring! I need to read up on it a bit more as well. In my usual sheep fashion I simply skimmed over the relevant information, filed the basic principles and bashed on. But I have a sneaking suspicion I may have missed a step...I think there should be some steam action to open the pores in there somewhere...hmm.

If you want to read up some more, Crunchy Betty had some great information on her website. I'm almost tempted to try her No 'poo lark as well...
I'll be knitting my own lentils next.