namely oils

After looking at the tons of barely used stuff crowding my toiletries shelf in the bathroom, my vanity table and my cupboards, I’ve decided to stop buying crap, create less waste and hopefully save some money.

My current obsession is with DIY skincare, namely oils; olive, coconut, tea tree, castor, and the newest member to my happy family – jojoba.

I bought the coconut oil last year or so and I’ve great success with coconut oil as a conditioner. The key to avoid having greasy smelly (Not a problem if you like the smell of coconut – I don’t) hair is to use it as a pre-shampoo conditioner. All I have to do is to soak my hair in coconut oil for as long as I can tolerate it before shampooing it away. As it’s time intensive and I don’t like to plan my showers in advance, I do this less often than I should. On days when I’m too tired to wait an hour before showering, I still use regular hair conditioners after shampooing to smooth out my hair. I’ve also experimented with applying coconut/olive/jojoba oil in minute amounts when my hair’s damp for the times where I’m too lazy/in a rush to mess around with regular hair conditioners. This works great in a pinch but it gets disgusting after a day. As I don’t seem to be able to shampoo my hair daily (scary amounts of hair falls out + really dry hair) that can be a problem. Once in a while, I also use a clarifying shampoo to get any leftover gunk out. Neutrogena makes one that leaves my hair squeaky clean but not extremely tangled.

I bought tea-tree oil (TTO) after I got what seemed to be my very first cystic zit of my 20s in April. To be totally honest, I probably caused it by trying to squeeze the life out of a zit. What I ended up with was a large throbbing zit which strangely resembled Australia. TTO dried up zit Australia eventually but I had a problem with extremely dry skin where the zit was, so much so that Australia formed a hard shell which then fell off. I tried TTO with my current zit (not cystic, doesn’t throb but stubborn as hell) which I’ve named New Zealand and the same thing happened. I think I’m going to mix the TTO with some other oils the next time before applying it to any zits.

My favorite thing to do these days is experimenting with/using the oil cleansing method (OCM). I tried it with coconut oil only (as it was the only oil on my vanity then) and then olive oil only (after bringing some up from the kitchen). After reading up on the things castor oil can supposedly do, I decided to buy castor oil off Ebay as I couldn’t find any here. The mix seems to be working fine, not a big difference from using coconut/olive oil alone. Since the extra virgin olive oil is pretty thick and castor oil is like a heavy syrup, the mix feels a bit scary, to be honest. However, I haven’t had any outbreaks yet, although I’m expecting one during my adjustment period to OCM. What’s fascinating about OCM is how you can feel gritty stuff coming out as you massage the oil in. Apparently they’re the comedones from the clogged pores.

I had problems finding a good moisturizer without any SPF in a bottle for night. I need it to be in a bottle as I’m kinda paranoid about accidentally contaminating stuff that’s in a jar. Besides, bottles fit better into my toiletries bag. Finally I decided to buy jojoba oil since it’s also multi-purposeful – OCM! Hair conditioner! Skin moisturizer! OK, so while the money-saving aspect of my plan is not working out yet since I bought all the different oils, the best thing about oils is that they’re multi-purpose. If they don’t work out eventually, I guess I can dump it into an unwanted shampoo/conditioner.

Given that I’ve sworn off facial scrubs which contain non-biodegradable scrubby bits, I think perhaps the next thing I’ll try is a baking soda/sugar facial scrub, that shouldn’t be too difficult.

The next change I want to make is to reduce the huge amount of waste generated by periods. I have extra absorbent tampons, regular ones, sanitary pads and liners. It’s ridiculous! I want to save money to buy a menstrual cup so I can eventually stop relying on these wasteful products. Perhaps if the gynae recommends going on the Pill to control my PMS I can stop/reduce my periods! Speaking of which, I should really get off my ass and book an appointment because my PMS is getting really out of control, I’ve to take part in a PMS lottery every month and because I’m the only participant I end up with all the prizes – gastrics! bloat! cold! peeling skin! wild mood swings! severe backaches! headaches! fatigue! cramps (which can begin as early as a week before my period)! constipation! diarrhoea!

~ by marycherry on 14 May, 2008.