A Minimalist Skincare Regime

Recently I wrote about how my spending on beauty products had gotten out of control in the first half of the year and so I had resolved to cut back for a month or 2. I’d like to be able to say that I did exactly that, but as usual I’m a master at inventing reasons to shop and so having decided that I wanted to make a move towards using more natural, homemade skincare I started to explore the oil cleansing method. I did a lot of research into the many oils available and decided to purchase some passion fruit seed oil and some hazelnut oil, as these seemed to be good oils for my skin type and at only £5 total I figured if they didn’t work out I hadn’t wasted too much money. Around the same time, I also ran out of facial sunscreen, and after some research into natural sunscreens I purchased some Kimberly Sayer Ultra Light Moisturiser with SPF30 (costing £25.80 for 120ml). So after a shaky start, I’m now committed to no more spending until the end of this month when I plan to purchase some ingredients to make my own toner. I’ve also decided that for the rest of the year I won’t be buying any more skincare products, apart from the raw ingredients needed to make my own products.

As a kick start to this little shopping ban and move towards homemade skincare, for the last 2 weeks I’ve been conducting a minimalist beauty experiment. So my current routine is:

Morning and Evening - cleanse with Passion fruit seed/Hazelnut cleansing oil, remove with a washcloth. Follow with toner.

Morning – use a natural sunscreen, evening – apply a few drops of Passion fruit seed oil.

Once a week I use a Salicylic Acid Toner.

I’m also using a few drops of Hazelnut oil as a hair oil.

To put this in context, my previous skincare routine involved the following: double cleansing using a cream cleanser, and a foaming face wash with my Clarisonic, then following with 2 types of toner (hydrating, then exfoliating), a serum, eye cream and moisturiser, sunscreen for day time, weekly exfoliating peels and weekly face masks.

It wasn't always this way, as for most of my life I'd been content to cleanse and moisturise, and always used a sunscreen. However, at the beginning of this year I started reading articles on the Paula Begoun site and reading a lot of skincare blogs and it led me to question my existing routine. I justified it by telling myself that other people had similar routines and that if it meant having great skin then it was worth it, but I’m horrified to write this all down! Needless to say, I didn’t see any improvement in my skin whatsoever, and at times by skin was actually slightly worse!

I've now been following this routine for around 2 weeks and my skin looks good, with no spots or red patches. I wouldn't say there has been a massive improvement but it feels soft and looks quite radiant which is enough for me. I'd love to hear about other peoples skincare routines and if anyone else is interested in natural skincare?

V xx