Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Oil cleansing-Day I'm not going to try to count anymore.




Last weekend I went to Victoria B.C. and in walking around the city exploring, we suddenly came upon this beautiful cathedral.  It was sunday morning, and it looked like there was probably service going on, so we didn't go in.  But the sun was rising behind it, and I couldn't help but be the typical tourist and stop in the middle of the street to take a few pictures.  I love stained glass windows, and I can only imagine what this one looks like when the sun is on the other side of the sky, shining straight through it.  What does this have to do with my skin?  Not much.  I'm not going to try to say my skin is a stained glass window just waiting for the sun to be in the right position in the sky to start glowing.  However, there is something about this picture.  The sun just out of reach.  The old building permanently dirty from too much rain, and age.  Even the filter I gave it that caused some dark spots.  Its still beautiful with all those things.  Its still lovingly cared for by the people who call it their own.  

I once had someone tell me my acne, and the scars that came along with it, gave my face more character and they liked it that way.  At the time I thought they were just being nice.  I don't know how it even came up.  I'm not the type to put myself down in front of others, because its typically interpreted as fishing for complements (not to mention unhealthy for my mental well being).  Sometimes, though, I slip up and say things that are just truths to me.  I say them as facts, feeling nothing about them (I have, after all, lived with these scars for quite some time, until I realize too late that it won't be taken that way.  I think thats what happened here, and thats why I assumed the person was just being polite and giving me the supposedly fished for complement.  It's something that I've thought a lot about since then though.  I don't necessarily have to hate my skin because its not perfect.  Its my skin, and its not going to change, and I don't really want it to look like plaster or like the photoshopped images we've all been trained to strive for.  I guess my point here is that I'm trying to accept the way I look more as I get older.  These scars aren't going away whether my acne does or not.  In fact they'll probably only get worse when they're deepened by lines.  I would like avoid getting any more, but I think I can be okay with the ones I have too.  I'm never going to have perfect porcelain skin, and possibly never even clear skin.  I could also say that I will never look average.  I'll never fit into someone else's box of expectations.  Isn't this something I always strive for?  I don't like things that are overly popular, and once everyone else starts doing it, thats typically when I stop.  So why can't this apply to my skin too.  I know, I know, in reality I can apply it to everything and in the end its just learning to be happy with who I am now.  I've tried working from the inside out though, so maybe this time I'll just start with my skin.

Monday I washed my face with oil.  I was especially tired, but managed to get through the whole process without cutting corners.  I'm actually breaking out slightly, so that was my motivation not to hurry through it or skip anything.  There's not really anything new to report about the actual washing part.  It continues to take a long time to get all the oil off, no matter how hot I make the water.  I have gotten better at getting it off though, and I feel like I'm getting faster out of having something of a process.  I don't feel like my face is any less oily than it ever has been at this point.  I don't know if its because I don't do it every day, or maybe because I still moisturize on days that I don't do it, or maybe its still just too early to tell.  I still like the texture of my skin right now.  It doesn't seem so clogged and unhealthy looking.  The breakout I am having is miles away from being as bad as the last one that's still healing.  I do have a spot on my neck that has gotten pretty bad, but I don't remember if it was there before and just got more irritated or if its new.  

I think part of the breakout problem is that I didn't take my Clarisonic with me, so on the days that I would normally be exfoliating, I really only had towels to use.  The other things that could have contributed were, being in a city with more pollution than my house in the country, a different climate, limited options for food (since apparently only rich people eat out in Victoria), and more people around causing me to have more stress.  

It seems a little better now that I'm home and back on the rest of my routine, but the breakout hasn't stopped yet so we'll see how far it goes.  It's good to see that the process I set up for myself was a good one though.  Sadly, while I remembered to figure out a way to take the oil with me, I completely forgot to grab the Clarisonic and blue light for the other days.  I guess I need to remember that, while they aren't new, they are still part of this experiment and apparently, shouldn't be left out.  

1 comment:

  1. This post is it's own stained glass window...beautiful. I'm speechless.

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