I won’t lie to you: I spend maybe 10 minutes on my skincare, haircare, and make up routine every day. And I wasn’t blessed with good skin. In fact, my skin is actually pretty horrible. I have acne-prone combination skin — my forehead and skin was always super oily, whereas no matter what, the skin on my nose and cheeks and under my eyes will be so dry, it flakes under any make up. I have genetically large pores as well, which is really a recipe for disaster. But I’ve found a few little solutions to keeping my skin looking good, even when every genetic factor is apparently against me.
Freeman Cucumber Facial Peel-Off Mask – 6 oz, $3.35 from Amazon
The answer is masks. I used to be all about store-bought masks, but I eventually found that they either helped the skin on my forehead and chin, but continued to dry out the skin on my cheeks. Or they would help the skin on my cheeks and turn my forehead into the Gulf Coast after the BP oil spill. Plus, they tend to be wicked expensive. They don’t work for me personally – although a lot of them are great for a quick fix.
I started researching homemade masks and settled on a few favorites. These are great because they are usually things most of us already have sitting around the house and they take about 30 seconds to mix up.
When I’m having a break out, I dissolve one aspirin in a little of water and combine with a teaspoon of honey. I smear this over my chin and forehead and let sit for only 10 minutes. Seriously, only 10. This reduces the redness in my skin and any breakouts. (However, if you leave it on too long, it can irritate your skin, so be careful.)
If my skin is being ridiculously stubbornly dry, I will mash about half an avocado with a bit of honey and smear it across only the dry areas of my face. I let it sit for about 10 minutes and then rinse. While you’re waiting feel free to slap the other half of the avocado on a piece of toast and munch away. So it’s a mask and a snack at once.
If these two don’t sound like they’re for you, try some homemade pore strips, an egg white mask or a milk and honey mask.
Lovelies, what do you do for stubborn skin? Do you have any lazy tips for girls with skin problems?
guest
I have very mild breakouts and aspirin etc will not even work for me. This definitely won’t work for “stubborn” skin. Get to the dermatologist or try glycolic acid, benzoyl peroxide, etc.
daffodil / 1601 posts
99% of the time my skin freaks out due to these factors: water hardness, diet, water intake, and menstrual cycle.
Right now my water intake and water hardness is perfectly fine but due to my mom’s limited and disgustingly nutrition-defient food supply my skin is freaking the **** out. My skin does not thrive on a diet of dry Cheerios and Chicken Noodle soup. Once I get back to school I can expect my diet to return to normal but I can also expect the pH and hardness of my water to drastically increase. This means I use a homemade toner designed to break down mineral scum on my face.
Generally when my skin breaks out I chill out. Most people become compelled to use more products. You really don’t need to wash your face twice a day with a cleanser. I mean, where the heck did your face go while you were sleeping? No where. Therefore many people can get away with and benefit from washing their face in the morning with just warm water or with something simple like honey or oatmeal. I use a cleanser at night only and it’s either soap free or made with an oil based soap, even then there isn’t enough in it to make it foam. None of that SLS **** comes anywhere near my skin.
guest
I suppose I shall need two masks then for now. My forehead literally peels after every shower, the apples of my cheeks feel rough without frequent exfoliation, and my chin/rest of my cheeks break out ridiculously from stress/menstruation/being inside most of the day.
rose / 937 posts
I didn’t find masks to be any beneficial to my skin, nor were they really harmful to it either. Just kind of an unnecessary step.
My “lazy tip” I guess is just to stop bombarding your face with product after product. Find the most basic basics you can find, stick to it, and don’t stray from it to try new things out if your skin is responding well. At most, one cleanser and one moisturizer is really the crux of the routine and will be the most important to solidify. And then for optional materials, a makeup remover (if the cleanser alone doesn’t work or cannot be used on certain areas) and perhaps a toner if desired, and then you can use a mask every now and then if you’d like. The gentler you are, the better your skin will look at feel.
I don’t actually follow this, though. I follow the “simple is better” mentality, but I do it in the most lazy way: I no longer use any skincare products. My once shiny and slimy face now just has a bit of a glow to it, I no longer have acne (although I still get pimples now that my skin has become acne-prone), I no longer experience serious sensitivity issues, my skin tone is more even, my pores are smaller, my skin is thicker, my face no longer accumulates dead skin cells… other than the scarring and red marks, as well as the flaking that keeps getting better as time progresses, my skin looks fantastic. I don’t think many people would believe that only one year ago I had moderate to severe acne. I’m hoping my flaking clears up in the next few months though, but since my body took over half a year to shed itself of flaking when I went water-only, I’m not surprised my face is still shedding the flakes 7 months in. I had really annoying flesh bumps too on my forehead, and they are almost gone now that I stopped scratching them out this Christmas break.
guest
I have a very similar type of skin – Oily nose and forehead, dry cheeks, acne-prone… One thing that’s helped dramatically is to just stop using so much stuff. I clean my face well at night with a cream cleanser and Olay’s rotating skin brush to get all the makeup off my face, and moisturize before bed. In the morning, I find just splashing cold water on my face and dabbing the oil-prone areas with witch hazel does the trick… I don’t like to wash my face more than once a day; I think that may have been one of the contributing factors to my acne problems. When I do get a pimple, I just resist all urges to pick and pop it, and wait until it’s absolutely ready to be popped with a sterilized pin, or it’ll just kind of dry up and go away without coming to a huge yellow head. I do love those peel-off masks though occasionally.
@ashleynicole - Same here! Last New Years’ Eve I had gotten this terrible breakout on my cheeks that was the beginning of a year of crappy skin. My first reaction was to start using homemade scrubs and masks and stuff, but none of it really helped… The past two or three months I’ve pared down my skin care routine to just the very basics and changing my pillow cases daily and not touching my face with my hands or phone or anything. And even though the scars are still there, it feels smooth all over for the first time in over a year. I’d actually be afraid to try anything else now, because it seems to have calmed down now that I’m doing a lot less to it.
guest
For my stubborn skin I usually (2 times per week) make a mask of honey and cinnamon and let it sit for 15 minutes on my face (it might irritate your skin, so try out on your arm before your face). I also use Dr. Murad clarifying cleanser and skin perfection. For the dry parts on my skin I use BRTC Blemish Serum(<Definitely recommended) or Sudocrem. Don’t use oil-based make up, but water-based if you’ve a oily skin.
rose / 937 posts
@blackspiders@xanga - That’s so great to hear! Although I do recommend to not get paranoid with the face contact. I touch my face all the time unless my hands feel/look too dirty, and it doesn’t cause me to break out unless i had something on my hands. And even then it’s just a small pimple or whitehead. I had also tried the whole homemade DIY approach, which was just a total wreck for my skin
My cheeks are all scarred now, but they are quite shallow so they are only obvious in certain angles or lighting conditions. The red marks are waht bother me even more because I don’t wear foundation to cover it up. But I was looking at pictures of my progress, and seeing my face in August compared to yesterday, holy crap. It’s a huge difference! Even with the webcam picture versus the clear digi cam pictures I now take, you can clearly see that it has improved tremendously. Which definitely has helped me to feel better about the condition of my skin.
guest
lol, 10 minutes…..
I spend like 2 hours (it takes a while to layer on skincare and makeup)
I use to have problematic acne-prone skin too, until I was prescribed tazorac, a topical retinol (vitamin A derivative) that sheds the top layer of skin for constant cell renewal, read: great for acne, discoloration and wrinkles.
THat’s really my “lazy tip”. I just smear on tazorac, and raw shea butter and I’m good to go for the night.
In the morning I use a salicylic acid gel from PC and Kiehl’s sunscreen, and every week I slather on an enzyme fruit peel from Mychelle.
So yeah, pretty simple regime. Exfoliate (with taz and salicylic acid), moisturize with shea butter, and protect with high spf sunscreen. That’s been my formula for smooth glowing skin (=
guest
10 minutes a day seems like a reeeeeally long time. i spend like 90 seconds.