Natural spot treatments, natural acne treatment: Raw Honey

SEE UPDATE BELOW

Aaaah, as of late my mind has been all over the place. I have no idea whether my recent crazy breakout is due to the raw honey I've been using on my face lately, or stress. Because for a good 3 weeks my skin loved it. Pores shrank and my face felt awesome. Scares were fading and it seemed like I'd finally found that holy grail all in one cleanser and moisturiser. But for the past few days, my skin has gone NUTS. Whitehead nuts. I'm used to getting one of two whiteheads occasionally, but now I have 5/6 active whiteheads on my face and I'm afraid it may be from the honey! Grrrr! I've looked up that there is a possibility that people could have a sensitivity to raw honey, but really?! 3 weeks in?! For some people it has been a MIRACLE worker, and has worked wonders for very severe acne. Now I have new whiteheads emerging all over my face and they aren't even the small ones, they're big and ANGRY. Oh, and for good measure I've got some nice blackheads too.

I'm wondering if the actual breakout could be caused by stress? I have been very stressed these past few days, and it's not like I have a normal sleeping pattern any more...but while this seems more likely the reason why my skin is like this, I've lived like this before, without these kinds of results. Sigh...

Well, for now I think I may have to lay off the honey. I've been trying and trying with the natural skincare regime and it looks like I might have to start using oatmeal, the MILDEST thing ever, to clean my skin. Perhaps I'll use grapeseed oil to moisturise? Return to the OCM and try that again? It's so frustrating that I can't pinpoint exactly the cause of the acne. The only thing I can do is wait it out and try new things that I couldn't possibly breakout to!

Sorry for the ragey post guys, see you next time :D

*UPDATE* 30/09/2013: Sorry for the long gap guys, I'm currently in the USA and I've been studying like nuts. I've recently tried a few acne products from CVS and whichever one it is (the cleanser, toner or the two moisturisers I bought, or the other cleanser or the serum or the - the list just increases in length, and my bank account is quietly shrinking Dx ) has made my face so much worse! (Intense chin acne with white heads and blackheads invading areas that I didn't know could break out anyone?I think it's due to overuse and trying out too many different things at once! Darn my impatience!) I recently returned to honey, and within 2 days my skin is getting better, along with the help of a peel off mask I recently purchased. I think at the time when my skin broke out when previously using honey, my stress and health in general weren't in check, and therefore, the breakout. Raw honey seems to be saving me right now, the only regret is that I decided to experiment with a whole host of new products that pretty much ruined my skin! Ah well, I'll keep going with the honey, and hopefully the guilt of spending so much on products that don't work will eventually fade Dx Cheers guys!

*FINAL UPDATE* 11/10/2013: Sorry for the long gap once again guys - unfortunately the honey cleansing didn't work. I kept breaking out with the honey and the honey gave me a few cysts as well! Lots of scarring here, but I am glad I tried the honey, even though it worked then stopped working, it's not entire loss since I can just eat the honey :) I might try it again in the future, but for now I'm laying off it :)

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REVIEW: Body Shop 4 Step Smoky Eye Palette

Phew! Sorry for the long gap guys - my life has been a little hectic lately, but here's a review nonetheless! I bought this palette quite a while ago on sale at my local Body Shop, and it was reduced to £5 from £15! I generally don't buy things from the Body Shop - I do love the whole natural ingredients only hype but it's certainly not cheap! Most of the stuff is cleansing related anyway, and there's only so much skincare a person can use. Their make up isn't bad either, but I can find cheaper stuff in Superdrug and Boots along with more variety. Anyhow, I'll try to keep the review short and sweet!

Wow, I'm surprised my camera actually took the pictures well lol. As you can see, there are 4 neutral colours. All of them are frosted/shimmery and pretty pigmented. Not the most intense things I've ever come across when applied but nice nonetheless. If you dislike shimmer and are more a matte person (a bit like me) then you may want to avoid this palette. I wish there was at least one matte colour here, but ahh well. 

A great thing about this palette are added brushes. OK, the brushes themselves are not amazing by any means, I definitely recommend getting your own in the long run, but if you haven't got any of your own in the meantime, these will do fine. The round brush does well for patting and pressing the eye shadow, but the angled brush in my palette wasn't really as nice as I'd hoped. I wasn't expecting anything great but the brush wasn't as thin as I would've liked, and would probably have been better suited as a eyebrow brush as opposed to liner. I like thin liner, especially when using eye shadow so I can smudge upwards a little. I supposed I can try to flatten the brush myself by wetting it and pressing it down, but I'm still a little -_- (sorry I can't think of the right word for that expression lol) about having to do it.This is all personal preference though.  

What can attract a human more? Those little reduction stickers can make any shopper happy! I obviously overlooked the fact that the palette is "meant" for blue eyes. I understand that there were other palettes for other eye colours, but there weren't any for brown eyes when I checked the sale section. Like it matters :P anyone can wear neutrals! And I'm calling Body Shop out on the cover picture lol, the eye shadows are NOT that pigmented xD. (Still nice though!)

Problems?

It's lovely  how they give instruction on how to use the palette, but there lies on big problem for me in the instructions. They are for Western eye shapes! I'm Asian, so when I tried to use the palette as instructed it didn't work, and for a small amount of time I wondered why and then finally realised! This isn't a major problem and obviously isn't the Body Shop's fault, and there are many tutorials and blogs who help out with this dilemma. All I need is a quick google search and hundreds of hits will come up. 

Final thoughts?

A nice palette, especially for the price! 4 eye shadows from the Body Shop at £5 is a steal, even against other cheaper brands. If I went to wards Rimmel, Maybelline or any other high street brand of decent quality I could probably at most only buy one eye shadow. Am I happy? Yes, there aren't many problems with this palette, and the ones that do exist can be easily rectified.

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REVIEW: Brow Kandie Eyebrow Stencils

I recently bought these eye stencils out of curiosity at Superdrug. I've always found my brows annoying to shape and when I think they look OK the next minute a photo is taken they look ridiculous! I'd known about eye brow stencils for a while, but I'd never bothered searching for them with all the youtube videos that teach you how to do brows anyway. But I found these by chance, and at £4.99 (bit steep for what you get really) I thought it might be worth a try.

First thing to note - these stencils are for Western shaped brows. If you don't get what I mean, in Asia brows are far less arched and tend to be thicker and fuller for a more youthful effect. The "Korean Brow" , which is basically a thicker straight line is very fashionable right now, but this trend hasn't transferred over to the West.  Being Asian, I tend to find that arched brows and straighter brows are both fine, but I prefer thicker brows for the youthful look and my brows are pretty full anyway. The stencils in the pack are all pretty arched and either start off thin and end thin, or start off thick and end thin. I ended up going for the thickest one, and even then it's pretty thin! Let me show you.

They come in a plastic packet like this.

And here are the instructions:

 Basically, put the stencil on your brow and fill in your eyebrows as normal. Remove the stencil and then pluck out any hairs that don't "fit" in the stencilled shape.

 As you can see, I didn't exactly do that. I opted for black eye shadow (something you should never use for eyebrows, even if they are black, always go for a shade or two lighter.)  just so I could see the shape. Even though I hadn't plucked my brows for a long time, the stencil fitted pretty well. The only problems I had were that my brows are naturally shorter than the stencils, so no matter what I do my brows need to be extended anyway.

My Zoeva angled liner brush did the trick in filling my brows.  After using the stencil on one brow all you need to do is flip it over onto the opposite brow - which is exactly what I did. Here's the final result!

 Sorry for the dodgy picture, I actually think the picture is a little misleading with the way I've angled it. My brows actually match a little better, and as you can see they are full and short.

Final thoughts:

- I originally was disappointed with the pack when I opened them. All of the stencils were far too thin for my taste, but I worked my way around that simply by allowing a little more room around the stencilled shape. But honestly, some of these stencils are so thin I have no idea who would want them to look that artificial.

- The plastic the stencils are made out of isn't particularly strong, if you cut it it's easily tear able. I understand that the stencil needs to be  flexible but I feel that they could be a little sturdier! They should really make these a bit cheaper - £4.99 for something so easy to break makes my wallet cry a little.

- Out of the entire pack, I only used ONE. That means 9/10 of the stencils have gone to waste (unless I'm dressing up for a particular look) so that £4.99 only paid for one useful item.

- Would I repurchase? Not really, I think I could live without these. I did end up liking them quite a lot after I had finished using them, but for £4.99 I think I could spend that money elsewhere. If you are completely clueless about brows and can't do them freehand, these could be super useful though.

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Natural spot treatments, natural acne treatment: Bicarboante of Soda as an ex foliator/ Baking Soda scrub.

Hey guys - now this ex foliator is definitely worth writing about. It's so cheap and it really does scrub!

My teensy weensy jam jar (taken from a scone serving at Valerie Patisserie wahahahaa) filled with baking soda. It's so cute! xD

Despite the powdery texture of the soda, it really is gritty stuff. A large pinch of it in the palm of your hand with a little warm water and a wet face and it really feels like a a tough scrub. I've never felt anything so gritty. Not unpleasant gritty, like a tough sand if anything. This stuff is so much better than other ex foliators, those have zero exfoliation powers in comparison to this stuff.

Has it got rid of black heads or cured any of my skin issues? Not that I can see, as of yet. I'm using it in conjunction with the OCM Method, It definitely is getting of dead skin, and I look forward to see what long term effects it will have. One thing I've been very bad at is that I think I've recently over ex foliated my face, which has made my skin a little rough. I'll let my skin heal for a week and see how it goes. But on the whole, this stuff is natural, cheap and is really great so far.  

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REVIEW: Holland and Barrett PUKKA Castor oil & REVIEW: Miaroma Grapeseed Oil

Hey guys, just wrote another post about the oil cleansing method and here are the products I'm using for it! Just two oils, and that's all ya need for the method anyway.

I ordered both of these on line, and I think because my cart went over a certain price the shipping was free. 

PUKKA Castor oil &  Miaroma Grapeseed Oil

I think the price for both of these are just over £10, and considering how much you get and how much you need they really will last a long time. A scrub nowadays costs roundabout £5 anyway, so two of these together I wouldn't consider expensive. 

PUKKA Castor oil: One thing about Castor Oil. IT SMELLS. Now, I don't know whether it's just this brand,  because I've googled to see if it was just me dying from the smell and it seems that the internet disagrees since others have said that there shouldn't be a smell or that there wasn't one to begin with. This leave two options a) It's the brand I'm using b) My bottle has gone bad. I know it's not b), since the expiry date is about 2 years, and the bottle was sealed when I got it. So I guess it's just this brand. I'll write down below how to deal with the smell. Other than the smell "problem", the oil is thick very thick, and is a very, almost clear, pale yellow. It seems to be doing its job with the cleaning, and at 250ml it's a good size. The bottle is made of glass, which will be a pain in the butt for me since I don't want to take it overseas. Then again, I could just buy Castor oil when I go the USA as all the gurus who use the method are from the US anyway. (Also, this oil is cold pressed and organic, which is the ONLY type you want.)

Miaroma Grapeseed Oil: At 118 ml, this plastic bottle helpfully comes with a lid that you can squeeze oil out in drops. Still causes a slight mess, but it's better than the Castor which is just a screw on lid. A pain in the butt when you only need 3 drops! Anyhow, the oil is much thinner and is a yellow colour, very easy to distinguish both oils from each other so I can never get them mixed up. This oil doesn't really have a strong noticeable smell, and the only tiny tiny issue I have is that I'm not sure if Grapeseed oil in general should only be used if organic. If so, I can't tell with this one. The ingredients only say Grapeseed oil and vitamin E. Neither are bad for you, and the oil doesn't seem to have a negative effect even if it isn't strictly organic. 

Solving the smell and quantity issue! I recently bought these two joys from Ebay. Two glass 10ml droppers. One for Castor and one for Grapeseed Oil. This solves the smell problem with the Castor as I only need to open the droppeR and squeeze 3 drops onto my hand. This minimizes the strong smell and the only time you smell it is when you rub it on your  face. You have to squeeze the dropper quite hard on the Castor oil to get the oil into the pipette, but it's doable. Before getting these droppers I was pouring the oils into a small shallow plastic jar, which wasted SO much oil and made it so hard to measure. I would have to pour the oils into a spoon trying to get the right quantities and then pour them into the jar. Annoying as heck, especially with the extra cleaning you had to do all the time. These droppers also make measuring SO much easier, 3 Castor drops to 7 Grapeseed Oil crops. Mix, and rub it on ma face! Love these two, and using them is actually quite fun. Kind of like having vials of chemicals that you need to scientifically measure wahahaha. Vials are always cooler, they seem like fun old school chemistry that you see in old books. The droppers were relatively cheap by the way, when buying from Ebay only look for them sold in pairs, buying one on it's own isn't really worth it.  

Grapeseed Oil left (the oil is actually much more yellower in real life), Castor Oil right.

My review of the OCM:

http://thesilverpocketwatch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/natural-spot-treatments-natural-acne.html

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