Oil Cleansing: The Misunderstood Powerhouse
Oil cleansing is often misunderstood yet it is hands down the best way to clean our skin. This is especially true for acne or hormonal skin. We believe the most damage can be done at the cleansing stage, get it wrong and you’ll be loading on products to try and heal the damage that’s been done.
But if we add more oil onto already oily skin this will surely break us out more right? Wrong. Once you understand how cleansing works, you’ll understand why oil cleansing is such a powerhouse. Let’s take a look…
Traditional cleansing
The 2 most popular types of cleansers on the market are foaming face washes or soaps, and creamy cleansers. Foaming face washes include ingredients that act as a detergent while creamy cleansers contain alcohol. Both detergents and alcohol are great at removing all the dirt and oil from our skin. However, they don’t differentiate between our own living oils on our skin and dirty oil build up, and so they strip it ALL. These natural living oils on our skin act as a protective barrier and without it we are left vulnerable to irritation and sensitivities.
Quick, produce more oil!
Have you ever washed your face and felt super dry and tight after? That’s the feeling you get when you’ve stripped too much of your natural oil away. And when our skin is left stripped from its natural oil, the response from our body is “quick, produce more oil” to balance out this dryness. Now you’re back to having oily skin, so you grab your face wash which promises to “dry and banish acne” and you’re back in the continuous cycle again.
The Difference with Oil Cleansing
We use Jojoba in our Oil Cleansers because Jojoba mimics our skin's natural sebum (those natural living oils). The oil cleanser binds together with the dirt on our skin and then is lifted away with the hot cloth without stripping any of our natural face oils. This means we can cleanse our face without disturbing our natural protective barrier and keep our skin’s balance in harmony.
Less products, not more
The beauty with oil cleansing is that once your skin is balanced, you won’t need any products after cleansing at night. The age old marketing tactic is to smother your face in a product before bed which is just a money grab, a whole other topic for another day! After cleansing at night, if your skin feels good, leave it there! If you are still feeling a little dry, try a light facial oil or thin layer of our Lavender Balm mixed with our Hydrosol. Typically when moving to an Oil Cleanser, it will take your skin around 3 months to adjust and balance. Then you can enjoy healthy skin and use less products!
Want to try for yourself? Shop our Lavender & Lime Cleanser and follow up with our Hydrosol.
Kate xo