Takin' it off

So, sorry about the rather sparse amount of postings lately. Summer, specifically June equals paperwork madness at work. This in turn makes the thought of typing even one more sentence after work unbearable and I therefore neglect the blog for sleep/zoning out. Again, apologies. I will at least try to post something once per week.

Moving on.

I've been watching a lot of YouTube vids about people's skin care routines and I really wanted to throw my two cents in. Because I'm a follower.  For reference, I have come to the conclusion that I have pretty dry skin year round. In the summer I do sweat on my face, so I can get shiny, but the dryness is pretty consistent. However, for what ever reason, during the change in seasons my skin will become really flaky around my hair line and I still have yet to find something to help that out. Gross.

Day time:
Cleanser: I don't always use a cleanser, just because I'll wash my face at night and because I'm lazy/running late will just rinse off with water. If I'm breaking out I'll use my St. Ives Green Tea cleanser. The rest of the time I'll use the sample of the gel cleanser that came with the Clarisonic Mia. About 80% of the time I'll use the Clarisonic Mia in conjunction with one of the cleansers.

Moisturizer: I've recently acquired a few different moisturizer samples so I've been mixing it up in this area. My staple is the Clinique dramatically different moisturizer for dry to very dry skin. I seriously continue to be amazed that a moisturizer can make such a huge difference in my skin. This has helped even out my skin's texture better than any exfoliater ever did.  The samples I have are the Ahava moisturizer and the Likewise moisturizer from my Birchbox. I like the Ahava sample, which is quite a generous sample size, because it's thicker in consistency than my Clinique moisturizer and a little goes a long ways. The Likewise sample is a super thick sunscreen with SFP 50 with supposed added anti-aging benefits, but I really only use this on my neck; it really needs to be worked in and can leave a white tint behind if you don't. I haven't really noticed any differences since adding these but I'll keep using them until they're gone.


Night time:
Pre Cleanser: I take my eye make up off with the Neutrogena Oil Free make up remover. I really like this and it works way better than the L'Oreal stuff I had been using. I put some on a cotton ball or pad and use gently massage my eyelashes to get my mascara off then use the other side to swipe the rest of my make up off. What's super awesome is that it doesn't sting my eyes if it gets in them (and trust me, I pretty much swiped the cotton ball over my eyeball).


Cleanser: I then use my St. Ives Green Tea cleanser and take about one pump on my fingers and rub it on my dry face and then the excess on to the wet Clarisonic Mia brush head then go at it. 


Moisturizer: After washing, I will take the maracuja oil and just put some oil straight under my eyes and tap it it then mixing the maracuja oil with my Ahava moisturizer and rubbing that it afterwards. I tend to put more under my eyes and then the rest all over my face and neck. I pretty much hydrate the shit out of my under eye area since that's where a lot of my dryness lives. 


That's pretty much it currently. I think I'm going to experiment with some other cleansers and moisturizers (to add to my Clinique, that is) to see if there's anything that will help take my skin to the next level. One product I'm very interested to try out is the Caudalie beauty elixir. And I also need to find a proper eye cream for both day and night. Any suggestions? Or suggestions for other products that are life changing?

Clarisonic Mia

Okay, I think I've had enough time to formulate an opinion about the Clarisonic Mia. I think I've had it for a few weeks now. Who knows. My sense of time is so wacky. I always know the date and day of the week but for some reason things that happened two days ago feel to me as if they happened several weeks ago. Odd.

Moving on.

I went to Ulta after several... weeks (and I'm pretty sure real weeks, not fake day-weeks) of watching YT vids and researching, like the good little analytical researcher that I am, and they had pink and gray. 

Serious? Good thing I like gray. Which is apparently the "boy" model that comes with a normal brush head versus a sensitive one and a trial size of the Refreshing Gel Cleanser. After being some what passively aggressively harassed by the checkout girl for purchasing the gray model I went home to use it. Oops. Forgot I had to charge it FOREVER before using it. Insert sad panda face here. I did not charge it for that long though. I charged it until the thing buzzed twice after removing the charger, indicating that it was ready to sluff the gross shit off my face. Hurray!  

I also must admit here that I frequently get my hopes way, way too far up for pretty much everything, including the results of this product after first use. Shocking how fast a minute goes. That really can't be enough time to do anything of significance. So I was bummed when my face wasn't a glowing mass of photoshopped quality perfection. I kept using it anyways, twice a day. I am going to see results damnit!

So, in one video that I watched, she said that be prepared for it to cause breakouts due to the amount of gross-ness it was breaking up. While I did have break-outs in abnormal spots (re: my cheek), correlation is not causation and I can't say for sure that it did this. I was also doing a lot of work related phone calls so that could have added to that little problem.

The most significant, but rather subtle, difference is in the tone of my face. It truly does look more even and far less splotchy even in the morning when my redness can be a touch out of control. My skin is, even from the first use, really soft. I haven't been having as many problems with texture since using the Clinique Dramatically Different moisturizer, but I'm sure this has helped keep any build up at bay.  I can't say currently whether my pores are any smaller in size; however it does seem to keep my pores from collecting.... whatever pore clogging stuff is called... and turning in to "blemishes." Another little tip is to use a cream or gel cleanser rather than a liquid one. I try and use the St. Ives Green Tea liquid cleanser and it ended up dripping in to my eye. Less than fun.

I'd like to say it's amazing. I won't. I think it's decent possibly even good. The company has a 90 day money back guarantee that I may or may not use. I can't decide if I could get the same results with different products. Another downside is that the recommended life of the brush head is 3 months and replacements heads are $20 a pop. Not that I'll change them that much. Shiz, I don't change my contacts for months on end, same with my toothbrush. I feel no need to start now.

Anyone else have thoughts on this baby? Or been underwhelmed? Did you keep it or return it?

Thanks for stopping by!