Oil Cleansing for Acne - on trial

When you've tried every lotion and potion in the store already have a clean diet and are at your wits end then you really are willing to try just about anything....even oil!

My battle with Acne is still continuing and while I am attacking it from the inside, I wanted to see if a change in how I clean my skin could help. 

The science behind Oil Cleansing is that oil dissolves oil. If you search the web there are numerous success stories praising the method and how miraculously their skin has recovered and cured their acne. There are also quite a few horror stories out there. So does it really work? 

I threw out my chemical laden cleansers and searched online to find the basics  -

1. Choose an oil (more on this later)
2. Massage it very gently all over your face
3. Lay a hot(ish) face towel over your face for 1 min to let the impurities sweat out
4. Repeat step 3 until the oily residue on your face is gone

Easy! Or so I thought...

Blend 1.

There are loads of different oil combinations but I raided the kitchen cupboards and started with 50/50 Coconut Oil/Sweet Almond Oil. Threw (literally) in some lavender and tea tree oil and away I went.
It does feel so wrong to cover your face in an oily mess but after a 2nd wipe over with a hot towel my skin felt amazing soft. A few days in and no more cysts had appeared although I seemed to have a few more little spots and redness over my nose and cheeks (places I don't normally get spots). 

Note - there is apparantly a period of adjustment for oil cleansing where both the oils draw any impurities out of the skin (which means more spots) and your skin gets used to the oils.

2 weeks on and my skin under the spots looked amazing but those eruptions were still happening and in the strangest of places. My face had also suddenly got extremely dry and flakey. Back to the drawing board.

Blend 2.
This time I decided to swap the coconut oil for olive oil and added Frankincense, Rosemary and Lemon essential oils. The dryness eased but the redness and spots continued. Encouraged by the overall look of my skin (apart from the eruptions) I researched some more. 

It turns out that finding the right blend of oils to use on your skin is very much trial and error. What works for some, won't for others, it's a very personal thing. 

Time to bite the bullet and order some specific cold pressed oils (I didn't stretch to organic as I wasn't sure these oils would suit my skin either) and this time I needed to be a bit more exact so I could adjust where necessary.

Blend 3. 10ml castor oil / 10 ml jojoba / 10ml apricot kernel oil / 5ml Tamanu oil. All of these oils I picked due to their cleansing and healing properties (more about these oils to follow). I also added frankincense, patchouli, carrot seed and geranium essential oils - all sounded helpful from my research.

Today - I've been with blend 3 for 2 weeks now. As with the other oils initially the spots and redness persisted. My face again went very dry which I think was down to the castor oil so I added a further 10ml of all of the other oils to dilute it. I had a cystic spot come up last week (for the first time since I started oil cleansing) but I dabbed it with ACV and it went down overnight and disappeared within a few days - unheard of for me!

Overall I'm really pleased with my skin at the moment and oil cleansing seems to be working for me. I only have a few active spots and some red blotchy marks, the blackheads have decreased and the previous scars seem to be fading - a definite improvement. Now I'm unsure whether my skin will continue to improve or if there are more spots on the horizon, time will tell and I'll keep you posted.