The beauty of honey!

As you may or may not know, there are so many beauty-related uses for honey! To me, honey is almost like one of those miracle products that do everything. It can be used as a cleanser, a facial mask, a spot treatment, even as a moisturizer. It is also great as a hair treatment, although I won't be talking about that here. It is great for acne, acne scarring, hyperpigmentation, sensitive skin, dry skin, aging skin, and other skin issues such as eczema. It pretty much covers everything. It is amazing.
(Note that I am talking about raw honey here. You don't want to used processed honey here, because through the heat processing that many honeys go through, much of its beneficial properties are killed off.)

So what makes honey so amazing?
- It has antibacterial properties that kills bacteria, making it a great cleanser and treatment for acne.
- It is a natural humectant, meaning that it will draw moisture into your skin. Perfect for dry skin.
- It contains gluconic acid that can help even out and brighten your skin tone and fade acne scarring.
- It also contains many other nutrients that are good for the skin. But I am not a scientist so I don't know about every single nutrient in it and what they all do, so I'll just stick with the first 3 major ones that I talked about.

What about manuka honey? What makes that so special?
In addition to all the properties of regular honey, manuka honey is extra microbial, which makes it even better for fighting acne. I'm assuming many of you know about tea tree oil already, and how it can be used to fight acne due to its antimicrobial and inflammatory properties. Well, manuka honey is made from bees that feed from the manuka (tea tree) bush. So think of it this way - it creates a combination of all the beneficial characteristics of honey and tea tree!

Now, as I discussed in my skincare routine, I use honey mainly as a cleanser and mask. Right now, I mix it with rice powder, ground oatmeal, and a little bit of water and apply it all over my face. This not only helps to clean my face, but also acts like a mask because I let it sit on my face while I brush my teeth and do other stuff. Before though, I was only using the honey by itself for a few months, and it was still amazing. I just recently decided to add a few more ingredients just because I felt like I could benefit from them too, but if I'm lazy or really tired, I don't even bother with the rice powder and oatmeal, and I just use the honey alone again.

I have been doing this since last summer, so probably about 10 months now. And my skin has never been better. I rarely break out now, only when I am really stressed from school. And when I do break out, its usually only a small pimple, and I'll just put some honey on it directly and leave it on overnight. It has also helped me fade some of my acne scarring, although its not like I have a lot of scarring. Just two scars on my one cheek that wouldn't go away. Other than that, my face has been pretty much completely clear. And I no longer have any dry patches or any dry skin issues either! But these might have to do with my change in moisturizer as well, since I pretty much introduced both at around the same time.

My current (mostly natural) skincare routine

Since last summer, I've been gradually phasing out most of the products I had previously been using on my face with all the harsh chemicals in them, and replacing them with gentler and more natural products. I have dry, acne prone skin, which had always made it difficult for me to find the right stuff to use on my face. Either I would find something that helped with the acne, but made my face drier, or I would find something that would help with the dryness, but either made me break out more, or didn't help my already existing acne. And on top of that, being in my mid-20's now, I am becoming more concerned about aging, especially with all the stress that I go through in school, including all nighters at least once a week, it has really taken a toll on my skin and overall appearance. I also find that in the past few years, whenever I do break out, I tend to scar, and the scars don't heal like they used to. So in my search for a better skincare routine more suitable for my skin, I turned towards the natural route.

Here is a list of all the products that I currently use on my face:

- Wedderspoon Premium Raw Manuka Active 16+ Honey

- Tarte Maracuja Oil

- Fushi Organic Jojoba Oil

- Thayers Lavender Witch Hazel Toner

- Ombrelle SPF 60 Face Ultra-Fluid Lotion

- Delon+ Premium Cotton Rounds

- Shu Uemura Anti-Oxy Skin Refining Cleansing Oil (Green)

- Rice flour

- Oatmeal

- Clarisonic

(I will probably do separate, more in depth posts about most of these later.)

Starting off in the morning...

I don't really wash my face with anything in the morning - just splash it with water - while I'm in the shower. After I get out of the shower, I apply Thayers Lavender Witch Hazel Toner with a cotton pad. I like to use the Delon ones because of the mesh layer for a little bit of exfoliation. Also I just happened to have picked a huge package of them from Costco, so I've been using them forever and still haven't run out. After the toner, I apply a mix of Tarte's Maracuja Oil, and Fushi's Jojoba Oil. I'm not going to go into too much detail about these oils right now, but I will try to do another post later about them. I have a separate eyedropper bottle that I premix the oils in, and I'll just put 2-3 drops on my fingers, rub them together and then massage onto my face. After that I'll put my sunscreen on, and makeup if I'm wearing any, and that's it for the morning!

Night time is when everything gets a little more fun! But also, takes a lot more time.

If I wore makeup that day, I'll start by taking all my makeup off using Shu Uemura's Anti-Oxy Skin Refining Cleansing Oil. I just put a pump of it in my hands and rub them together then gently rub it all over my face and eyes to take everything off. Then I'll rinse all of that off and dry my face. I keep a jar of a mixture of ground oatmeal and rice flour in the bathroom, and a small jar of manuka honey that I portion out of the original container so it doesn't get contaminated. I'll then put about half a tablespoon of the ground oatmeal/rice flour mixture, and a teaspoon of manuka honey in a little dish (I don't actually measure any of this, I just do it by eye...), add some water and mix until it's at my preferred consistency, and apply onto my face using a foundation brush. Or just my fingers. I'll also talk about this more in another post later. And then I let it sit on my face while I floss and brush my teeth, and make my breakfast for the next day (Refrigerator oatmeal!) After that, I rinse it all off, pat my face dry, apply toner and oil to moisturize. Once a week, I will also use my Clarisonic, I don't use it with anything really, just water. Just to exfoliate. And that's it!

I'm Back! Sort of...

Hi everyone!

I know, I haven't posted anything in a really long time... But I am really hoping to start blogging again. There's just been so much going on in my life the past few years and I just got so busy with school that I had to put everything else aside. Including some of the things that I used to have so much interest in. I'm still in school right now, but I just realized how important it is to still do the things that I like to do, and to give myself some personal time, no matter how busy I really am. I admit, I was kind of in a rut the past little while and started to let myself go... But recently I've been trying to focus more on my health and beauty, trying out new things, working on being more active, basically, just balancing my lifestyle a little more.

So to start off, here's my plan for some of my upcoming posts:
- Skincare routine
- Current favourites
- Heatless hair styling tools (What works and what doesn't)
- DIY hair treatments
- DIY skincare
- Various product reviews