DIY Nighttime Facial Moisturizer / "Essence"

A little while ago I ran out of nighttime moisturizer suddenly and realized I didn't have any backup in my stash, AHHH!  What does a girl do in this case...I could have ran to the drugstore that night and grabbed something but drugstore moisturizers have never worked well for me. I remembered, that a couple of years ago I had played around with water and glycerin as a moisturizer and didn't think too much of it, but since it was all I had on hand given the "oh no!" moment, I decided to play with it some more and add a couple more ingredients. 

Water and glycerin combination used as a moisturizer is a very old DIY beauty trick. If you look at most of your store-bought moisturizers, their first two ingredients are often just that: water and glycerin. Glycerin acts like a barrier that holds moisture in your skin, so with the water and glycerin together, you effectively moisturize your skin with the water, which is then held in by the glycerin (without it the water would just evaporate and take more moisture from your skin with it as it goes). I decided to add a couple more good-for-your-skin oils to the mix just to last the night and go buy another moisturizer ASAP.

I didn't actually go buy another moisturizer though... because the result of the DIY blew me away! It worked so darn well and made my skin look so good I kept on using it... it's been about 2 months now and I have to say my skin has actually been much better for it (I continue to be shocked by this). My hubby is vegan and had been long warning me about the chemicals and preservatives in my skincare but I never listened to him. This has really made me rethink what I'm putting on my face every day. 

Let's go through the super simple "recipe" first, then I'll talk more about what changes it made to my skin.

Ingredients: distilled water, glycerin, [vitamin E oil, jojoba oil] 

                        [the oils can be changed to other types depending on your skin]

I use a small disposable bottle, but you could use any container you like.

First fill about 3/4 with the distilled water.

Then add in small amount of glycerin (approx 1:10 - 1:8 ratio with the water, we'll talk about adjusting after)

Then add in your oils of choice, I made mine approximately 1:10 ratio.

Close the cap and shake. It will separate of course. When I use it, I shake it well and pour out a small amount into my palm. Then I rub my hands together and pat it onto my face after cleansing/toner (much like a facial essence).

This does give a slick kind of feeling to the skin due to the glycerin, which is why I only recommend this for night time use. I have not used this under makeup so have no idea how it would perform in the daytime, but best to use your SPF moisturizer in the daytime anyhow for sun protection.

If the slick feeling is too much for you, try to lower the amount of glycerin you use (more glycerin, more slicky-ness).

So what have I noticed in the last 2 months... I seriously have not had any breakouts...NONE... Now I normally don't get much anyhow, but every month with hormones I do get patches of small acne on my forehead and occasionally on my chin. I have not had any of that since! I also get a lot of redness and flushing (probably also hormone related), and that has significantly decreased too.

Another area of significant change is dry patches. I got tons of dry patches... I've tried many brands of department store moisturizers but none completely got rid of those patches (even with daily exfoliation). Apparently, many of the alcohols and other solvents used in the commercial moisturizers can dry your skin out even more! Currently, a couple of major patches of struggle are gone entirely, what's left is significantly improved.

I have to say, as much as I love to buy and try new products, this is one thing that has made me think that I may not buy another nighttime moisturizer again... this has no preservatives, no weird chemicals that we are not quite sure what it does...   only thing is you have to remake it every 2-3 weeks (no preservatives right).

Another benefit is custom adjusting. I know my skin will get drier and drier as the weather gets colder, so what I plan to do is increase the glycerin slightly and increase the oil content more so. I will update down the road how that works out.

One more benefit...this is super cheap... The giant bottle of glycerin is like $5. The oils cost more but I use so little in the mix that they'll last a long time.

So have I convinced you? Have an open mind and give it a try yourself! What works for my skin of course may not work for yours. You also have to be careful with certain oils that may actually clog pores (ie. coconut). Do experiment a bit though, and see if you can find a combo that works for you. You can then save that money to spend on better daytime sun protection or just fun cosmetics in general :)

Let me know if you try this and if it works for you! Share with me also any DIY skincare that you make :)

If interested in more DIY, check out the following archive posts: DIY tinted lip balm, DIY avocado face mask, DIY lip scrub

DIY Tinted Lipbalm / Sheer Lipstick

 

Got just a bit of your favorite lip color left over in the bottom of the tube to use up?
Found a gorgeous color but wish it came in a more sheer version for daytime use?
Or maybe you just like to DIY things... read on to see how I make tinted lip balms / sheer lipsticks!

How To: Press Loose Mineral Eyeshadows

 

 

After my previous experimentation with using glycerin vs jojoba oil to press my mineral blushes, I have finally gone ahead and pressed all of my mineral eyeshadows! This is a more detailed tutorial with more photos than my previous post. Hope you find it helpful ^_^

Supplies:
- jojoba oil
- isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol)
- loose mineral eyeshadows
- small mixing container
- empty pans to press your eyeshadow into (I bought mine from eBay)
- something to press with (should fit into your empty pan, coins work great)
- something to stir with (toothpick or small cosmetic spatula works great)


1) Remove the sifter from your mineral eyeshadow container if it has one (will make getting the powder out much easier!)

 

 

2) Empty your loose minerals into the mixing container (or just use the existing container) and start adding jojoba oil DROP BY DROP until minerals start to clump together (careful not to add too much or will take forever to dry!). Then add alcohol, again drop by drop, until you achieve a wet-sand-like consistency.  The amount of jojobal oil/alcohol really depends on how much minerals you have, so just be careful and you should be fine!

 

2) Transfer the mixture into the empty pan



 

3) Lay a clean piece of cloth/fabric over the pan and press the coin onto it (press HARD!!). You will see that the fabric will have absorbed some of the excess liquid from your mixture.

 

4) Let dry (can speed up with light blowing from hairdryer, or just leave it out on window-sill), and place into your palette. Done!

Here are all the shadows I pressed.

 

 

 

Here are the swatches of the eyeshadows. The pigmentation from the bronze shimmer shade turned out very nice (same as before I pressed it). Unfortunately some of the darker shades did not become very pigmented (swatches are one finger swipe). They are buildable though so I don't feel I'll have trouble using them as crease shaders. If you want to use the darker shades as eye liner, you can also add a drop of water to the surface to the shadow, and make a nice paste to use as a "gel"eyeliner with a brush.

 

 

 

 

That's it for the tutorial on pressing loose mineral eyeshadows. Pretty simple right?! I'm super happy I did this as now I have a nice palette to open and use. Not to mention, I will actually use these shadows now (they previously just sat in my makeup drawer after I got too lazy to be opening those darn containers).

 

Let me know if you try this and how it goes!!

 

 

DIY Avocado Face Mask

There's lots of recipes out there for homemade face masks, this is one that I have been using that has been working great for my skin (combination/sensitive, early signs of aging). Read on to see how easily it's made and why I love it!

DIY Homemade Lip Scrub

 

I have chronically dry, sensitive, and peeling lips that don't respond much to all the different balms/moisturizers/ointments I've tried.  Then I heard about the simple honey + sugar lip scrub from a recent cosmetic counter visit (thank you mua from YSL), and added a couple more ingredients I thought would be beneficial. I'm sharing this recipe now because I have been using it for the last couple months and it totally works! My lips still peel from some lip products but at least it doesn't peel all the time anymore!  Click the jump to see how I made this super simple yet super effective lip scrub!

 

Discovering How To Press Mineral Powder Makeup

I recently re-discovered my mineral blushes and eyeshadows during my makeup cleaning-up/decluttering.  These had gone underground in a sense because they were just plain inconvenient to use after the intial "ooh-new-product" phase wore off. It is of course much faster and easier to open up a pressed shadow palette than to unscrew multiple lids and deak with loose powder for every mineral color I wanted to use.  Read on for my adventures in discovering how to press minerals!

Aug 2013 - Read my recently updated post on pressing loose mineral eyeshadows! More photos of the pressing process included.

Depotting Lipsticks

The depotting saga continues! I'm having tons of fun as you can see, and have moved on to lipsticks! When picking a color to wear, I have become a bit annoyed at opening various tubes only to see the color wasn't what I was thinking. So I decided to depot the lipsticks into a palette, and also sheer down some of the colors that were too opaque for the type of makeup I do (love natural looks where the natural lip colors come through!).  This is not only easier for myself getting ready, but also easier on my pro kit as I can use disposable spatulas to scrape the product out (rather than opening tube by tube). Read on for how I did this....

Depotting Lancome Holiday Edition Palette

As per my previous post, I got started with depotting recently and have become slightly obsessed =P After getting "experience" and feeling more confident about my depotting skills with the GWP Lancome palettes, I moved on to my more expensive stuff (albeit older).  This Lancome palette is from the 2010 or 2011 Holiday edition which I received as a gift.  This was waaaay harder to depot than the GWP palettes! Read on for my experience with this

1st Z-Palette depotting experience: Lancome GWP eyeshadows

For a long time I've heard others rave about Z-palettes and "depotting", and for a long time, I thought, "why would I want to take apart the pretty packaging?" I guess I never owned enough makeup until now haha... Because I recently finished a makeup artisty certification and have been building my artist kit, my collection is growing and now I finally understand. No matter how pretty the packaging, it is very annoying to have to flip open every compact to find that certain color/shade I had in mind! So I finally took the plunge...I'm still somewhat attached to the pretty package so I started my first attempt with some Lancome GWP eyeshadows.  Figured since I got them for "free" and I wouldn't THAT upset if I screwed up =P Anyhow, read on for my experience!