The Secret to Facial Cleansing and Moisturizing with Oil

I've struggled with acne prone combination sensitive skin ever since my early teens. There probably isn't a type of product or specific regimen that I haven't tried, and none of them seemed to give perfect results.

Around the same time I started discovering that shampoo wasn't such a great idea for my hair, I also found out that one could use oil to cleanse and moisturize their skin.

This actually makes a lot of sense from scientific point of view. The best solvents (what we call cleaner or soap) always have a similar chemical makeup to the thing they are designed to clean up. Also dirt gets trapped in pores because there is not enough oil to protect the pores and purge the dirt.

At first I tried olive oil. This worked great for a while but then it started making my skin too oily and of course acne came after wards. I did find that it was a very nourishing oil though and probably best used on dry skin.

The real secret though to oil cleansing is using castor oil with another type of oil. Castor oil is a "dry" oil that acts as a very good cleanser and draws dirt up out of the pores. But since it has a very thick, sticky texture that doesn't rinse easily and also doesn't moisturize, one needs to mix it with a moisturizing oil that will thin it out and help moisturize (yup, you can skip the moisturizer with this cleansing method).

I usually put my mixture on my face at night and let it set for about an hour before I rinse it off. I'm sure it doesn't take this long but I like to use it like a facial as well. I have found jojoba oil matches my skin's natural oil almost perfectly. I mix one part of moisturizing oil with one part castor oil. First I rinse as much off as possible with very warm water, then I splash my face with cold water. It only needs to be done once daily. In the morning I just wash my face with water in the shower.

If jojoba oil is too much for you, some other oils you might want to try are sunflower oil and sweet almond oil. Both are very lightweight oils, with the sweet almond oil being slightly more nourishing.

For acne, I recommend adding a few drops of tea tree oil in to your mixture. Since this is an essential oil, it's very strong and also very pungent so a few drops is really all you need.

Good luck finding a skin care regimen that works for you!