From yesterday:

***Update*** Did a 1:1 ratio of castor oil and grapeseed oil with two drops of lemon eucalyptus essential oil.  Massaged for about an hour while I played DoA (nerdy AND vain).  Didn’t have the same result as other posts I’ve read: I didn’t feel any crud actually come out of my skin.  This is probably because I scrubbed my face in the shower earlier in the evening because I’m stupid and scatterbrained.  My face felt tight after I washed the oil off but I’m going to attribute that to having washed my face a bajillion times and pore stripping.  It went away after a bit and my face felt like I had scrubbed my face really good.  Was that the antiseptic quality of the castor oil?  I saved my left over oil in the fridge and will let it come to room temp before using it again.  I only used 1 tsp of each and had some left over; maybe I used to little?  Whatever.  I’m not going to tweak just yet other than add maybe one more drop of essential oil to the 2 tsp mix.  I solemnly swear that I will continue this mixture for at least 4 full days before tweaking the ratio or switching to jojoba oil.  On the plus side, I am absolutely not greasy or cruddy today.  I wiped my face with a warm washcloth this morning just because it’s weird if I don’t do that.  So far:  pleased with the results.

Okay, day two.  Still the same ratio.  I think I am washing the oil away too much.  Today was more dry/tight than yesterday.

Not really, but you know it felt this way.

I am using a washcloth to wash the oil off of my face because it’s not like castor oil just rinses away easy peasy.   Tonight I had to use three drops of grape seed oil to re-hydrate my face after washing.  Right now I feel fine.  Tomorrow I am going to just to the dabbing thing–no wiping (why does my mind always go straight to toilet humor?).  If that doesn’t work, I’m going to change the ratio to 2:1 grape seed:castor oil.  If that doesn’t work, I’ll switch to jojoba oil.  And if that doesn’t work I’ll probably give up because I’m a quitter.

Not too terrible much to report here lately; still embroidering the Halloween blanket.  I was sure I wasn’t going to do “too much” but now it looks like I’m going to embroider every other square or so.  I’d probably be done by now except I keep playing stupid Dragons of Atlantis like a nerd.  I’ll show pictures soon; hopefully I can start quilting next week.

In other news, I was farting around the internet today and came across something called OCM:  Oil Cleansing method.  I’ve heard about it before but fuck that shit I preferred other methods of washing my face.  I’ve spent tons of money on cleansers, pore strips, pore minimizers, moisturizers, do-dads, spa treatments, voodoo, etc and nothing has really worked.  So, after looking around a bit (here and here) I decided to run up to Mother Nature’s Market and buy a bunch of goodies.

Pictured: Goodies. Also pictured: my efforts to obtain Stone Dragon Armor.

So…I guess I’ll start this tonight because my life is so exciting.  From L-R: jojoba oil, grapeseed oil, jasmine essential oil, lemon & eucalyptus oil and castor oil.  About $40 for all of that.  I choked a little bit at the price, but I’ve also purchased $70 pore minimizing lotion and tons of stupid spa crap that I don’t think really worked for me.  Not to say that it doesn’t work.  Just not on me.  I’ll update this periodically because I’m curious to see if I can give up the Biore routine to which I am so addicted.  I’m not going to link the videos here because they’re gross, but it seems like there are quite a few Asians with Biore pore strip addictions (not just me).  I also saw a fantastic video of how to make the strips more effective by allowing a mixture of 1 tsp baking soda diluted in 1 c water to soak into your skin for about 10 minutes prior to pore stripping.  Honestly, I am probably going to do that tonight, too.

***Update***  The baking soda/water thing didn’t really do anything for me.  I am officially Biore pore strip free as of 9:19 PM EST.

***Update*** Did a 1:1 ratio of castor oil and grapeseed oil with two drops of lemon eucalyptus essential oil.  Massaged for about an hour while I played DoA (nerdy AND vain).  Didn’t have the same result as other posts I’ve read: I didn’t feel any crud actually come out of my skin.  This is probably because I scrubbed my face in the shower earlier in the evening because I’m stupid and scatterbrained.  My face felt tight after I washed the oil off but I’m going to attribute that to having washed my face a bajillion times and pore stripping.  It went away after a bit and my face felt like I had scrubbed my face really good.  Was that the antiseptic quality of the castor oil?  I saved my left over oil in the fridge and will let it come to room temp before using it again.  I only used 1 tsp of each and had some left over; maybe I used to little?  Whatever.  I’m not going to tweak just yet other than add maybe one more drop of essential oil to the 2 tsp mix.  I solemnly swear that I will continue this mixture for at least 4 full days before tweaking the ratio or switching to jojoba oil.  On the plus side, I am absolutely not greasy or cruddy today.  I wiped my face with a warm washcloth this morning just because it’s weird if I don’t do that.  So far:  pleased with the results.