eat light:

So just a quick update about this stuff. I have given up on Cetaphil--my skin doesn't like it--and I'm back on the oil cleansing method. It's weird how quickly it improves my skin. I have no idea whether or not it's noticeable to other people, but I can definitely tell the difference. Within 2 days of switching back to the OCM from Cetaphil, my skin looks smoother and has a more even tone (I'm very pale right now, it being the season of perpetual darkness in Seattle). I don't want to trust this method because it's so frakking easy: I do the OCM at night, then in the morning when I shower I just use a plain old wet washcloth on it. It seems like my face should be a pimply mess with so little intervention, but it's not.

As for my hair...I am not sure what to say about it. I bought a sample size of some Giovanni shampoo from the PCC. It's SLS- and SLES-free and very gentle. I use just a smidgen of it (seriously, like a dime-sized amount) and apply it only at my roots, every other day, and follow it with conditioner and finally a cool water rinse. I don't use enough shampoo to work up a lather--my hair stylists have always told me that if your shampoo lathers up like crazy it means you're using too much. I never believed it before, but I do now--my hair comes out very clean, soft, and shiny with just that little bit of shampoo, and it still doesn't look greasy the next morning. On the non-shampoo days, I just use conditioner (if I don't, my hair becomes a crackly ball of static). I put it into my hair and scrub my scalp with my fingertips, then rinse it out. It works surprisingly well--I thought it would make my hair feel oily, but the conditioner actually rinses away a certain amount of excess oil without completely stripping the hair follicle, so the oil glands don't get stimulated. This only works for one day on my hair, though. The day after using just conditioner, my hair needs shampooing again. Still, though, I'm not completely happy with how it looks right now. I think it probably needs a trim.

OK, gotta grade now....

So I'm trying an experiment on the surface of my own body. I'm actually doing 2 experiments, one with my facial skin and one with my hair. In both cases, I'm going "off grid" and using simple, natural substances for cleansing instead of commercial soaps, lotions, and shampoo/conditioner. For my face this entails using the "oil cleansing method" (OCM). (Google it if you're curious about the specifics. Edited to add link: Oil Cleansing Method.) Instead of washing my face with cleanser and then applying moisturizer, I slather it with a mixture of castor oil and grapeseed oil (30%-70% respectively, though different people use different blends--the castor oil is the deep cleansing oil, and the grapeseed oil is there as a light moisturizer), massage the oil in for 3-5 minutes focusing on places where I tend to get blackheads, then steam my face several times with a cloth soaked in hot tap water. After each steaming, I wipe my face with the cloth, then rinse it in more hot tap water until it's hot again, then steam, wipe, repeat until I feel like I have gotten enough of the oil off. I've been doing this off and on for the last week or so, with mostly good results. It works best if I use a clean cloth every night. Oh, and you only use the OCM at night. In the morning, theoretically, you should be able to just rinse your skin and go. At first I didn't quite trust this method, and got a container of Cetaphil to use in the mornings, but that has been making my skin seem dull and unhappy. So, from today forward I'm going to try just using the OCM at night, and rinsing my skin thoroughly in the morning.

For my hair, I am trying to wean myself off shampoo. I've been using expensive, salon-marketed hair products for almost all of my life. My mom used to buy Redken products when I was a kid, then Paul Mitchell. As an adult, I have used Rusk, Aveda, and Bumble and Bumble products with relatively good results, though I have never been able to follow the recommendation to not shampoo every day. So anyway, I read about this thing you can do to wean yourself off shampoo. You just stop using it, instead just rinsing your hair thoroughly in the shower every morning. If your hair feels greasy or dirty, you can make up a solution of 1 tablespoon of baking soda to 1 cup of water--just put the baking soda into a cup before you get in the shower, then wet your hair, fill the cup with water, stir it up with your fingers, and pour it over your hair. Massage it into your scalp--be CAREFUL not to get it into your eyes, because it stings! Leave it on there for a couple of minutes and then rinse it out. If your hair feels like it still needs a conditioner, make a solution of 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar and water, and pour that over your hair after rinsing out the baking soda. Work it through and leave it in for a minute or two, then rinse. I'm going to try doing this every other day or so, but I'll decide every morning whether or not my hair needs it basied on how greasy it feels. Supposedly the first couple of weeks can be rough to get through, because it takes a little while for your hair to "turn off" its oil production, but people who have "survived" that period and kept up with the no-shampoo regimen report hair that is bouncy, shiny, healthy, and soft. I'll let you know how it turns out.

i absolutely adore this body lotion. my friend L turned me on to it. this is the first vegan body lotion i've ever tried that actually works. it has the bunny seal--no animal ingredients or testing. it's also fragrance-free (bonus!), and it absorbs nicely. it has completely alleviated the dryness and itchiness that used to plague the skin on my lower legs, and i love the way it makes the skin on the rest of my body feel too. nothing else i've ever tried has worked this well. really. they must never stop making this stuff. my only complaint is that they use unnecessary packaging--there is no reason to put a bottle of lotion inside of a cardboard box, imo. i don't quite understand it, because i don't think shikai packages any of their other products this way. i actually submitted a complaint about this on their website. maybe they'll listen.

back to writing! today is a university holiday, so i'm home doing diss work. i could get used to this...