Monday, September 5, 2011
OCM - Favorite Oil Blends
I've finally taken the plunge and invested in some small dispenser bottles for my OCM regimen. I've found a few oil blends that I like best for cleansing and moisturizing.
For cleansing, I like a fairly thin oil blend right now, so I'm using 2 parts Grapeseed oil, 1 part Sunflower oil and 1 part Castor oil, with about five drops of lavender essential oil per batch.
I've found that for my face, the lighter the oil blend, the more "scrubby" it is, and the more oil plugs and crud comes out during the oil massage. The only downside is that this blend is not as moisturizing as the previous blends I was using, so I need a few drops of moisturizing oil after I've steamed/cleansed my face.
For moisturizing, I'm using a 1 part Grapeseed oil and 1 part Sweet Almond oil, with about ten drops of a custom essential oil blend that my friend Jackie at Glory Be Herbals made up for me. If you'd like an essential oil blend of your own to use with OCM, contact Jackie through Etsy convo and I'm sure she'll make one for you too. Mine is blended for someone with aging skin, sensitive skin and acne/rosacea. It smells great and I think it has helped my skin improve. I am noticing that my skin is no longer red in the morning (a common side effect of rosacea), and I am not having as many rosacea lesions, even during periods of hormonal imbalance, which used to be an itchy, burning, living hell, let me tell you.
So how much did I make? Truth be told, not much. I think I did three batches of cleansing, and maybe half that much of moisturizing, since I only use a very small bit of the moisturizing blend each night. Still, it should be enough to last me for a week or two, since my standard "part" measure is a teaspoon measure, so each batch makes enough for two washes. I didn't want to make too much at one time.
What about you? What are your favorite OCM oil blends?
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I fell away from OCM this past week because, well, I just don't have the patience to mix up mini-batches every night, but I hadn't liked it well enough to make a bigger batch yet. My problem was, it felt like I couldn't get enough of the oil off of my face after steaming, no matter how hard I tried - I literally did it in the shower and left my face under the water for like three minutes after steaming *and* wiping down several times, and I *still* felt greasy! - but reading this, and a couple people elsewhere, makes me think I'd had too much castor in the mix. I'd been using a fairly high castor-to-carriers ratio, because I'd read that castor was the "drying" oil and my skin needs that. But perhaps thinning the blend with more jojoba (my main carrier, I was using approx 2:1:1 castor:jojoba:grapeseed) would help it be light enough to wipe off more fully. So I made a bigger batch of a lighter mix, tossed it in a travel shampoo bottle, and hopefully I'll be able to be more consistent about using it if I don't have to mess about with measuring spoons every night! ;-)
ReplyDeleteinstead of mixing it every night you could just make a small glass bottle that could last you a month! (:
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