My Take on the Oil Cleansing Method

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I have acne prone skin so I breakout every now and then. Between the breakouts, my skin looks great mashallah. However, in December last year, I looked around on forums and on the internet about how to make my skin better and I then came across the Oil Cleansing Method. The idea behind this method is that oily and acne prone skin can become better when using particular oils to clean the skin. Castor oil which has cleansing and anti-inflammatory properties is the primary oil, then you can another oil such as olive oil in order to draw out dirt and grime from the pores and to moisturise the skin too. This castor and olive oil mixture is very simple; once you have that down, you can add other oils that are beneficial for acne and oily skin such as sweet almond, grapeseed and hazelnut oils. When I first read up on this and heard other people raving about this, I thought to myself ‘I HAVE to try this!’. Who wouldn’t want to try something that promises to get rid of your spots? Even though my skin wasn’t bad, I still tried it.

The first 2 weeks were amazing, my blackheads and whiteheads were gone, my face was smooth and radiant but that moment was short-lived. Randomly out of nowhere, I started getting spots erupting from places I wouldn’t usually get spots. I never got spots on my cheeks but they were all over my cheeks. My chin was covered in huge, sore spots that didn’t seem like they were going to leave any time soon. Almost everyone I knew asked me what happened to my face as it was totally alien for them to see me with so many spots. My doctor didn’t know what to do so I ended up going to a dermatologist in Harley Street. If you’re from the UK, you’ll know that doctors in Harley Street charge a lot of money as they have a great reputation so that’s how bad I wanted the acne to go. To be honest, the doctor didn’t help much as he seemed to want to throw all of these useless treatments down my throat but he did prescribe me a cream called Epiduo to treat the acne. He warned me that I wouldn’t get results very quickly and that I must be patient. Having acne is a big downer and I become extremely conscious of my appearance so being patient was extremely hard for me. I had no choice though so I waited and now, the acne is practically gone! I’ve been acne free for around 3 months now with the exception of the odd break out but alhamdulillah, the acne is pretty non-existent now. The Epiduo helped my face a lot but it wasn’t easy. The areas I would apply the cream would peel because it was drying the acne and it left a burning sensation on my skin too. As well as trying to treat acne, I’d be having to treat dry skin too. Now that the acne is gone, I do have some scarring and hyper-pigmentation on my skin. In my opinion, that’ll be harder to correct than the acne so insha’Allah it’ll be something that I can do!

Be careful about trying new things ladies, so many people including myself are quick to jump and try the latest thing when it may not be the best for them. Look into the Oil Cleansing Method very carefully before trying otherwise you might end up regretting it.

Has anyone tried the Oil Cleansing Method before or still uses it? How was/is it on your skin?

http://theclassyanarchist.wordpress.com theclassyanarchist

Hey!
I am a huge fan of oils to cleanse/detox/moisturize the skin, and I document a lot of my experiences in my blog. My skin is on the dry side, so I’ve been able to get away with slathering on lots of different oils (especially in the winter), and this has definitely helped my skin have improved texture, look more radiant, and just feel better overall. My favourite oils to moisturize with are coconut oil, sea buckthorn seed oil, and patchouli oil. I use the coconut oil all over. Not only does it smell amazing, but it sinks in so quickly and takes me to a warmer tropical place (I live in Canada). Since beginning to use oils, my skin has less to no irritation, and very very minimal breakouts occasionally.

Maybe a more gentler oil experience for you would be steaming? You can do this with a bowl of just boiled water, add 1-2 drops of your favourite essential oil (tea tree oil is great for acne-prone/oily skin), and place a towel over your head and the bowl to allow the oil and steam to open your pores and cleanse your face. It’s a great relaxation technique, and I’ve had it “melt” my blemishes off before (I know it sounds crazy!).

I’m glad you found something that works for you. That’s the problem with all of these different methods – they don’t work for everyone
Hafsa

Wow thank you for your GREAT advice! The annoying thing is that some things works fantastically on some but on others, not so much. The steaming works wonders on my skin and I’m most definitely going to try that more often and the coconut oil sounds delicious, I love the smell! It’s not too good for my skin because it makes me break out but on my body it’s superb!!
Aishah Aduli

Hey,
I’m sorry to hear that your experience using the Oil Cleansing Method didn’t go so well. I’ve tried and am still using the Oil cleansing Method, this is my story
I too researched online to find a cure for my acne prone oily skin, my skin a few years ago used to be REALLY spotty, oily and just overall ugly! but Alhamduallah now a days the only issue i really want to resolve is blackheads and overall complexion color. So anyway i found the Oil Cleansing and i just couldn’t wait to try it out, so i ordered my castor oil and it came the next day, for the first two weeks my skin was feeling SO smooth and the blackheads were disappearing in front of my eyes my complexion was evening out and my skin just looked healthy, BUT then at the start of the third week, my skin took a turn for the worst, it became bumpy red and many white heads were popping out places i haven;t had spots for in a long time, so i rushed back to my laptop and began typing in the search bar things like ‘Oil cleansing method purging’ and reviews to see what other peoples experiences were, I didn’t find much but i decided to carry on with the oil cleansing method and within the week my skin is back to normal, i think you should have just kept up with the oil cleansing because i think that that stage we went through was just called the ‘purging process’ and is actually a good thing because its showing you that it is actually working on your skin! Mashallah Mashallah Mashallah my skin is looking much better (i really don’t want to jinx it or anything so i may just add one more Mashallah LOL) now I’ve changed the whole regimen for my face, here it is:
Lush fresh pharmacy cleanser in the morning, followed by Lush grease lightning spot treatment, then Lush Imperialis moisturizer and throughout the day the Lush Tea Tree water toner, then the same in the evening (except the spot treatment, i just use that in the morning) and i now use the Oil Cleansing Method every other day.

Another quick thing about the oil cleansing method is that you MUST make sure that you remove ALL of the oil using a hot/warm wash cloth else the remaining oil is more likely to clog your pores.

I hope this was useful ( i know its a lot of information lol but hey that’s me )

also Ramadan Kareem
Aishahx
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