Make your own natural toner/lotion

If your anything like me; you have oily skin, and oily skin makes it VERY hard to keep breakouts away. i have to be very careful with what products i use because alot of them will over dry my face; in the end making my skin even more oily because the skin try's to hydrate itself by over producing more oil. aveno works great but its a little too gentle for me; so im sort of stuck in between. there really arent that many face products out there that are gentle yet effective; so i took matters into my own hands. i've heard alot of good things about tea tree oil being good for break outs and clearing your skin; but its a little harsh to use on its own. if used alone tea tree can burn your skin; giving you dark spots; and severely dry your skin out.

i picked some up; it comes in a little bottle that looks just like this (pictured above).

i also know that witch hazel makes for a great toner; so i picked some of this up as well. i have been using another brand astringent for my face(which pretty much works just as good) but this bottle was bigger; so i went with this one. the one from the other brand smelled WAYYYY better; no next time i might stick with the other brand. Dickinson's witch hazel smells......really bad lol. not to the point where your gonna throw up; but egh its not the nicest smelling thing in the world. which leads me to my next point; tea tree oil IS SOME REALLY STRONG SMELLING STUFF PEOPLE!! i suggest you take a whiff of it before you buy it because not every one can stomach these two, let alone together. So, the trick to making the toner is to combine these two together. since i cant use the tea tree oil on its own, and i didnt want to buy products with tea tree oil in it(because they always add extra stuff and i dont want to risk breaking out worst) i decided to dilute the oil using the witch hazel. witch hazel can be used for pretty much anything from cuts; to bug bites; to treating minor burns. in other words its really good for disinfecting; which you need to get rid of all the dirt and oil from your face. and in return the tea tree oil is also good for killing bacteria; which causes break outs. i dropped about 20 drops of tea tree oil into the bottle of witch hazel; you can change the amount you add in according to how much you think your skin can handle. After you wash your face, take a cotton ball and put some of it on there(shake it well first!!). it feels a little tingly; but this is great because you can really feel it in there working! the smell goes away after a little while; it can be over whelming at first; but im sure you get use to it. my skin feels great right now; not too greasy or dry. im gonna do an update on how this works for me in about a month; so i can give it time to work its magic. so far so good though.

i also decided to get some vitamin E oil to add to my face moisturizer. i bought some vitamin e capsules BUT i saw this also and decided to get it because it was thinner than the oil from the capsules; and since i have greasy skin, i didnt want to run the chances of this making me super oily.

i took this baby and poured some into my cetaphil lotion. i also poured some into my body lotion as well because you can never get enough vitamin E, specially now with getting so much sun and drying out your skin and what not. i've been drinking nothing but water and real fruit smoothies to try to get my body to rid of all the oils and toxins that it doesnt need. i never realized it but sometimes i would go days without drinking a drop of water; and thats just not acceptable. im hoping that these changes in my routine give me some results; and i will be back to update you guys on it!! also, if you cant find the skin oil; just go ahead and pinch open some vitamin E oil capsules and drop it into your face or body lotion! vitamin E works wonders as far as evening out your skin tone; and lightening up dark spots from acne!

NO MORE BREAKOUTS!

So, im pretty much SICK AND TIRED of what ever problem my skin has going on right now. For about a year and some change my skin has been going crazy and i cant put my finger on whats going on. i pretty much had PERFECT skin up until i hit college. i dont know if maybe the stress did it; or my poor eating habits; or both! bottom line is my skin started breaking out. i was using what ever i got my hands on before my break out because egh my skin was fine so i was never too fussy about washing my face. sometimes i would even forget to wash it at night; and i still would never break out. that isnt the case anymore. i religiously wash my face twice a day because if i dont; forgetttttt about it! i've been trying different products; and i finally got it under somewhat control but then it got really bad again. im starting to think i might be allergic to something in these face washes or something. i've pretty much given up on trying new things; and thats bummed me out because im so use to having clear skin. last night i was like; "you know what, im done. im not taking this breakout crap ANYMORE" lol and started googling around and stuff for a way to help my skin. i decided that i needed to stay on track with my multi vitamin; because my eating habits suckkkk. thats step one. i went out today and bought some stuff that i think might help my skin; and im going to religiously give myself a facial twice a week to control my oil; specially now in the summer. im gonna do a couple of posts to show you guys the different things i got, and how i used them today/plan to keep using them! read along!