Who knows how long I've been without a blog post? According to blogger, it's been since June 20th, 2014. Which is about 4 months and 11 days from today. During this time, I have made a lot of purchases and a few haul and favourite videos, as well as my very unsuccessful attempts at vlogging. During these past few months, I have also finished my summer jobs, my summer course and have moved back to school and have started a new job there. A lot has changed in 4 months, and during the whole course of things, I've somehow managed to not lose my head.
Now, I'm not going to say that moving back to school and starting a new school year was all that fun and exciting, of course it's always exciting and fun for the first few weeks of school but then your courses start cracking down on you and you're constantly trying to stay afloat with the piles and piles of assignments that need to be complete with all the notes you need to study for midterms and quizzes.
Yet, in all this mess that has come my way, I've still managed to find myself and keep myself sane. Starting with a new skincare routine that I (thank God) have somehow managed to maintain for the past month. If you've ever hung out with me or have ever met me, you'll know that my skin isn't perfect nor is it flawless (pretty much the same thing). Somehow, I managed to break out on my cheek, which, is something that rarely ever happens throughout my teenage years, my acne was always on my forehead and at this rate, I'd rather it stay there. But stay, it didn't. My acne decided that it was time for my cheek to suffer and to this day, it bothers me to no end.
I guess, this leads me to discussing my skincare routine, I've made slight changes over the month and I think I've finally found the one that works best on my skin and is actually starting to help my acne.
In the beginning, I would do my usual routine when removing make up, I always use waterproof make up because my eyelashes aren't capable of holding up mascara unless its waterproof and I never liked non-waterproof liquid eye liner because it always smudged. Now that, that's out of the way, I would use a cleansing oil, I've been trying out the Shu Uemura cleansing oils because they've been spoken about so much, I have used the 'High Performance Balancing' and the 'Anti/Oxi Skin Refining Anti-Dullness.' I haven't noticed a difference on my skin between the two, so I guess you could say that all they really do is just clean the waterproof make up off your face. That used to be my only routine. But recently, I realized that my skin needed something else to help combat the acne problem. I finally decided to try out my Murad 'Skin Smoothing Polish,' this product has microbeads that help exfoliate the skin and claims that it 'helps relieve congested pores.' Along with this scrub, I began using 'Breath of Fresh Air' a toner water, by Lush. I would clean the make up off my face with the cleansing oil, followed by the scrub and ending with the toner water. In addition to this, I would use the Neostrata 'Oil-Free Smoothing Lotion Level 3,' this product is an AHA exfoliant that is said to even the skin, it stings a little bit but the stinging goes away.
Anyways, that was my night routine for a good few weeks, and then I realized my cheeks were possibly getting worse, so I decided to switch out the Murad scrub for 'Ocean Salt' by Lush. The scrub consists of some citric ingredients which, I know help with combatting my acne, so I began using that and since it's a fairly harsh exfoliant, I also stopped using the Neostrata Smoothing Lotion. This leads me to my current routine. In the morning, I use my Korres 'White Tea Gel Cleanser' and my 'Breath of Fresh Air' toner by Lush, and then follow up with my make up routine. And, at night, I wash off my make up with my Shu Uemura cleansing oil, followed by my 'Ocean Salt' scrub by Lush and finish off with my 'Breath of Fresh Air' toner.
It's taken a while to figure out what's good for me but I think this is the best routine, I've got this far to help me with my acne.
If you must know, the Neostrata Smoothing Lotion and I go back about 4 months when Holly first recommended it to me and said it was her holy grail. I was then tempted to try it but after a few tries, didn't notice anything different so I stopped, only to start up again and stop, and so on and so forth. So here I am now, not using the product after I used it for a good 2-3 weeks without noticing a difference.
Anyways, it's been quite a long blog post, I just figured I'd keep whoever even reads this, up to date on my current skin routine. I know I've been gone for a while and I'm sorry about that. I'm going to try to post more here whenever I can and find the inspiration.
But in the meantime, feel free to check out my Youtube videos, whether you want to see what I've been purchasing or what I've been up to in these past few months.
http://www.youtube.com/TheHwonggg (for hauls and make up related videos)
http://www.youtube.com/hwonggglogs (for vlogs)
Until next time,
- h.
