'Oil Cleansing Method' is everywhere. While it isn't for everyone or even for every time you wash your face, if it interests you perhaps you should give it a try! Typically when you make this at home for yourself you use 100% oils. A blend of castor oil and one or two other oils (to mitigate the drying effects of castor) is the standard go-to. Jojoba, olive, avocado or grapeseed are readily available and not terribly bank breaking. Argan, borage, evening primrose oil, squalene or pomegranate are nice too but more expensive. You can pretty much go as fancy or simple as you like!
On the other hand, if you choose to buy a facial cleansing oil you will see a whole host of ingredients. This is because most (at least the ones I looked at: Clinique's Take the Day Off Cleansing Oil, Shu Uemura Cleansing beauty Oil Premium, and Josie Maran's Argan Cleansing Oil) contain esters or solubilizers. My guess is because the oil on the face thing is off-putting to lots of people; so these companies have made lighter (esters) cleansing oils that wash off cleanly in water (solubilizers).
Hmmmm. This is sort of appealing to me, but not these price tags. My two beefs with the OCM is how long it takes and how you have to use hot hot water on your face. Hot water and a wash cloth are a must to get a lot of the oil off. I don't like hot water on my face, it makes me red for hours, and it is drying to the skin. So how can we make it easier to get most but not all of the oil off your face? Solubilizers. I'm kind of surprised that some of these high end cleansing oils use polysorbate as their solubilizer. Maybe I'm a snob but polysorbate is the least nice pampering solubilizer to me. It seems like an affordable work horse that is best suited to bath melts or bath oils.
So I am going to make a purchase-type cleansing face oil but nicer than the purchasable ones (I hope)!
I went off this recipe from LotionCrafter for their Olive Cleansing Oil. I say 'went off' because I pretty much changed everything. I also meshed in this Basic Cleansing Oil recipe from Point of Interest! I had very little Cromollient SCE left so I had to find a suitable substitute. I landed on Caprol Micro Express/AquaEm/Multi-Spray Concentrate (looks like WSP pulled this one from their inventory and the page no longer exists). SORT of funny story... I own all of these. This is why you should check out the INCI for products (and maybe keep a list of what you have...) so you don't buy the same thing over and over. Since I'm flush with PEG-6 Caprylic/Capric Glycerides (and) Polyglycerol-6 Dioleate (and) Glyceryl Caprylate/Caprate and every place I look claims it's non-sticky and a solubilizer, score!
I've been using this for about three weeks now and have hardly put a dent in the bottle! And I only made a 50g batch (which I recommend you do as well in case you hate it)!
Truthfully, at first I did not like it. It should be noted that even with a solubilizer, a thin layer of oil will remain on your face. This layer feels really nice and soothing. BUT it smells like oil (not stinky- just oily). First time I used this oil to wash my face I did so in the morning. As the day went on the oily smell started to annoy me more and more. I could smell my own face and it smelled completely NOT fresh and clean. I started to imagine the oil oxidizing on my skin giving me a rancid odor. After that I rushed home and washed my face with my normal face wash. I decided to switch the oil to the night time and use my surfactant based cleanser for the morning, ease myself in. Oh, and I do not think that using both types of cleanser a day can 'confuse' your skin... Do we not use a heavier cream at night and a lighter SPF based cream for day? Does that 'confuse' our skin? Not mine! (I think skin is a lot tougher and more resilient than many people give it credit for. After all, it is our body's force field!)
I really liked using this at night. It felt more natural to me to go to bed with some oil on my face; this past winter I added a couple drops of olive squalene to my moisturizer at night to give it a kick! I still sort of felt like I woke up smelling like stir fry though. I considered adding a fragrance. Tea tree oil is the natural selection since it's antibacterial! Buuuut, I don't like the smell enough to have it on my face all day/night. I really love citrus but they are not as suited to my drier skin. I also worried that if I wanted to use this in the day time, that some citrus oil would remain on my face and perhaps make it more sun sensitive. It would be a teeny amount and most likely wouldn't be a problem, but why risk it. Fragrance oil was out since most are too strong and smelly to have so close to my nose. Hmm, what is a fresh essential oil combination that I really REALLY love and won't photosensitize or dry me out. Rosemary Mint. I added 3 drops of rosemary essential oil and two of peppermint. The batch I made was so small (50g) that I didn't think I could measure out the tiny amount in percentages. I only wanted a hint of smell and a hint of peppermint tingle.
Adding these essential oils completely changed the game for me. The combination made me feel refreshed after washing my face and I did not smell like oil! I didn't smell much of anything in fact! I've been using this oil every evening and so far my skin seems to like it. It hasn't broken me out, dried me out or caused any other weirdness. Au contraire, if anything my skin looks plumper and more rosy in the morning!
This is how I do it:
Starting with a dry face, rub a nickel sized amount of oil cleanser between your hands. Then gently massage it into your face. I wear contacts and this shockingly doesn't cloud my eyes even when I rub in near my eye lids. I massage for about one minute. Then rinse clean with warm water and pat dry with a towel. Use your normal serum/moisturizer.
I've just started using this in the shower in the morning. I massage it into my face before any water gets on my face* then I wet my Clarisonic** with hot water to exfoliate/scrub, then rinse.
*if you start with a wet face the cleansing oil will solubilize right away. It only works if you massage it in dry then use water to wash away the oil and any old sebum/dirt it has collected.
**Using the Clarisonic feels great but (I'm guessing) has potential to make the brush kinda nasty. I've been washing the brush head with oil cutting dish soap to break up any undissolved oil and dirt on it. Don't want to rub old oil into that clean skin!
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