Summer Garden Facial Cleansing Bar (for any time of year)

This is what friends do, they tell each other about neat stuff they find... like a shoe sale, a cool band, or a great recipe. Well, I've been remiss in telling you about the Cleansing Bars I made from LisaLise Natural Skin Care. Please forgive me! Lise's blog is full of recipes for making all sorts of your own natural skin care and cosmetics at home, but it was her soap-less facial cleansing bars that were on my mind (and my to-do list) for a long time. I knew I wanted to make one, it just took me a while to get around to it. 

Curious about cleansing bars.

If you're unfamiliar with the idea of a Cleansing Bar, it's a semi-solid blend of butters, oils, clays and more, that cleanse and moisturize your face in one easy step. Absolutely brilliant, right? ...but I didn't need another face cleansing method. After all, I was content with what I'd been using.

If you're happy and you know it, then your face will surely show it.
I am the type of person that will happily stick with something for a long long time... so long as everything is running smoothly. I've been using the Oil Cleansing Method for quite a few years now and couldn't be happier with it. Occasionally I will do a honey-wash, just to change things up, but then it's right back to the OCM. It works great for me, but....

Change when there is a need.
The one thing that the OCM doesn't do is exfoliate, and whenever my face is in Seasonal Transition Mode, it can get dry and flaky (or apparently worse). That's when I need some mild exfoliation and a heavy dose of moisturization. Rather than adding another step to my routine, Lise's Cleansing Bars are a one-step wonder: they cleanse, gently exfoliate, and moisturize.

Late last fall, I finally made Lise's Rose Clay & Oat Cleansing Bar. A version of it anyway. A few ingredient substitutions were necessary (only because once I had decided to make it, I wanted to make it right away... no time to stop and shop first). The result? I absolutely loved it!

I call my version "Summer Garden" because the lavender and rose remind me of just that...  even though they're dried and you can make this (and use it) at any time of year...

Losing My Lipid Layer (and how I got it back)

So far, 2017—there just isn't another word for it—sucks. I spent the entire month of January battling one ailment or another, which is pretty unusual for me. I'm wondering how much had to do with stress and how much was due to being off my kefir? I gave it a rest last September and it's somewhere in the back of my fridge, dead more than likely, and doing me no good, regardless. But that's another story. This one— I'll warn you now— is long enough.

In addition to the afore-hinted-at ailments, my face and neck were under constant siege: hot, red, swollen, rough, dry, and itchy. So. Very. Itchy. Itching like a thousand burning ants were dancing under the surface. All of my frantic "research" online just seemed to spin me in circles until ultimately I chanced upon what was going on. So with that, and after spending most of January with various oils and unguents on my face, I've listed a few things below that I, and anyone else suffering with dry, dehydrated, and otherwise distressed facial skin, might do well to keep in mind.

Great Barrier Grief...
Though I may never figure out why it happened, the moisture-barrier (or lipid layer) on my face and neck was compromised. My skin was no longer retaining moisture and was, as a result, severely dehydrated and in great hot gobs of distress. How do our bodies usually react to distress... with inflammation. I could tell that something was seriously wrong when, in addition to everything else, my face was so puffy that I could no longer see the creases around my eyes. I've never been so happy to see my wrinkles than when it meant that my face was returning to normal. Welcome back, little friends!

So how can skin heal itself when it's in a constant state of panic and can no longer hold moisture? It can't. If the barrier is gone, it is defenseless. I figured that if my skin no longer had a barrier, I would have to provide it one until it could heal and take over again. For the record, I didn't exactly figure this out right away. I wish I had. Over the days and weeks though, I naturally began to turn to things that were, under normal situations, much too heavy/greasy to use on my face. Lo and behold, the heavier and slower to absorb it was, the better my skin felt.

Occasionally I needed to exfoliate. Now the last thing I wanted to do was scrub my stressed-out face, but there comes a point when there's no point in slathering glops of good stuff over layers of dead skin cells. Extreme caution was in order though; it needed to be super gentle. I started with powdered milk and later used finely ground oats. Both worked well without being aggressive. After gently removing with a wet washcloth, I patted aloe all over and followed with straight shea butter or coconut oil. Whenever things started to itch, I would glide my homemade lotion-bar over the itchy areas.

Yeah, I said lotion bar. The biggest surprise of all! There I was, rubbing it on my poor chapped nose (2+ weeks of cold/flu) when my face started itching to distraction at the same time. I absently rubbed the bar on the itchy spots and the itching subsided right away. Like a miracle. What's in it? Shea butter, coconut oil, and beeswax. Hallelujah! I had inadvertently stumbled on the perfect thing. I am convinced that it was the beeswax in the lotion bar acting as temporary moisture barrier that did the trick.

It still took time for my face to heal, but with my lotion bar at hand, I was able to keep the line of defense in place (and quiet the itching) while my skin repaired itself. Seal it to heal it! (I just made that up.) Here is a great big ginormous list of...

Things that worked for me, things that didn't, and things to avoid...
(in alphabetical order)

Refresh With Lemon Cucumbers

Thanks to a gift from a gardening friend last spring, our garden has been giving us lovely Lemon Cucumbers this summer and fall. I for one, couldn't be happier. Cucumbers have to be one of the most refreshing snacks ever. With their slight hint of citrus-ness, Lemon Cucumbers are even more so. 

They've been really easy to grow; we have them in a pot with a bit of trellis propped in it. Keep them watered regularly, don't let the leaves get wet, guide their vines where you want them, and clip the cukes off as soon as they look ready. I've noticed that once cut from the vine, they start to lose their plump firmness, so plan on eating them within a day of picking.

I usually just scrub them, slice off the ends, then cut them into quarters or slice them across like any other cucumber. We leave the skins on and eat them by themselves, or include them in a salad. Sometimes I'll drop a slice into my glass of ice water... super refreshing!

Next year we're definitely getting another one of these vines... we might even have to get two of them!

• Make a Fresh Cucumber & Spirulina Mask for your pretty face with LisaLise
• Or maybe a Soothing Cucumber Splash from Herb Companion  
• Get some tips for Growing Cucumbers at Bonnie Plants

Happy growing!