Having made your soap learn to use it properly. Begin by splashing your face with lots of warm water. Then work up a good lather in your hands from a bar of herbal soap appropriate for your skin type. Spread this on your face and gently massage upwards and outwards, skimming lightly around the eyes and paying special attention to the nose and chin. Now sluice the soap off with lots of warm water. Run a basin of fresh, barely tepid water and add a tablespoon of cinder vinegar to it.
This will help restore the acid mantle your skin so badly need to fend off bacteria and infection for its protection. Splash at least twenty handfuls of this rinse on to your face. Palm your skin dry, that is, pat away the water using the palms of your hands, leaving it slightly damp so that you can apply a moisturizer. This method of drying does not roughen the skin cells as an abrasive towel does and much more importantly it leaves some of the water on the skin’s surface to moisturize it and to be held there by a cling film of skin moisturizer.
Never use large quantities of cold water as a rinse. This will only aggravate sensitive skin and thread veins and make the sebaceous glands pump out oil even harder after their initial cold shock. If you like, you can spray your face with a plat mister containing one the mineral water or herbal vinegar or wine mixes suitable for your skin type. Leave this untouched on the skin for a few minutes, then apply a layer of moisturizer over it.
For those still not totally convinced by the argument in favor of soap, soapwort is an excellent herbal substitute which can be used on any skin type. The roots yields a lot of mucilage which mixed with water, resembles soap in solution.
Monday January 21, 2008 - 06:27pm (EST).
-by Kelley
