My Face Care Routine

Let me start by saying I do NOT have perfect skin and I have not met anyone that does.  I break out when I get stressed, drink too much sparkling water (love it!), and when my sweet tooth has lost all control.  I wouldn't say my skin is sensitive but it is very particular and extremely picky!  While I do have to rotate my products every few days, I try not to introduce too many new products to keep my skin in check.  Listed below are the products I use most of the time after removing my makeup, but not an all-inclusive list of the only things I use.

Cleanser
Every 2-3 days I use Biore' Pore Unclogging Scrub to get my face extra clean and decrease break outs.  I have tried numerous other products even some from this same line and nothing works as well as this does for my face.  Because it is a scrub, I do not use it every day as it is a bit too much on my skin to use daily. 

On the days that I do not use the Biore' scrub I use L'Oreal go 360 clean deep facial cleanser for sensitive skin.  I use to use the little scrub that comes with it, but I recently got a new little gadget that I will discuss below that I use to deep clean my face.  This cleanser is not a scrub, is very, very gentle on my face, and really removes the dirt.  I only clean my face once a day (at night) and I know some people may not agree with this but it works for me. In the morning I just use my washcloth with some warm water to get my face clean.

Exfoliating brush
While I would love a Clarisonic Mia, I just refuse to pay that much for a brush for my face.  We have Sonicare toothbrushes (same technology as the clarisonic) so I know it would  be awesome but I just can't! Lol!  So a few months ago I bought the Olay Cleansing brush from Ulta (on sale and with a coupon of course) and it's very similar to the Clarisonic minus the $100+ price tag and it had great reviews.  I try to use it every day (doesn't always happen) and I have to say that I have seen an improvement in my skin.  I don't buy the fancy cleanser from Olay, I just use my usual products with it and it works fine.  

However for Christmas, my sister-in-law gave me the new Mary Kay Skinvigorate Cleansing Brush which is similar to the Olay cleansing brush.  They both use 2 AA batteries, is waterproof, and have two speeds.  The 3 things that are different between the two brushes are: the price, the Mary Kay brush does come with two brush heads and the Olay only comes with one and the speeds on the Mary Kay brush are a tad bit stronger than the Olay. 

Toner
I don't buy the fancy, high-end toners, I just use regular 'ole witch hazel.  Now when I first started using this I
felt like it made my skin break out more.  So I quit using it for a while and just recently started back the past few months and things have been going well!  After I have used one of the above cleansers to clean my face I simply apply some of this to a cotton ball and rub it all over my face.  This helps to reduce redness, reduce and control oil, refreshes my skin, and locks in moisture.

Moisturizer
I have also tried my fair share of moisturizers and these generally don't vary at all.  I use Ambi Even and Clear as my daily moisturizer in the morning and I love this stuff!!  I like this moisturizer because it evens out the tone of my skin over time, it keeps my face moisturized, and it has SPF in it.  Although this bottle only has 3ozs in it and cost about $10, depending on where you buy it, a little goes a very long way.  The bottle I currently have I honesty can't even remember when I bought it, but it was well over 8 months ago, so I usually only have to buy this once, maybe twice a year.  But I have been using this same product for at least 5 years now.

After I have cleansed my skin at night I use a Coconut Palm Whipped Butter that I purchase from my friend's Etsy shop.  This is a very light butter and I only need to use a little bit for my face.  If you use too much it can get greasy, but using the right amount keeps my skin very moisturized until morning.  

My skin is combination so I have to be careful of the products that I use and I have found that my weird combo and application of products work well for me.  I have especially found that rotating my face cleansers throughout the week helps tremendously versus using the same product daily.