Lip Exfoliation: Sugar & Oil Scrub

Let me just say that winter totally, completely sucks for my lips.  I get halfway through winter perfectly fine, then I'll lick my lips ONE time out in the cold and suddenly they're super chapped.  In times like these I used to stick firmly to my Burt's Bees Lip Balm, which is as low as $1.99 online, but this year I didn't have the chance to pick any up.  What I do have instead that has been getting me through winter is this wonderful little thing:

Nivea, A Kiss of Milk and Honey (as low as $1.79 online)

It really is a kiss of milk and honey.  The flavors are just barely there in the stick and it keeps your lips well-moisturized. It's really saved me so far!

But I'm not really blogging about lip balm today.  I'm more interested in talking about lip exfoliation.

Our lips really take a lot of beatings and not many people realize that they need more care and attention than just a quick glossing or balming.  A friend of mine introduced me to lip exfoliation.  I'd never done it before today because honestly I never thought about it.  Here's what I tried today: I mixed a tiiiiny bit of oil with some white sugar.  My friend tells me that when she exfoliates her lips, she uses brown sugar instead.  I'll try that next time too so I can see if there is any difference between the two.  Anyway, I mixed the two together, and it was really just a little more oil than is necessary to coat the sugar.  Then, you apply it with either a toothbrush with soft, straight bristles or your finger.  I chose to do it with my finger because I was worried that the toothbrush would be too harsh on my lips, which you're not supposed to be.  

When applying, you want to move slowly in small circular motions.  I probably spent two minutes exfoliating my lips because at first I was pressing very lightly, but I pressed more firmly when I became confident that I wasn't about to rip the skin off of my lips.  After, you just wash off the scrub and apply a lip moisturizer or lip balm.  Again, I used my Nivea.

Really... I didn't realize how gross my lips were haha.  I do have a patch of rough skin from biting on my lip and some of the dead skin had come off during the exfoliation.  My lips felt way smoother than when I had started, but there's still a lot of work to do.  I am going to try it again tomorrow with brown sugar to see if there is any difference.  But it literally takes 1-2 minutes to treat your lips to some real care.  I definitely suggest giving it a try, since most people do have oil and sugar in their houses!  Good luck and get scrubbing!

Face Care Review: L'Oreal Paris Go 360 Clean & Dead Sea Milk Moisturizer

The other day I received a huge package from Amazon with various things I'd ordered to replenish my makeup collection.  Among them were also these two facial products:

L'Oreal Paris Go 360 Clean Deep Exfoliating Scrub, $4.97 at Amazon

Organic Dead Sea Milk Moisturizer, $5.95 at Amazon

I honestly ordered these two because they were some of the cheapest I could find with Super Saver Shipping on Amazon that had decent reviews.  I thought I'd give them a chance.

First I used the L'Oreal Paris scrub during my shower.  It conveniently comes with a little scrubby pad that attaches to the bottle by sticking through the middle.  It's super cute but I really didn't like the pad that much.  It feels like a squishy jelly pad and when using it to clean my face it just didn't feel like it was doing the job.  I washed my face twice with the scrub to feel really clean.  I think I would prefer to use a mesh shower pouf or even a wash cloth.  That might just be preference on my part, though, because I like the slightly abrasive feeling that I'm digging deep into my skin to get all the gunk out.  When I wash my face, I always run hot water (but not too hot!) over my face first so I feel like I'm opening all my pores.  Then I wash my face thoroughly, and when I get out of the shower I cool my face down with a cold wash cloth to make the pores smaller.

After I had dried off some more I put on the Organic Dead Sea milk moisturizer.  The cool thing I liked about this (because I am easily amused) is that it wasn't heavy or thick like most moisturizers.  Actually it splashed around in the bottle like baby formula.  I only had to use a little bit to cover my face, and hours later, as I'm writing this, I keep touching my face because it's just soooo smooth.  I've bought some Dead Sea products before, when their kiosks pop up sporadically around my local mall I often buy their shimmery mica loose eyeshadow pots that were just so beautiful but also unfortunately lost with the rest of my cosmetics last October.  I also had lost a blush that lasted me 2+ years and still had plenty of powder left.  I can say I've never been disappointed by any of their products.  The employee's service, a little, but not the products themselves. 

I'd say this is another win for Dead Sea Ltd.  I think I'm going to use this a lot more often now, unless I somehow start breaking out badly from it.  As for the L'Oreal Paris exfoliating scrub, I did like how tight and clean my skin felt afterwards, but from now on I will probably forgo the included scrubby pad for a shower pouf or something similar.