Back-track a year or two, pre-entering the world of beauty blogging and I would have visibly recoiled at the thought of cleaning my face with oils. Adding more oil to already combination skin was not something I wanted to do, in fact I would use products that were probably way to strong for me, stripping my skin and probably doing more harm than good. However, fast-forward to now and every evening you will find me washing my face with my old self's previous nightmare, because it doesn't actually have the effects that you might think. For a long time I think that the word 'oil' has been seen as a bit of a dirty word in skin-care. It's something that everyone wants to avoid looking like but the fact is that it removes make-up better than anything else, and won't make your skin oily because it is different oils to the ones that your skin creates natural. These reasons, and more have meant that I have added oils into my daily skincare routine and I am really loving the results.
The oil that I am currently using is called the ARK Remove Pre-Skin Cleanse*, a clear liquid that you apply to your skin to literally melt off the makeup and bring skin to a blank canvas. One reason that I really love using this over the normal cleanser is because of the nutrients in it to really nourish the skin without stripping it. I've had problems in the past where I get really dry skin after using treatments that are too harsh, but I feel that using this I have started to break the circle of this happening. I know it's a bit tedious adding another step to a skin care routine but without really making sure that you take everything off before you cleanse, you will never actually get too the root of the problem because you can't get to your skin. By taking off surface debris first, it allows a deeper clean and therefore better skin in the long run.
To follow up I use the ARK Age Prepare Skin Cleanser* to really clean my skin. There are three categories to this range, Prepare, Maintain and Repair, depending how old you are to really get the best formulation for you which I think is a really unique and brilliant idea. The one that I use smells amazing, of ginger ale, and cleans skin naturally reducing sebum, washing away impurities and protecting from free-radicals. It really is an amazing cleanser that cleans without drying out your skin and giving that horrible 'tight' feeling afterwards.
I'm really happy with the routine that I have going on at the moment and it is really working for me. What do you think of oils and the double-cleanse?
