revamping my skin care routine (picture heavy) pt. 1

After rubbing my fingers over dry canyons and oily patches of inflamed skin, I realized it was time to adjust my skin care routine. Well... at least develop one for my skin type. Now I know about the 10-step Korean skin routine (sometimes it goes up to 15 or more steps.) , but I know that i can't get into a solid routine without easing into it at first.I did a bit of shopping at target, from amazon , and soko glam and here what i found. (Disclaimer: these are things that work for me, and not necessarily for everyone else. The purpose of sharing the products is to give people with similar skin concerns an idea of the products that may help. This isn't sponsored or anything, I'm  just doing it, because i wish i had some one to do this for me. okay? okay! great.)


SO ,before jumping into the products i want to discuss a couple of my skin concerns.

1) Sensitive skin -I've never been able to wash my face without it feeling like a took a razor to my face, drenched it in lemon juice, and stretched it over canvas to be dried like leather. (um... okay, i admit that's a bit gross, but my face always hurts after washing it.)

2) Acne- need i say more? pimples, black heads, and white heads are grossly tuck just beyond the reach of my normal face wash and  Sadly they all erect in unity to ruin any progress I've made in having a clear face.

3) acne scaring. This is something that is a major concern for those with dark skin. Hyper-pigmentation is inescapable if  your skin is like mine. Even if you've never popped, pushed, or irritated the infected area, those scars are ready and willing to come out the woods like a crazed chainsaw murderer (hmmm, i've been a classic horror movie mood lately,)

4) then are smaller problems like dull skin, and firmness and wrinkle prevention


Now that we have a list of problems to be addressed ,let's address them. We'll start with products  by company, and the results I've experienced will follow. (You can skip around if you want,)

PRODUCT BY COMPANY

Target.com 

now these are products that could easily be found in stores (at east if you're in the state, but i bought these because i was already ordering things online.

Cetaphil gentle skin cleanser.

My experiences with this product: I love this cleanser. It's gentle and fragrance free (if that's a concern for you)  My skin feels crazy soft afterwards, and not irritated at all. (You have no idea how surprised i was not to have a burning face after cleaning it. Is this what people without sensitive skin feel? ... It's nice.) 

Neutrogena clear face sunscreen



My experiences with this product. Now this sunscreen has SPF 55, which isn't the highest, but i don't mind reapplying this and here's why.It's super light, and oil-free.My pores don't feel like they're dyeing when i use it, and there's no awkward white streaks left behind.


St. Ives blackhead clearing green tea scrub (wow what a mouthful)


My experiences with this product. It's okay. It's not the type of product that'll make me hold itup and sing that song from lion king. I'll just list the pros and cons and let you form your own opinion.
                                       pro:                                                         Con.       
                         gentle, no burning sensation after use                   maybe too gentle for my skin (I usally only
                         doesn't dry out skin                                           exfoliate once every three weeks, but i 
                                                                                                 might have to do it once a week)

Products from SOKO GLAM

so this is a bit of an unboxing, here's the box with the company name.

A little overview of what i bought.

vitamin C

Snail mucin Essence

Bunila co's Clean it zero oil based face wash

(it also comes with a little spatula to scoop the product out with.)

Etude house Moistfull collagen eye cream

Sokoglam was also kind enough to send some samples (I'll get into these products a little later )

Products from amazon

So this starts off gold, and turns white as it dries, but oh my word your face will be soooo soft afterwards that a babies bum will feel like sandpaper in comparison. (yep, I-I'm aware that was weird. I felt it as I was typing,but you get the point right?)

Etude House's Wounder pore 10 in 1 toner

This is the biggest bottle of toner i've ever bought (500 ml/16.90 oz) It's gentle on skin but tough on dirt. Not to mention my skin feels amazingly soft afterwards. My T-zone doesn't go back to being oily afterwards like it dose with other toners. the packaging is so sweet,and there's a little press pump for cotton pads (you really don't need a lot of pumps either.  a little goes a long way)


That's it for now. I know I need to get a couple of face masks, but I'm happy with these products. (besides i want to get my skin used to a routine before experimenting anymore, just to be safe)

30 day poetry challenge day 5

Day 5- Write a three line poem about lemons without using the following words: lemon, yellow, round, fruit, citrus, tart, juicy, peel, and sour.

Sun drenched rind deliver these limeies 

oh! cure scurvy for we are far from home

lest we leave men bobbing in the waves

30 Day Poetry Challenge day 4

30 Day Poetry Challenge questions from  http://nadiasf.tumblr.com/post/7418962198/poetrychallenge




Day 4- Write a haiku. They’re often about nature, but yours can be about anything.

Subway

Iron snake below

treble,rumble,steady earth

transport me away

I'm not much for writing about trains, so this was really fun for me. I love counting syllables, but sometimes they can be tricky. I guess that's why word choice is so important.



Last time I wrote a poem i used ten words from a random book. That book was... Charles Dikens' Great Expectations.

Gothic garden planing -Form and texture.

I've discussed some of the decorative side of garden planning to make this segment a little more fun, but then thought "why can't the actual work be fun too?". (That being said the planing is a lot of work, but it just doesn't seem like it.) So let's jump right into it

Form: Now I've talked about the shape of plants in regards to visual weight (Eye level, below eye level, sweeping plants, and above eye level) but let's talk about a plant's form. Now form is just another word for the plant's overall shape. (It took me like 3 weeks in a gardening class to piece that together, so forgive me if my gardening jargon is a bit elementary) Now I mentioned that bushes/shrubbery would be below eye level last time, right? Well that's not always the case (I said it that way earlier because i didn't want to get to deep into different types of plants. I admit this way is a bit confusing, but I can clear everything up in a bit... I hope)  Now if i were to break form down into two parts, and I am, it would be

1. the branch's form (or the form of the plants base whether that be vine or branch etc...)
2. and the overall shape of the plant.

The first part is the indecent variable, if you will, and the second is the dependent. In other words the overall shape of the plant depends on the shape of its base. If I were to point out a plant with an arching branch, it would probably be a sweeping plant (below eye level) a weeping plant (has the same characteristics as a sweeping plant, but it at or above eye level. Ex: Weeping willow) or a plant with climbing vies (EX: English Ivy)

Texture: This is what I used to confuse form with. Texture is how the leaves, vines bark, flower etc... looks and feels. Those with "ooky spooky" gardens generally (at least from the ones I've seen) lean towards plants with a thorny texture,velvety petals, and/or  plants with curling vines.
 Here are 5  plant suggestions that are good examples of different types of texture and form.

1. Roses, I'm sure we all saw that coming, but they're famous for a reason, right? Maybe you're into symbolism, or just like how they look, either way roses add color, texture and can be pruned to aid in the balance of visual weight.
2. black night morning glory
3. Borage flower
4. corkscrew hazel bush 
5. black hollyhock 

I know this was a bit of a short post, but hopefully I can add more content to the gardening section soon.

30 day poetry challenge Day 3

30 Day Poetry Challenge questions from  http://nadiasf.tumblr.com/post/7418962198/poetrychallenge


Day 3- Find the nearest book (of any kind). Turn to page 8. Use the first ten full words on the page in a poem. You may use them in any order, anywhere in the poem


I'm thinking a free verse poem would be fun.

1. churchyard
2. knife
3. finale
4. edge
5. dreadful
6. acquaintance
7. fellow-sufferers
8. foreshadowed
9. betwixt
10. circumstances

Sleep

I suppose my mother knew she birthed a heathen

when circumstances lead the family to early morning prayer

and to early mourning prayer we went

my brothers and sisters, and -I-

sat betwixt the edge of night

and the new day's dawn.

we'd often sit in the churchyard 

amoungst the retiring owls, and sorrowful  willows

reciting our dreadful prayers once again

burrowing our knees in the groves 

that previous prayers had made

and occasionally i'd look up to see

an acquaintance of sorts,

a child my age

we were fellow-suffers in that the carnal pleasures of

dreams were cut away with a knife

but in the holiest manner,  of course 

leaving those with complaints little room to speak

and even less room to hide and

If my mother's wrath  foreshadowed

finale judgment 

surly I would've been a god fearing child,

but the sweet tempting call of sleep would take me-

my wicked flesh simply could not wait for

a restful eternity

and thus, i lay my head back on the tree stump

and continued to sin in the churchyard.

  

I actually wrote this poem for a class assignment a while back...

Can you guess what book i used? I'll tell you on day 4

poetry challenge day 2

Day 2- Who was the last person you texted? Write a five line poem to that person.



So the last person I texted.... (oh man, I haven't had a cell phone since highs school. Ummm let me see.) I'm not too good at poetry, but let's give it a whirl, shall we?

It's true, the truth of truths  may be hidden to the youth

but woe to the elderly who let opportunity age as they did

moreover, changes in  values won't leave a generation uncouth

but like the  changing tides and whirling winds are splendid

yes, the  changing tides and whirling winds are splendid

So this is a basic summery of a conversation my friends and I had a couple years ago. This was around the time where we started to notice that the elderly (not all of them, but a loud few) blame the younger generations for some weird things. I remember one lady flip out at me, and was talking about how my generation ruined the housing market. (Logically speaking, this couldn't have been true, because you need to be a certain age to buy a house, plus the years developing a decent credit, and the age limit to get a loan from the bank, and if you factor in the fact that the market crashed before i was even 15 well.... It's easy to blame others when your frustrated, but this was ridiculous.) Things are certainly  changing, and using a scapegoat isn't going to cut it anymore. Technology is advancing and so is the world. This wasn't meant to attack people who are older, just point out that the world can't stay stagnate. You can't stay still, and I think that's the beauty of nature. It moves, and changes. It's supposed to. 

30 day poetry challenge

30 Day Poetry Challenge questions from  http://nadiasf.tumblr.com/post/7418962198/poetrychallenge

Day 1- Write a poem where each line starts with a letter from your first name (an acrostic). It can be about anything, but it should not be about you or your name.

(screen names are aceptable)


Moldavite

Amazonite

Variscite

Isis crystal

Sapphire