All natural skincare! Woohoo! I weaned off all unnatural products during the course of 2009, so I'm keen to share my experience, malchusmom. As background, I'd just like to say that I had had chronic acne since I was 12 and it only stopped at 26 ( I'm 28 now) and I had been on either chronic antibiotics and later on the pill for my skin. Stopped with the pill at 26 I said enough is enough, my body is more important and I wanted to see if my skin was okay - it was.

Anyway:

I fundamentally believe that skin wash methods strip the skin of the natural beauty oil it works so hard to make (and for which we work so hard by eating optimally!), so I went all-water wash, nothing else. SO I dumped the wash thing immediately, but I weaned my skin off the lotions. At first, my face got a bit oily (and I naturally have oily skin) but I didn't despair and just washed it thoroughly with warm water morning and evening. The oil produce then regulated itself after that, within 6-8 weeks. I stopped using any night creams and just used Bio-Oil, then weaned myself off that by skipping increasing number of days until it was more than a week between them. And my skin looks good now. When my girlfriends talk about their face regimes and I try to give my two cents, they all go "ya but you have good skin...." and I know I don't, not even genetically.

In a nutshell: I wash my face with a facecloth with warm water in the morning (or when I shower). I got eczema from my fancy Dior Poison perfume, so I use essential oil-scented olive oil to moisturise my hair and body, and that is my perfume. One can put essential oil of your choice (I like vanilla) on your wrists or on your neck on your side arteries so that the scent emits throughout the day. I found a GREAT and effective natural deoderant recipe on the Long Hair community website. It works, really! It's equal amounts of aloe gel and baking soda (say a teaspoon each), with a drop of your essential oil of choice. A teaspoon-each-mixture will last you about three to four weeks!

As for mascara, I bought Clinique mascara, the Lash Power Mascara, because it washes off with warm water, although it sticks (I accidentally wet my face in the shower today while I was wearing the mascara and it stayed on). Have a tinted lanolin lip gloss. You could bite your lips every now and again to get a red blush, like the queens did, haha! Overall, I personally don't wear other make-up than that because I am convinced that the skin should glow by itself and that if I wear more make-up (like a foundation) every day it would smother my skin and then its natural beauty would be diminished. I dress quite formally and chic for work and no-one's moaned about my lack of heavy make-up. And as you know, raw eating enhances your beauty anyway!

If you would feel safer using products, the aloe range products are natural, good and innocently nourishing. Get a range that is 100% organically natural.

Hope it helps. What do you think?