Questioning The Need

We have been blinded by advertising in so many ways, from what we eat to what we drive, but one of the biggest wastes of our money is on health and beauty products.  Take for instance facial cleansers.

from Google images

We are told that our faces are sensitive and need extra care.   Actually the skin on our face is no different from the skin on the rest of our bodies.  Sure the skin around the eyes is the thinnest area on our bodies,  the bottom of our feet and hands are the thickest.  The reasons for this make perfect sense, we need thicker skin on the area we walk on to protect us, same goes for our hands which we use all day long, you should see my hands after a day of sanding.

But skin is skin.  Our faces were made to deal with a lot.  In the winter, we cover up the rest of our bodies, we wrap scarves around our necks, gloves on our hand and even warm boots to protect our feet, but we have no protection for our face.

I was sold for years on using special products on my face, I was a trained cosmetologist.  By the middle of my senior year in high school I was already licensed and working in the field.  What we were taught wasn’t about what our skin needed but how to push products and services on the public.

I began to ask questions after a few years and started experimenting to see if I really needed special washes, masks, astringent and so on.  What I learned is that my skin really only needed a way to remove the residue from living, or from makeup, but plain soap and water, or even a paste of baking soda and water did the job just fine.

No matter what the season our skin will protect us in ways no man-made product ever could. I know you are saying “but my face gets so dry from the winter wind and cold temperatures”.   Is that the only part of your body that gets dry?  For me my legs are drier than my face this time of year.

So if we look at our bodies and think about which parts get more use and wear it would be our feet and hands.  Yet do we buy special soap made just for our feet?  No, but we do buy special hand soap to sit next to the sink and then special facial soap. Why?  Because we never question it. We see the products, hear the advertising and believe we need it.

You can get by using the same soap on your face you use on the rest of your body.  If you happen to be like me and have dry skin add a little aloe or coconut oil to add natural moisturizing and healing.

Do you think your grandparents who made all their own soaps and cleaning products before they were available to buy in a store made special soaps just for their face?  Mine didn’t.

We were born with a very intelligent body, it knows how to take care of itself and only needs us to give it water and nourishment and to wash the grime off, but it doesn’t require specialty products to do so.  Let’s learn to ignore the advertisements and question what we really need.  Enough with bombarding us with needless products to throw our money away on.

One rule of thumb I follow today is to never use something on my body I wouldn’t put in my body, our skin absorbs everything that goes on it like a sponge.  So ask yourself would you eat it?

Do you walk through a store and stop to question if the products you always bought are products you really need?