What should my skincare routine be?

What makes a product necessary?

What makes a product pleasurable?

Do pleasure and necessity intersect?

How does the material interact with language?

I can’t know much about a product without its language.

There’s the language of packaging, there’s the language of the text.

AM: moisturizer, SPF

Optional: foundation, lipstick, eyeliner

PM: face wash, moisturizer

Optional: oil cleanser, exfoliant, essence

What is “optional” covers over for bad sleep or nutrition

Do not squeeze your pimples or expose yourself to too much sun

Cover blemishes with foundation if desired

Avoid the temptation to sabotage your skin

Nevertheless the “optional” represent a wish, and a respect for what is nutritive

We take an aesthetic and intellective pleasure in experimenting with chemicals

Glycolic acid (AHA)

Lactic acid (AHA)

Mandelic acid (AHA)

Salicylic acid (BHA)

Gluconolactone (PHA)

Galactose (PHA)

Lactobionic acid (PHA)

AHAs are water-soluble, BHAs are oil-soluble, PHAs are like AHAs with larger molar weight, so they don’t penetrate the skin as deeply. I’m a bit more invested in buying products that have BHAs for acne because AHAs are present in sugar, snail mucin, opuntia, and other products I already have, which seem ineffective against more severe or persistent acne.

Niacinamide

Retinol (Vitamin A)

Vitamin C

Azelaic acid

Birch sap (Betula alba)

Centella / Cica

Opuntia ficus-indica / Cactus

Galactomyces ferment filtrate

Snail mucin

Ceramide (emollient)

Glycerin (humectant)

Hyaluronic acid (humectant)

Squalane (emollient)

Ma:nyo Galactomy Essence

Cosrx Low pH Good Morning Cleanser

Whamisa, Organic Flowers Foaming Gel

Kosas Revealer Skin-Improving Foundation SPF 25 (180)

Yadah Cactus Soothing Gel

Dr. Bronner’s Organic Shaving Soap (Lavender)

Paula’s Choice Daily Moisturizing Lotion SPF 30

Badger Baby Mineral Sunscreen Cream (SPF 40)

Ma:nyo, Whamisa, Typology Paris, One Thing are a few brands I enjoy perusing online. These brands seem attractive because of their tendency to specialize in certain lesser-known ingredients and to foreground these ingredients in their packaging and naming schemes. It’s unclear to me whether or not it’s good to use ingredients that appear “special” when they fulfill the same function as some of the classics. The one-ingredient trend is a trick in that it gets people to buy more single-ingredient products, perhaps in excess: who wants 10% niacinamide, or something formulated with bakuchiol (which doesn’t play well with glycolic acid) when retinol exists? The next step, then, would be for me to figure out why I like or have come to try certain ingredients over others.

I could also write more about makeup, but my current purchase of lipstick samples and foundation from Kosas seems to have blocked me from wanting to try anything else. I had a phase of looking into the “clean beauty” store Credo, and had an interest in Ilia and Axiology and some other brands. The notion of using a product for its “clean” ingredients list gets put into practice when one actually researches the function of each item in the ingredients list, and not necessarily when one actually uses the product, at which point it is difficult to extricate the sense of virtue from the virtuous research done in advance.

I noticed that my hair needs some moisture now that it’s longer and now that I run more, this helps prevent “frizz.” I am no longer as concerned with keeping volume in the front as I was when it was short; in fact, it seems that a neat slicked-back look is preferrable to anything with puffiness. I also like how it is naturally curling out at the bottom and have no desire to make it more or less wavy. The issue of how to moisturize my hair, and how often, is one I shall be exploring over the course of the forthcoming months.

There’s conditioner, there are hair masks, there are hair oils. There is leave-in conditioner, there is co-wash. As far as I can tell, these all fulfill the same function. For now I am more invested in knowing more about their primary ingredients, oils: Coconut oil, castor oil, argan oil, jojoba oil,almond oil, apricot kernel oil, avocado oil, sesame oil.

Here’s an example: the Davines Nounou Hair Mask. It is wildly overpriced for what it is: Sesame oil, safflower seed oil, sunflower seed oil, jojoba oil, fragrance. But it gives a sense of what a hair mask should be. There seems to be only one acceptable product marketed as a co-wash: SheaMoisture coconut & hibiscus: Deionized Water, Cocos Nucifera (Coconut Oil), Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) Butter, Mangifera Indica (Mango) Seed Butter, Olea Europaea (Olive) Fruit Oil, Triticum Vulgare (Wheat) Germ Oil, Cetyl Esters, Kaolin Clay, Grapeseed Oil, Simmondsia Chinensis Seed (Jojoba) Oil, Benhentrimonium Chloride (Conditioner), Hibiscus Sabdariffa Extract, Salix Alba (Willow) Bark Extract, Melia Azadirachta (Neem) Seed Oil, Cetyl Alcohol, Vegetable Protein, Hydroxyethyl Cellulose, Stearyl Alcohol, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice, Tocopherol (Vitamin E), African Black Soap Extract, Sea Salt, Rosemary Extract, Caprylyl Glycol. The only potentially bad ingredient here is Benhentrimonium Chloride, which is essentially a preservative, and is flagged under “allergies and immunotoxicity” on EWG.

I currently use two products from Auromère, which are quite satisfactory and inexpensive, but I don’t think I’m entirely satisfied with my routine. Sometimes I’ll avoid shampoo after consecutive running days and find that my hair is too oily or my scalp becomes itchy as a result, and when I apply too much conditioner without washing it out, my hair looks and feels too oily. I’m considering applying some apricot kernel oil (which I have as a makeup remover) as a post-shampoo hair moisturizer to supplement the conditioner.

Auromère Neem+ Shampoo

Auromère Pre-Shampoo Conditioner

Brushes and combs are much more varied and interesting than I had initially imagined. I don’t have issues with my hair tangling or anything, but I do want to use a brush to smooth my hair, especially when it gets very curly and voluminous after I wake up in the morning. If the hair is too friction-ridden, the best solution is to apply some kind of oil, but the oil needs to be lightly and evenly distributed. I’ve read that boar bristle brushes are the best for this purpose. People also recommend nylon bristles for coarser hair. Some brushes combine both nylon and boar bristle. There’s a relatively inexpensive boar-bristle / nylon brush by The Hair Edit that’s apparently in stock at my local Ulta so I will probably pick it up eventually. I may also need a sectioning comb some day, or something more aggressive for detangling if I grow very long hair. Flexible tines are important. I remember using a wooden bristle brush when I was in middle school now and then, but not often.

Update: I ended up buying a detangling brush: the Cricket Volumizer brush and the Olivia Garden Mixed Teasing Brush. I like the vent pattern, the red ball tips, the oblong silhouette, of the first, and the brown resin color and thin, sharp profile of the second. I decided against the Hair Edit brush because it felt too soft, and I didn’t buy a pure boar-bristle brush because they felt like nothing on my hair. I also discovered that I didn’t like oval brushes, that I always prefer a rectangular form-factor, and that I love vents.

My hair strands range between 3 inches (new growths around the hairline) and 8 inches (top and back of scalp). The longest hairs at the back bottom hairline are about 5 inches. I essentially have a mullet-like hairstyle and will consider shaping it into some sort of a shag later on. Maybe I’ll braid it. When it’s a lot longer I’ll buy cool claw clips from Lisa Says Gah. I’m pretty happy with how it grew out, there wasn’t really an “awkward stage.” I’m writing this in early July, after having not cut my hair since mid-November.

Auromère’s bar soaps are my favorite, but they run out fast. They smell good and have a nice marbled cream appearance. Here’s the ingredients list for the lavender-scented one:

A lot of bar soaps, like Bee & Flower and Nubian Heritage, use Sodium Talowate (saponified animal fat) or Sodium Palmate (saponified palm oil). These are pretty strong surfactants and can be drying. Dr. Bronner’s Castile Soap has neither ingredient; it uses saponified coconut oil and olive oil. But it still has a high pH of 9.3. This isn’t exactly a problem, because the acid mantle of the skin regenerates within a couple of hours.

Mrs. Meyer’s hand soap has a neutral pH, it’s better for the skin. Most of the ingredients after glycerin are aromatic compounds. I don’t have this product right now purely because bar soaps involve less packaging.

I’ll write about my laundry soaps later, once I have that figured out. I’ve been using Biokleen for a while and it basically works, but recently got a sample of Nellie’s Laundry Powder and I’m curious if it’s much more powerful, and if that power is necessary. I think it’s basically fine to use a soap without enzymes for running clothes as long as you wash the clothes immediately, which you should be doing anyway. Finally, I’ve decided not to buy any scented detergents in the future, even if it’s just a simple citrus or rosemary essence, it makes me feel like I’ve done a better job of washing the clothes if there’s no obvious scent masking the baseline odor of the fabric.