Apples to Apples || Face Toner || Fresh Friday

Since I bitch and moan about it so much, you are all now well acquainted with my obnoxious skin.  Well, my luck is turning, my friends.  I think I have found a skin care routine that my skin loves.  It eats. This. Shit. Up.  So, as you are all sitting on your phones reading this and screaming at me in your head to just tell you my secret, I’m just gonna give it to you one little piece at a time.  

In my last skin care blog I gushed about my cleansers that I use, Body Merry’s Glycolic Acid Exfoliating Scrub, and Norwex’s Body Cloth, both of which I still think are freakin amazing.  But what comes next in my skin care routine, you ask?  Well, let’s talk about it.

Tone It Up || Raise your hand if you have ever felt like the beauty magazines telling you to use toner was a crock of shit!  No?  Just me?! Well it’s only cause I’m a rebel and don’t like to be told what to do.  So here I am, with my tail in between my legs, to tell you that it is not, in fact, a crock of shit and that these beauty guru’s legit know what they are talking about.  I finally got fed up with my skin at the beginning of this year.  I made a couple of New Years wishes (I don’t do resolutions-those are, in fact, a crock of shit) for myself that all including not being so damned lazy throughout various elements of my life.  One of those areas was my skin care.  So I started doing research.  

So why is toner so F*&%^$# important?! || Well, after you wash your face with your cleanser, you screw up the PH balance of your skin. Basically this means that you mess with the natural mojo and all the oils of your skin that keep it balanced and healthy.  What it looks like when you mess it up: an unbalanced PH can look like a lot of things! Excess oiliness, super dry flaky skin, or severe acne.  It finally dawned on me when I was looking into all of this, that THIS was my issue.  I screw up my PH balance, and end up with bitchy skin that hates me.  This was  serious light bulb moment for me.   Check out 6 Reasons Why You Should Add Toner To Your Beauty Routine.  

Just tell me what the hell you use already, Ariel || As you guys know, I try really hard to keep my product arsenal as clean and natural as I can, especially when it comes to my skin care.  I wanted a fairly natural solution to my PH problem, so as usual I turned to the internet and literally put “natural skin toner” in my search blog, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t have ten different articles all telling me to use Apple Cider Vinegar.  

My initial reaction was “you’ve got to be shitting me right now”.  I don’t interact much with vinegar at all, TBH, and most of the interactions I’ve had have been with white vinegar.  I know that some people use it for natural cleaning (I use it for this purpose as well now, duh), and the only up close and personal relations I’ve had with normal white vinegar were putting in my bean soup when I was a kid at grandma and grandpas so we all weren’t ripping ass all night long (my grandpa is a legit German Catholic-we ate a lot of bean soup).  But I literally didn’t know what the deal was with Apple Cider Vinegar.  Well, the beauty blogs told me that it was the BEST toner out there. Step aside unwanted chemicals and words I can’t pronounce, here comes fermented, pressed apples! They instructed me to do one part ACV to 5 or 6 parts distilled or filtered water.  Amount of ACV to the water depends on how sensitive your skin is.

I literally cleaned out a Taco Bell Verde Sauce glass bottle (reppin that TBell, but for reals Verde is a divine delicacy), and put some ACV in the bottom and added filtered water and BAM, instant toner. I just put a little on a cotton pad, and swipe it all over my skin, CAREFULLY avoiding getting too close to my eyes, cause that shit will burn.

I don’t usually sing straight up Godly praises to any product, cause most of them have their downfalls.  But I’m signing up to those Holy Angels right now for delivering this answer to me.  ACV literally saved my skin.  I’ve been using my home made toner daily in between my cleanser and moisturizer for over a month now, and my skin hasn’t been this happy in a lloongggggg time.  Yes, your skin will smell like ACV for a hot second after applying, but it fades and after applying moisturizer the smell completely goes away.

My dry, itchy, and oily skin has pretty much cleared up at this point, and I have smooth, moisturized, happy skin now!  It’s amazing.  It also shrinks my pores, and helps my acne scars fade quite a bit as well.  It’s just an overall life saver-and SO cheap compared to the expensive products you could buy in to!
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I also do ACV detox baths for more added benefits! Check out some of the added benefits here.  I usually do one or two a week; I throw in a bunch of Dr. Teal’s Lavender epsom salts, add a few cups of ACV, and soak away!   

Ciao, Bella!
Ariel
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