Once A Week Treat

Two weeks ago, I shared in this post a great daily skin care item to keep your beautiful face beautifully clear from blemishes. Some of the greatest parts about the Burt's Bees product is that it's affordable and easy to use every day or as needed. Three cheers for easy, effective and affordable things in life!

While that's all well and good (or, ahem, frickin' fantastic!), facial skin takes a beating by being exposed to all the products you put on it; the sun, wind and other elements; and has constant exposure to the air which means it has constant exposure to toxins (air pollution, soot, city slime and grime, etc). Because your facial skin has to be such a trooper, you should cut it some slack every once in a while! As I also mentioned before, I'm no beauty blogger; I do read them daily, however, and in one of my readings last fall, the author recommended that readers "treat" their skin to a facial mask once a week to help remove all the gunk and junk that builds up week in and week out.

Now, I'm a Birchbox subscriber. If you don't know what that is, check it out! BEST $10 you'll spend all month, no lie. Since I have gotten so many great, high-end products in my monthly boxes, I hopped on over to their website after reading about the importance of a weekly mask, and started a search for one.

And I came across this AMAZING, MIND BLOWINGLY AWESOME product:

You may know I'm all about being as natural as possible, and using products and eating foods where I can pronounce all the ingredients. So when I read about this product, I thought, YES! This is a great one to try! And then I looked at the price, and I was like, NO! I've never heard of this brand before and don't want to pay that much money for that little of product that I may not like or that may not work! So I moved on in my research and ended up not purchasing anything. And frankly, I completely forgot about it not even a day later.

I think I've made mention several times that my husband travels extensively for a living. He's gone roughly half the month. So early in our relationship, I learned to make life easy for him by sending him direct links to "gift ideas" for birthdays, Christmas', and so on and so forth. This little product made it into that list, and the hubs purchased it for me for this past Christmas. I was pumped when I opened it, and since we spent the holiday with just the two of us and our puppy dogs, I exclaimed, "Ohhhh, wait! You gotta see this! I'm going to scare the crap out of the dogs with this mask!"

The comment came from my Halloween costume, which if you follow me on Instagram you're familiar with. The costume did NOT go over well with our dogs, who had no idea who this masked woman was in their home, and what she did with their mama. It was heeeee-larious. Yes, this is an embarrassing glimpse into my life while my husband is traveling, what do YOU do for entertainment?!

I go upstairs and put the mask on, and was disappointed: it was flesh colored, and simply dried to a shiny, translucent, egg white sheen on my face. No dogs were scared in trying this mask out. My husband had no idea what I was doing or why I was disappointed, and thankfully just shrugged his shoulders (as he often does with all my antics) and continued cleaning up the wrapping paper from all the opened gifts. Now, I was also about 16 weeks pregnant over Christmas, and dealing with some unpleasant hormonal acne. I woke up the next day, THE NEXT DAY, to a cleared complexion. WHUT. And all red marks that I had were greatly faded. My skin wasn't dried out; it didn't "make things worse before it got better" like so many other products claim; it simply made things better!

What the product looks like; I'm nearly out! No!!!!!!!

I was in awe. I mean, AWE. I've struggled with cray cray skin since I was a pre-teen, so I've run the gamut of products. I have never seen something work such wonders. My rough skin got smoothed over, my acne scars have faded, and if a "flare up" is coming on, it's quickly wiped out. And, you can pronounce everything in this tiny jar! I started with a twice a week application; after my skin calmed down, I now use it once a week to keep things smooth and clear. I recently learned that this brand carries other skin care items, like eye serums. Not only will I be purchasing this again, I cannot wait to try other items in their line! It is SO worth it.

*The opinion listed above is my own, and I've in no way received any compensation, either monetary or gifted product, for my published opinions.