HOW TO | Exfoliate at home without spending a cent (almost)

I WROTE THIS entire post and then my computer ate it. (My pulse starts to beat through my ears when that happens...)

Mainly, I was whinging about how so many so-called gentle or sensitive-skin exfoliators are just plain crap. Utter useless stuff. They’re cream cleansers with like 3 exfoliating beads in the entire over-priced tube. By taking out the scrubbing component, you think you can call yourself gentle? How about ineffective and lazy. It riles me. Exfoliation is good, even for sensitive (skinned) types like me. That’s what you’re doing with peels, microdermabrasion and all those acids. As a young girl with acne, I exfoliated religiously, and to this day rigorously thank St. Ives and Buff Puff for my lack of scarring.

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Buy beauty in bulk: Bliss Body Butter

Miss Malcontent is pretty spot-on (heh) with her assesment of Bliss being a brand that makes better body products than facial ones. The product that seems to get the most mileage? The Body Butter. And for those of you who do use it regularly, they've just launched a humongous 'Pro' size... it's like buying your beauty products at Sam's Club. The 32 ounce tub is $79 dollars in the states. The 8.5 ounce tube is $35. If you're really into economising and you know you're going to splurge on this stuff every month anyway, do yourself a favour and pay $2.47 an ounce instead of $4.12 an ounce. That's a savings worth buying in bulk for.

Dermelect Oxygen Facial Commission

Over the past few months three skincare ranges have launched that have dubiously similar packaging and back stories. Olay ProX, L'Oreal Advanced RevitaLift and Dermelect Cosmeceuticals all have the same red/clear plastic packaging. Olay and Dermelect Cosmeceuticals in particular share the same angle (combining science and beauty... Olay has a panel of scientists and skin experts and Dermelect says their brand is 'formulated jointly by medical professionals & licensed estheticians'.

Either one of these three ranges ended up being the 'inspiration' behind the other two or market research showed that liberal use of the colour red and the word 'science' on their anti-ageing products really reeled in the middle-aged, female customer base. 

Description

Brand comparisons aside, let's focus on Dermelect, as I recently trialled their Detoxifying Oxygen (O₂) Facial Commission. It might just be my mind (in the gutter), but does anyone else find this name to sound a bit dirty (completely irrational, I know)? Also, the abuse of the word 'commission' confuses me. (Really doesn't make sense here. The site says that one of the beauty benefits of this product is that it is 'commissioned to cleanse, re-energize, de-stress and hydrate skin'. I didn't realise products could be authorised or charged with something as they don't possess, well, life and a will and all that... and the word 'furnish'. I don't want to furnish my face with anything. I understand that alliteration is snappy but just because it rhymes and shows up on Thesaurus.com doesn't mean it makes sense. Anyway, I digress.)

However strange the name and however many liberties taken with the English language, this product is Dermelect's Bliss Triple Oxygen Instant Energizing Mask. It doubles as a cleanser as well as a foaming mask, which is nifty as Bliss's product has not been marketed in such a way. The formula feels a bit thicker but otherwise has the same tingly effect on the skin. I couldn't find the full ingredient list on the website (under the ingredients tab, the only things listed are  Sodium PCA, BV-OSC, Pro-Vitamin B₅, Soy Protein, Licorice Extract and Rice Bran Extract). Skinstore.com lists all of the ingredients: Aqua, Methyl Perfluorobutyl Ether, Glucose, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Glycerin, Dimethicone PEG-7 Phosphate, Sodium PCA, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice, Polyhydroxystearic Acid, Ethylhexyl Isononanoate, Isononyl Isononanoate, Sodium Cocamidopropyl, PG-Dimonium Chloride Phosphate, Acrylates Copolymer, Hydrolyzed Soy Protein, Xanthan Gum, Potassium Chloride, Phenoxyethanol, Panthenol, Citric Acid, Mica, Tetrahexyldecyl Ascorbate, Titanium Dioxide (CI 77891), Tocopherol, Red 40 (CI 16035), Yellow 5 (CI 19140), Glycyrrhiza glabra (Licorice) Root Extract, Parfum, Carbomer, Papain and Iodopropynyl Butylcarbamate.

The Good

It's cheaper than Bliss Triple Oxygen and has many of the same ingredients (both good and bad). It has that great tingly, foaming effect and doubles as a cleanser so it's great for travel too as it'll save space as a 2-in-1 product.

The Bad

It features some ingredients (as does the Bliss mask) which dry out skin, like Sodium Laureth Sulfate.

The Price

$48.00 for 3.30z.

Dermelect Detoxifying Oxygen (O₂) Facial Commission