Beauty Tips for Ministers

“Please Stop Scrubbing Me So Hard,” Love, Your Face

January 30, 2008 on 12:26 am | In Make-Up And Skin Care, Product & Catalog Reviews |

Dearly beloveds,

There are a thousand facial scrubs on the market and most of them are FAR too rough for your soft little punim. Believe me, PeaceBang remembers how deeply satisfying it can feel to get out the old tub of St.Ives Apricot Scrub and to scrub the bejeesus out of her face, but that was 25 years ago and none of us should be getting anywhere near anything that harsh at our ages.

Exfoliation is the key to a healthy glow and the best starting antidote to haggard, tired faces in our beauty arsenal. If we don’t exfoliate, our moisturizing and anti-oxidant products can’t absorb nearly as well, so we should all use something gentle to help slough off the dead cells.

PeaceBang has extremely sensitive skin, so she really can’t use anything with microbeads in it, including Origins terrific “Modern Friction” rice-based masque. It’s a fantastic product but more than once initiated one of my dreaded Hideous Facial Blisters, so I had to quit after concluding that as gentle as it is, it still wasn’t gentle enough for my sensitive spots (near my nose).

I have reviewed Aveda’s Tourmaline Radiance Masque on this blog already and still give it a great thumbs up for once or twice a week exfoliation: it is wonderful.

And now I’d like to recommend this papaya-based product by Zia, which I used even when on vacation and after some days in the sun when my skin was looking blotchy and threatened an outbreak:

It’s about $15 — not a bank breaker, but there’s also not a lot of product in that little tube. I’d say it’s good for about 5-6 uses, so do the math.

You put it on a damp, clean face, leave it on for 10-15 minutes, add a bit of water and rub it around, then rinse. I apply an anti-oxidant immediately afterward, followed by an emollient skin cream, and have been very happy with the results. Make-up goes on better, skin is smoother, and I’m a fan of Zia in general.

So please, sweetpeas, stay away from those Marquis de Scrubs. Cripes, you’d do better buying a sander at Home Depot and running that across your face. Now get glowing already.