The main thing that allows you to get away with using cheap makeup is taking good care of your skin. I'm sure that, unless you have some amazing genetics, you've seen and felt the effects of nasty cheapo makeup on your face. Pimples in droves, discolored patches, oiliness, and... well, I could go on but I won't gross you out.
A lot of people think that if they have sensitive, oily, acne-prone, or otherwise less than perfect skin, then they cannot wear cheap makeup and have to spring for more expensive, "better" stuff. But that's not true!
Anyone can totally get away with wearing cheap makeup, even cheap, off-brand liquid foundation and all-over powder, as long as you take proper care of your skin. When you know how to properly use them, there are only a few products that you absolutely need:
- makeup remover
- daily cleanser
- full regimen set
- cotton pads
- clean towels
As you probably know, for every fancy schmancy designer product there is, there's an equivalent (or even an identical, re-branded but made in the same factory and all) version that costs way less. There's always a better deal out there. And if you're here, that's what you're looking for, right?! Right.
Now I have very oily and pimply skin. That may lead you to believe that I'm actually not taking the best care of my skin, but I disagree! Well, okay I should probably be more religious with my full regimen, but whatever... I'm 33 years old, and I've had really horrible acne all my life up to now. These days, I just have a bit of acne sometimes - acne that's quite easily covered cosmetically - and my skin has never looked better, more even and clear, or softer. And mind you, my skin is nicer now that I've gone from no makeup ever to actually wearing cheap stuff regularly! If you have dry or combination skin, or if you happen to have perfect skin (and I totally hate you for that :P), then my specific products might not work for you. YMMV and all that. Do keep reading, though, because the basics and how to use them are all the same.
Read on for all the details!
BASICS
The very first thing that you need to remember is this: Wash off your makeup as soon as humanly possible!! As soon as you get home from da clerbz or your date or wherever, go remove your makeup and use your daily cleanser. Seriously, don't leave it on any longer than is absolutely necessary! If you can't or don't remember or are too drunk to go through it, and you end up sleeping in it or something, then you should wash it all off as soon as you're able, and then do your full regimen, too. If you never go anywhere without makeup, or if you wear it all day every day, then you might want to use your full regimen each night before bed. No matter what, though, if you wear cheap makeup, you absolutely must wash off your makeup every day.
The second thing, and probably the hardest thing to get used to, is try not to touch your face with your fingertips! Your fingers touch untold and countless nasty things day in and day out. Additionally, to help us out with stuff like grasping, smearing windows, tactile precision and sensitivity, and myriad other handy (pun totally intended, how was it?) things that put us at the top of the food chain, our fingertips are naturally quite oily. That oil transfers to your face when you touch it, and if you're wearing makeup, cheap or not, those oils mix in with it, and that mixture settles in your pores. Eew!
Whenever you need to touch your face, try to use a clean napkin or a cotton ball, pad, or swab if you have one. If you don't have anything else, you can use the back or knuckle of your finger or your nail, preferably your pinky, which usually happens to touch fewer things than, say, your pointer finger.
MAKEUP REMOVAL
For right now, I only have one decent makeup remover, and I don't even know if it's all that great. I normally use it as soon as I get home to remove my makeup, then I follow it with my daily wash or my full regimen. I don't ever just rely on the makeup remover, but there are probably some products out there that pull double duty, which would be a money and time saver! I don't know what I'll do when this stuff runs out, so please send me a message if you have any good leads!
My current product is actually Estee Lauder Soft and Clear Silky Hydrating Lotion. This came out of one of my mom's promotional packs and is definitely not something I'd go out and spend 20-30$ on, however, if you're interested, you can usually find this on ebay for quite cheap - about 6$ for a 1oz bottle. This stuff does remove makeup very well - never leaves anything behind no matter what I've applied - and you don't have to wash it off your face after. It feels pretty nice, too. You do have to use quite a bit of it, though, so a 1oz bottle wouldn't last very long with daily use.
To use it, I pour a bit onto the textured side of a plain jane cotton pad (I have some from H.E.B. that were even cheaper, but you can't go wrong with any brand of these - unlike freakin cotton swabs, which vary so wildly in quality it's almost impossible to get it right... anyway) and wipe wipe wipe, starting with my eyes. I wipe in one direction, from the tear duct outward (the same direction I usually apply my makeup) and I make sure to get all around the lash line, both above and below. If I've got on a lot of liquid liner or something, I'll gently rub back and forth on the lash line, being careful not to get it directly into my eyes.
There are a couple of tricks to the cotton pad: do NOT flip it over and use the other side on the other eye. You just had your fingertips all over there, so you'll just transfer that oil to your face. Also, don't use the same pad on another part of your face or the other eye without being sure that a full half is clean and untouched. Even still, you probably had your thumb there and got it oily, so it's best to just use a new one once you finish an area or once the pad gets all gunky. I can get away with one per eye and one for the rest of my face on a heavily made-up night. These things are so cheap it's just not worth it to reuse them, even to me!
Another really penny-pinching tip is to only use the makeup remover on your eyes. If you're anything like me, the vast majority of makeup (and time spent applying it, lol) is on your eyes. It's also the place where you generally put the toughest stuff, like liquid eyeliner, mascara, shadow primer, etc., so your washing up should reciprocate, shouldn't it? Only using it on your eyes will save you pads and makeup remover! Your cleanser should do a good enough job getting the rest off.
DAILY WASH
Your daily wash should be a cleanser and mild exfoliator. A fantastic and beautifully cheap one that I use is St Ives Apricot Scrub, which you can get all over online or at just about any grocery store or pharmacy for about 3-4$ for a pretty large 6oz tube. Mine lasts... gosh, a couple months? Longer? Quite a while, that's for sure, AND I share it with my fiance.
There are different kinds of the Apricot Scrub available: Fresh Skin (moisturizing), Sensitive Skin (gentle), Timeless Skin (wrinkle control), Naturally Clear (blemish control), and probably some others that I've missed. Naturally, with my nasty skin, I use the Naturally Clear, which is their blackhead and blemish control (and I think it used to be named that).
The best part about apricot scrub is that there are some really great store brands out there that are basically the exact same thing! Keep your eyes out when you're in the supermarket, because you can get the store brand for way less, and sometimes they're identical products just re-packaged!
TO USE, I start with about a two-pea-sized amount on my fingertips, transfer some to my other hand, and dab it onto my forehead, cheeks, chin, and nose to distribute. Then I start at my forehead again and, making about dollar-coin sized circles, move my way down. Dabbing it all over your face first helps you pick up more product when you start running out, therefore using less and keeping application even.
Don't forget to wash all the way to your hairline and down below your chin. You may want to also get your throat, too, to make sure that your skin's appearance and feel are as consistent as possible between your face and neck. And scrub pretty good where your nose meets your cheeks and anywhere your cheapass makeup could gather during the day. Sometimes I do this in the shower so that I can use it on my neck, chest, and upper back as well.
FULL REGIMEN
OK, I have a confession: I've been using Proactiv. Their website is pretty confusing, and their business model really reminds me of some shady pyramid scheme or something, honestly. Actually, I think I'll actually do a full post about Proactiv soon, but just be careful buying from them for now.
And I have another confession: it doesn't really work for me. However, I have the products for now, so I'm using them up even though there are superb and superior alternatives out there that are way less expensive.
They do get one thing right though, and that's what a full regimen should be! A full regimen consists of three things: Wash, astringent, and acne control.
Step 1: cleanser and mild exfoliator. This is the first step in your full regimen - just a regular face wash with exfoliator to cleanse away any yuckiness and slough off dead skin cells. This step can absolutely be your daily wash; you don't really need a separate product.
The Apricot Scrub I mentioned is a great one, but there are many others out there that are good too. In fact, Proactiv sent me a free sample of their Deep Cleansing Wash with my purchase (can't link directly to the product page because it requires an account, yay), and I actually really like that. That's probably because it's quite a bit like the St Ives stuff, though. And, because it's Proactiv, you can't just purchase that product by itself... :| It's apparently supposed to be body wash, but it works better for my face than their full 3-step process!
Whatever product you use, wash with the same method as I described for the daily wash: dab at the forehead and distribute moving down, then start at the forehead again scrubbing in small, tight circles. Make sure you cover your entire face, all the way to the hairline and down to your neck, not just places where you apply makeup, and make sure you get into all the little folds and crevices!
Now dry your face. This is so important! You can undo everything you just did if you don't dry your face properly and with a clean towel. After you use your face wash, grab a clean, dry, preferably white (dye-free) hand towel and blot - not rub or scrub! - it all over your face. If you don't feel like you get dry enough just blotting, fan your face with the towel after or just blot again.
You want to blot rather than rub for a couple of reasons. When you rub, anything left over that your wash may have missed will get ground down into your pores and can cause pimples and irritation. Also, anything yucky that's on your hand towel will get smushed into your face, too, and gunk can transfer from your face onto your towel and get you the next time you use it. Your wash should be the exfoliator, not your towel, and your astringent will remove anything that is left on your face after the wash.
You can get a huge fat stack of really cheap hand towels from any department store, so you can use a new one each day if you like. They don't have to be nice and fancy; they just have to be clean and get your face dry. Honestly, I use mine for a few days before washing them, but that's because I don't like washing them all the time and wearing them out. Hang it up to dry after you use it, and do not use that towel for anything but drying your face after you wash! Especially if your other bathroom towels are white, visibly separate it from the others and make sure your dumbass fiance remembers very clearly that he is NOT to use that fucking towel to dry his nasty hands, dammit!
Step 2: astringent. The second step is to apply astringent all over your face to tighten up the skin and pick up anything left by your wash. Neutrogena Clear Pore is a pretty good, inexpensive option which I quite like. Clean and Clear Deep Cleansing is even cheaper and also great. There are probably store-brands like Up and Up from Target that are totally doable, too, but I don't recall having tried them so I can't make recommendations.
Any good astringent will be basically a very diluted alcohol solution with some other cleaning and conditioning chemicals, including witch hazel. I used witch hazel a long time ago and didn't like it for reasons I cannot recall, but I actually have some Humphrey's Pharmacal on the way because it tends to be quite inexpensive, and I may feature it here if I like it. Either way, what I mean is that because its purpose and ingredients are generally so basic, you can probably get the same effect from the majority of astringents out there, and it can be a great money saving step.
Your face should definitely not be dripping with the stuff, and you should not have to wash it off or dry with a towel. You leave it on, and it should dry naturally within a minute or so. Let it dry completely before you move on.
Again, remember to get your throat and the bottom of your face with astringent, too. I even go lower, to my chest and back like I do with washes.
Step 3: acne control. Some women don't need acne control, and those lucky $!&@#?% can skip it if they'd like. However, if you're using cheap makeup very often, then you probably need it, if for nothing more than prevention.
I'm currently finishing off the Proactiv step 3, but what I've always used before has been Zapzyt (about 5$) or Neutrogena On-the-Spot (6-7$), both of which are readily available in pretty much any grocery or pharmacy. The Zapzyt, in my experience, is quite harsh, and it can leave my face looking and feeling badly windburned if I use it after exfoliating. Very uncomfortable and noticeably unsightly. The Neutrogena is much milder and, in my opinion, better for daily use or after exfoliating. Unless you have severe acne, I recommend the Neutrogena over the Zapzyt for your regimen, and maybe reserving Zapzyt for emergency pimple breakouts.
Let the astringent dry completely before this step. Sometimes if I get impatient I fan my face with my hand towel. Apply a very thin layer of acne control and leave it on. I use the same method as my face wash, only using less product; that is, I put about a pea-sized dot onto one of my fingertips, then transfer half to my opposite fingertip (don't use a sponge or pad with this stuff; the sponge will suck it all up and you'll never get any on your face!), then I dot my forehead, cheeks, nose, and chin with tiny dabs of it. I rub it in a circular motion moving from my forehead down all the way to my neck. As with the wash, I apply this to my neck, chest, and upper back, too.
There are dozens of acne control products out there, though, and this can be quite a sensitive step with drastically different effects between products. Oxy, Clearasil, all kinds of store brands; creams, wands, liquids, patches... the options are definitely out there, and I'm just recommending the ones that I know work for me and are affordable. And every girl's skin is different, so don't take my word on product recommendations for acne control. Read reviews, try different products, talk to your friends, and talk to your mom if you can; she likely has a similar skin type to yours, has probably been right where you are, and I'll bet she's a thrifty babe, too, being a mom and all.
So that's it! Using the full regimen daily, or at least 2-3 times a week will undo any nastiness you put your face through with your cheapass makeup, and it will keep your face radiant, clear, and smooth.
YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY!
Every woman is different, so my exact regimen, timing, or product selection might not work for you. If you have sensitive skin, you may notice that using the full regimen more often is too harsh on your face. If you have oily skin like mine, you may feel that it's not working hard enough. However it works out, I definitely recommend adjusting your schedule before you give up and move onto more expensive products. After 20+ years of acne and trying everything I could to clear up my face - from expensive prescription medication to homeopathic stuff and everything in between - this is by far the best method I've ever found for keeping my face healthy and clean and for really controlling my regular acne.
I almost forgot... MOISTURIZER!
Oh, you noticed something kinda major was missing? Moisturizer is totally not on my list of things you need, and that's on purpose. Why? Because you don't need moisturizer!! Sure, if you've just gotten back from skiing in the driest place on earth or something, you might want to dab a bit onto your dry spots. But you most certainly don't need it in your skincare routine and should not use it regularly. I'll say that again while you let it set in: you. do not. need. moisturizer!
Now this little tidbit actually isn't from life experience or trial and error; it's not just something I've noticed, it's science, babes! A couple of different dermatologists now have told me this, separately and independently, when I've gone in for acne control. My excellent ob/gyn was actually the first to tell me, when I specified affect on acne in my choice of birth control. She told me that it's something she tells all of her patients who are below "a certain age" and mention using it, so it's not just unsuitable for those of us with oily, acne-prone skin. I, at 33, am "way too young" to need moisturizer! It gunks up my already oily skin and gives me pimples. Since I stopped using moisturizer, I have noticed a drastic decline in blackheads, pimples, and deep, painful cystic acne on my face. I do still get them from time to time (but blackheads especially are almost entirely gone now), but the effect has been astonishing.
If you have really naturally dry skin, you may need a very mild, clean and natural moisturizer, but you should consult your dermatologist or ob/gyn before using anything regularly. Otherwise, only keep a bit around for when you actually need it, like if you're peeling from dryness or your face feels like it desperately needs chapstick. And I mean desperately; don't use it once a week; don't use it once a month.
Sadly, cosmetics companies have developed a product that feels good applying to our faces, and they've convinced us that we need it to... oh I don't know, get rid of or prevent wrinkles, smooth our skin, make us "glow", or dozens of other things that are just not possible at all, or not possible for a topical cream to accomplish. I don't even want to think about how much money they make selling us moisturizer and then the acne medication to clean up after it! There is no such thing as reversing wrinkles or aging, and anything else like smoothing or softening that moisturizers claim to do can be done by keeping our skin clean, hydrating our bodies, and eating a good healthy diet.
Don't use moisturizer!!
WATER MOTHAFUCKA, DO YOU DRINK IT?
And one final thing: DRINK WATER! Not soda, not coffee, not kool-aid, not beer; WATER. I don't mean to say don't drink the above, but also drink water, and don't count any of those into your daily water intake; drink water in addition to them. Yes, those things do have water in them, but the other chemicals in them change the way we metabolize them, and they don't give our bodies (and our skin!) the same nutrition as pure water does.
Water is utterly vital to healthy skin. This isn't a case of the more or the cheaper the makeup, the more water you need; just drink the daily recommended dose for your body, weight, activity level, etc. This cool little questionnaire will give you a good guideline. If you don't drink enough water, you'll notice pimples, wrinkles, and other unsightly things cropping up on your face, and - on the flip side - if you start drinking enough water, you'll notice those things start to slow down or even disappear! You'll also notice tons of other health benefits all over your body.
So that's that! See you next time, you brokeass babes and cheap chicks! In the meantime, keep yer face clean, ya disgustin slob!
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