I spuddle.

It’s time once again to return to our regularly scheduled programming, which is to say that it’s time for me to remember to do Five Thing Friday a day late and in a rush.    It’s January, which means that it’s time to shake off the sloth-like habits I developed over Christmas break and get back into a routine of actually WORKING and blogging and remembering to vacuum the floors and maybe even empty the juice boxes out of the car.   I know!  Crazy, right?    January and spring are both times for this sort of radical, life-altering change.   Trust me.

Today’s Five Thing Friday is in honour of my face, my poor red blotchy face, plagued as it is by rosacea, a horrible thing that makes you look like you are always three sheets to the wind or forgot to apply sunscreen before you went spring skiing in the Alps.   For whatever reason, my rosacea also makes my skin around my eyes vaguely yellow, which adds entirely to the illusion that I wear goggles a great deal more than is normal.   What can I do?    Well, I COULD use the heavily medicated skin stuff given to me by my dermatologist, which does work but also makes me feel weird.   You may think that’s insane, because it’s a SKIN CREAM, but trust me, this stuff is absorbed through your skin and when you are as crazy as me, you KNOW that transdermal narcotics are just as effective as the ones you eat and there is stuff in this cream that I would not eat and as a result, when I use it, my skin clears up and then I get slightly nuts believing that the cream is eating my brain.   Remember that commercial?  With the eggs?  This is your brain, this is your brain on drugs?   Yeah, like that.

But enough of the crazy.   Here is my list of five things that YOU need to know about how to take care of your rosacea without the heavily drugged cream.   I sound like a hippie, don’t I?   TRUST ME, I am not.   I am just a fearful little kitten who is unreasonably afraid of becoming addicted to her skin cream and ultimately living under a bridge, hot-knifing crack, or whatever you do with it.

1.   Wash your face with water.   That’s right, water.   Just water.   All soap will make your skin go ape-crazy, in a poop-throwing way.   Do not use soap on your inflamed face.   Water.   Twice a day.

2.  A night time moisturizer.   You know, I almost NEVER do this, but like drinking 8 glasses of water a day, I think it is something YOU should do.   I don’t do it because mostly I fall asleep with the kids and only regain consciousness enough to brush my teeth and collapse into my own bed, frequently walking into walls on the way.   Moisturizing at night is about as close to my reality as moon-walking.  (Not the dance, which I’ll have you know I’m really really good at, but actually walking.   On the moon.)    If you do this, and you should or else your skin will look as dry and fragile as mine, try Verite, which is an Estee Lauder product and I am their pimp, as you will see further along in this post when I rhapsodize about Idealist.

3.  But first, you need a daytime product called Rosaliac, by La Roche Posay.   I may be spelling all these things wrong.  If you need anything verified, try Google.   I never claimed to know how to spell anything and am far to lazy to go to the bathroom and read labels.   FAR too lazy.   I love you and care about your skin, but not that much.    This stuff is pretty pale green and it makes your red look slightly less red and does not cause your skin to come up in raised and horrific bumps.

4.  When your Rosaliac has absorbed, apply a layer of Idealist (Estee Lauder) (who should be paying me) (in products) (that I use).   THEN put your foundation on over the top.   If you find a foundation that you like for more than six seconds, let me know what it is because I have never found one.   Each time I think I’ve found the PERFECT FOUNDATION, it stops working or my skin starts reacting to it within two weeks.   As a result, I own four thousand, eight hundred and two different kinds of foundation.    I’d like to try the new mineral one that comes with the spinning brush because FANCY but also EXPENSIVE and dangerously close to something that sands off the top layer of your skin in addition to the Idealist and Rosaliac you’ve already layered up.   If you’ve tried it, let me know if it works.

5.   Exercise.   Drink water.   Etc.    You know, all that other crap that you already know.   I HAVE STARTED EXERCISING AGAIN and damn it, I feel pretty good.   I do.   The problem is that I have the tiniest tendency towards OCD (shocking, I know) and so I have to add a small amount of intensity or time every day so it’s slightly more difficult with each work out or else I go insane, but then it eats up so much time I grow panicked about the amount of work I could be doing instead.   Anywho, enough about me.

So much for this being a quickie.   It’s almost 1000 words and I’m sure I have more to say.   Like take your vitamins!    Get eight hours of sleep!   Lay off the red wine!   For heaven’s sake, what am I, your mother?    Not that *I* do any of these things.   But you totally should.

Trust me.

Important update!  Since writing this post and experimenting a bit with different routines, I’ve come to the shocking conclusion that the Idealist works better if applied BEFORE the Rosaliac.   I am here for you, my red blotchy peeps, experimenting on my own face with abandon.

You’re welcome.

Filed under: Five Thing Friday