Tuesday’s Tips: Used Children’s Clothing

I realize this post series had the day “Tuesday” in it. It’s so chaotic over here, I don’t even know what day of the week it is and OF COURSE, I missed posting this yesterday!

Regardless, Erika over at Just Peachy Photography has posted her ideas for acquiring used children’s clothing. Go there and read her post, then head back here to check out mine!

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As I had mentioned in our last post about buying new kids’ clothing, I don’t buy a lot new. My kids are rough on clothes – not so much on dressy clothing but on the everyday stuff. Food, dirt, snot – all of that makes it onto or into their clothing regularly!

Acquiring USED clothing makes me feel A LOT better about messy kids. Here’ are the ways I find most useful to get great used clothing:

1. Garage Sales! I love, love, LOVE garage sales. I am actually involved in selling for the first time this weekend at my future sis-in-law’s garage sale, so that’s exciting. But, I am a veteran at shopping the sales. Whether you go first thing in the morning or right before they end, you can find great deals on all types of clothes – play, dressy, shoes, etc. And the folks selling are usually pretty cool with bargaining – they want to get rid of the stuff just as bad as you want to take it off their hands! Just be sure to inspect the item for damages before paying.

2. Craigslist - You have to pick through more listings and only through pictures, but you CAN find decent clothing items for a good price. Usually the items are better in quality than garage sale items, but usually the price is a little higher. Be sure to check the item carefully before giving any money for it. There are no returns, usually, with these types of sales. (WARNING: Obviously, you are purchasing from strangers just like at garage sales. Unlike a garage sale, though, the pickup would be you ALONE picking up from them. Play it safe and meet in a public place or take someone with you! Not everyone is a creep, but since it’s someone you don’t know it’s best to BE SAFE.)

3. Resale or Thrift Shops - Try searching for thrift stores or resale stores in your area. You might have to do some searching once you’re in the store, but I have seen a lot of cute things for reasonable prices. Just like a garage sale or Craigslist purchase, be sure to check the item over before purchasing it. Most likely, you will not be able to return the item later. You can simply Google “thrift store near __(your town)__” and find what’s nearby!

4.Friends or Family – If you’re like me, you have friends and family with children. Perhaps you could take some unwanted/leftover clothes off their hands? I have been blessed to be able to borrow baby clothing from both my sister and sister-in-law, which has saved us a TON of money. And I have a wonderful cousin  that has given us hand-me-downs from her daughter, who is a little older than my oldest. She did not need/want them, so I was doing her a small service by taking them and she was doing me a HUGE service by offering!! (Obviously, if you borrow clothes, you want to keep them in good condition!) If you aren’t able to borrow but could purchase them for a nominal amount, that might be another route to consider.

Hopefully you found some good ideas between Erika’s post and my post. If you have other ideas, feel free to share!

Freezer Filling

Like I mentioned yesterday, I am catching up on Money Saving Mom’s 4 Weeks to Fill Your Freezer Challenge. Because my shopping last week didn’t allow me to collect the items for freezing lunches, I am doing both lunches and dinners this week. Whew! It is crazy busy in here while doing that!

This is our last week of school and the weather has been beautiful, so we’re trying to cram a lot in each day between playing outside, school work, freezer foods, and church activities! I could just push the dinners to next week, but why not do it ALL in one week?! Yes, I’m slightly crazy.

Yesterday, while heating up leftovers for lunch, I put together 21 PB&J sandwiches for the freezer. It smelled so good, I ended up eating one before the other 20 made it into the freezer!

During the girls’ naps (Buddy did NOT want to sleep….it was awesome…not), I made 3 pounds of ground beef and ingredients into almost 100 meatballs. I made them pretty small, which means less cutting up for the kids when we use them. I froze 73 of them and kept the rest out to bake for dinner. Turned out great! The recipe for the meatballs and sauce both were different from my regular recipe, but it was so delicious! I had 8 of them for dinner.

Today, I’m going to tackle the brown bag burritos (lunch freezer item) and a double recipe of lasagna casserole. One of the casseroles will be dinner tonight, so only one will go into the freezer. But that’s fine with me….every little bit helps!

I am also going to mix up some more homemade baking mix, since I only did half of the recipe last time….I’m out after making cinnamon roll biscuits this morning! I plan to make the whole recipe this time, so it lasts longer.

I eased up on the organics this week in groceries. Everything fresh was organic – produce and meats, but some of the canned items I bought were not. Refried beans, enchilada sauce, tortillas, and pizza sauce were non-organic. Some of my dairy products weren’t organic either – the cheeses and cottage cheese. Since I was buying in bulk, I decided it was ok to take a break this one time. Our tummies might not be too happy with me when we eat these foods, but hopefully it’ll be alright. I still bought organic milks for drinking. The non-organic items are all things that are going to be mixed into recipes, so it’ll be ok…right?

Hopefully I am as successful with my cooking and baking as I’m envisioning!

Menu Plan 5/15 – 5/21

I did some big grocery shopping today, so I am catching up on Money Saving Mom’s freezer series.  I was able to get a GREAT deal on organic ground beef at our local grocery store, as well as organic chicken thighs and whole chickens! We depleted our last order (finally) of meats from Wallace Farms, but we didn’t have any room in the budget this month to buy from them again. So, I was happy to get organic meat for a good price today!

My menu for this week incorporates the freezer filling menu. I plan to freeze half of the recipes, since I’m doubling them. One batch of each recipe will go to the freezer, and the other half will be our dinner that night.

Breakfast

Scrambled eggs, toast, fruit

Baked Oatmeal, fruit  x 2

Cinnamon Rolls, fruit

Brown Sugar Cinnamon Oatmeal, fruit

Fried Eggs, fruit

Waffles, fruit

Lunch

PB&J, fruit

Leftovers x 4

PB on Crackers, Carrots w/Ranch, fruit

Pizza Burgers

Dinner

BBQ Meatballs, Smashed Potatoes, Green Beans

Broccoli Chicken Bake, Carrots, Bread

Lasagna Casserole, Salad, Breadsticks

Southwest Rollups, Spanish Rice

Mac & Cheese Bake, Green Beans, Corn

Italian Chicken, Salad

Homemade Pizza, Carrot Sticks

 

Freezer Filling

I have been trying to keep up with Money Saving Mom’s Filling Your Freezer challenge. This week, I will not be able to participate in making lunch items to freeze. I bookmarked the page, though, and plan to try some of them next week, after I do my grocery shopping.

I was successful in keeping up with last week’s activities. I missed yesterday’s item, the baking mix, so I made it this morning. I could only make half of the recipe, though, because I was running out of coconut oil. In fact, I didn’t even have enough coconut oil to make 1/2 the recipe, so I had to sub in butter for the last 1/4 cup! And I didn’t put in powdered milk because I didn’t have any, so when I mix it up for things, I will add in milk instead of water – no big deal.

I am inspired by this series of hers and wanted to keep up the make-ahead motivation, so I found a few things I can make ahead this week to have on hand.

Today, I am making about 12 cups of veggie broth. My quart container in the freezer was full of veggie clippings and leftovers, so I tossed them in water and they are simmering as we speak. I’ll divide that up and have it in the freezer for upcoming rice recipes.

I am also hoping to make a large batch of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and freeze half. And when I make granola bars this week, I will double it and freeze half of those, too. I am running low on honey, though, so I will substitute molasses for the honey (not a big difference at all in taste, to me), and I’m out of peanut butter chips, so these will be strictly chocolate chip bars. No complaints here.

Are any of you practicing the make-ahead principle this week? Or on a regular basis? What kinds of things to you make-ahead and freeze? Please share! I love new ideas!!

Related articles

• Freezer cooking (aka, The big cook) (nextmommyoftheyear.com)
• Healthy Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups (thecooksnextdoor.com)
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• Guest Post: No Bake Banana Cream Pie by Tasty Yummies (freepeople.com)

Menu Plan 5/8 – 5/14

I did very minor grocery shopping yesterday, just Addy and I. It was fun to just take one child with me. Haven’t done that in a long time; it was good bonding time. I knew Addy liked to talk, but boy oh boy did she chat away with just me. I guess she doesn’t quite get the same amount of talk time when her sisters and brother are with us, chattering away too! It was very fun, though, and I really enjoyed seeing her little personality and her imagination as she “helped” me at the store.

I only picked up a few fresh things and dairy. As I’m sure a lot of you can understand, money is so tight right now. I have had such an inner struggle lately with money and organic eating. Each week, I feel anxious making my grocery list and budgeting out the trip to the store. It’s so silly, to me. I have never been anxious about shopping for food. BUT, with making the sacrifice in other areas to eat organics, I worry about making the right choices for pricing and not overspending (which would make me feel like the sacrifices in other budgets are worthless then). God does not want us to be anxious…about anything. And I think sometimes I forget this because I feel like the burden is on ME to stretch our food budget for 2 weeks or more each paycheck.

Yesterday’s trip was light because we didn’t need too much and because I had exactly $43 to spend. Yikes! Some unexpected expenses for groceries and personal items came up last week, so I was left with less that I had hoped. I knew I had to make it work, so I prayed about it before doing a very serious inventory and only listing the items we absolutely needed to get us to the 15th, when Arthur gets paid next.

My menu plan this week has a lot of items we have on hand in the pantry, so I guess you could call this my “pantry shopping” week. The only item I forgot to get was nursing pads (a necessity!), so I will have to run out for those tomorrow. They don’t have them at the store we went to, so it completely slipped my mind.

Did I mention I only had $43 to spend? And I had to get 1 gallon milk, 3 cheeses, 2 tomato paste, lettuce, bananas, 2 packages tortillas (yes, i was actually going to buy them instead of making them!), 2 dozen eggs, 2 packages buns (again, another item I usually make but needed to buy because I was short on ingredients and it would’ve cost me more to buy ingredients to make), and sour cream? Of those items, the only ones my stomach could handle NOT being organic are the bananas (because they have a peel), tortillas, buns, and maybe the sour cream. I try to always buy produce as organic (except things with a peel you don’t eat – like bananas), as well as all dairy. I was willing to buy sour cream not organic because the store didn’t carry any organic sour cream. And the cheeses available were all national brands, except for a brand from a dairy farm in Wisconsin….and the ingredients didn’t list any additives or preservatives. Sooo, I sacrificed the sour cream and cheeses for non-organic kinds. It was sample day at the store, and I splurged on a box of store brand crackers for $2 after we sampled them. My total at checkout? Even with the extra box of crackers and everything on my list….$42.16! I was so happy! I got a good deal on 2 half gallons of milk (they ended up being cheaper than buying 1 gallon….same brand. usually it’s the other way around with prices – 1 gallon is cheaper than buying 2 half gallons. glad i checked the prices!), as well as 2 dozen MEDIUM eggs instead of my regular large. I figured we could handle medium eggs (which were $1.10 cheaper each dozen than the large) for a week. I almost bought regular tomato paste because 1 large can of regular paste was the same price as 1 tiny can of the organic paste. But, I know that tomatoes are one of the worst items for pesticide exposure, and my stomach was turning thinking about it. (Yes, I’m weird like that!) So, I bought the organic.

I planned out my meals before I went to the store. And I was overjoyed that I stayed in budget. God definitely answered my prayer in providing affordable options, yet allowing us to continue with our mostly organic eating.

So, after all that babbling, here is my weekly menu. It’s a bit on the frugal side, but we’ll make do.

Breakfasts:

Waffles, Fruit

Cinnamon Rolls, Fruit

Oatmeal topped with Fruit

Pancakes, Fruit

Brown Sugar Cinnamon Oatmeal, Fruit

Egg and Sausage Hash, Toast, Fruit

Cereal (organic; for the girls), Fruit; Eggs (for Arthur, Me, and Buddy), Fruit

Lunches:

PB & Honey, Fruit, Yogurt x 2

Leftovers, Fruit x 5 (I plan to have LOTS of leftovers…or at least HOPE to!)

Dinners:

Pasta w/Homemade Sauce, Salad

BBQ Fried Rice (Meatless), Green Beans

Pizza Burgers, Green Beans, Corn

Steak Tacos, Spanish Rice, Refried Beans

Veggie Barley Soup, Salad, Breadsticks

Veggies (Broccoli and carrots) and Brown Rice w/Gravy, Peas

Red Beans & Rice, Green Beans

Snacks:

Fruit

Granola Bars

Granola and Yogurt

Frozen Grapes (Lily’s favorite!)

Mexican cookies Grandma brought for the girls yesterday (they are super yummy cinnamon cookies….not organic, but still….we’ll eat them)

Related articles

• Carne Asada Tacos, Rice and Beans (fabulousfamilyfood.wordpress.com)
• Field of Guacamole Recipe (sports.avocadocentral.com)
• Low Calorie Banana Sour Cream Cake (Recipe) (mylittlereviewcorner.wordpress.com)
• Sour Cream From Your Own Kitchen (prepperpenny.com)
• It’s been one week! And Meatless Monday: sprouted bean burritos with tofu sour cream (iusedtobefatter.wordpress.com)

Weekly Recap

The weather has been so crazy around here! Those of you in my area know what I’m talking about. Last week we were wearing jeans and coats. Then it was cool and rainy. Then yesterday it was 86 degrees!! Thunderstorms rolled in last night and now it’s just muggy and 70-ish. So strange.

But, it’s been fun trying to sneak outside to play between storms and cool streaks. Yesterday, we had school outside in the afternoon. We sat in the shade on a blanket (Iris, Lily and I) and did our worksheets while Addy played and Buddy sat in the stroller snacking. It was gorgeous out…as long as you were in the shade! Sitting right in the sun was HOT! We took a walk around 11AM and that was warm enough for me. I tried to sit in the shade the rest of the time outside.

Addy and I also got the rest of our vegetable seeds planted. I am a little overly ambitious with the seeds this year; hopefully at least some of them produce something! We planted (all in planters/pots since we’re moving and want to be able to take them all with us!) broccoli, spinach, carrots, lettuce, cucumbers, green beans, tomatoes, Echinacea and lavender. The broccoli, spinach and carrots were planted 2 weeks ago, since those can be done before the last potential frost (and I’m pretty sure we had frost in the last 2 weeks – crazy weather!). The Echinacea and lavender were done that week also, but we’re keeping them inside for now. I set them outside finally yesterday. Can’t wait to see what actually grows!

I am participating in Money Saving Mom‘s Four Weeks to Fill Your Freezer. And I’m loving it! It’s been great motivation for me to get some things made ahead of time, so I’m not spending every waking moment in the kitchen. I literally make every meal we eat from scratch, but I have not been making anything ahead of time lately, so I have been spending an obnoxious amount of time in the kitchen cooking/baking for every meal. It’s getting old….FAST! I love cooking, but I also love not standing on my feet for an hour at a time. So, this week, I have been making the items listed on Money Saving Mom’s list. So far, I’ve made 2 loaves banana bread, 2 dozen cinnamon rolls, and now I’m catching up from yesterday’s task and making a triple batch of Belgian waffles. Only 1 loaf of bread went into the freezer, as well as only 1 dozen cinnamon rolls. We ate the others. I am going to give the girls some waffles for snack this morning then put the rest in the freezer. I think today’s task is to mix up a baking mix. I’m missing some of the ingredients, but I’m sure I can add them at the time I make something. So, I’ll put together the ingredients I have and toss it in the freezer.

I highly recommend her filling the freezer series. It’s a great way to keep from being frazzled at meal time, by making things ahead and just pulling them out to reheat later. Soooo helpful!

My waffle is starting to burn! Time to go. Have a great weekend!

Tuesday’s Tips: Buying Children’s Clothing

Now that we’ve ended our grocery savings series, Erika at Just Peachy Photography and I are going to do a few posts on other topics that we are familiar with. Today, we are starting a series on clothing. First topic, Buying Children’s Clothing. Erika started the post HERE, talking about a few places she purchases NEW kids’ clothing. After reading her post, come back and read below for my thoughts…

 

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Erika gave some great tips on her top 3 stores for purchasing new clothing for kids. I don’t purchase new clothing very often, but when I do here are a few stores I like:

• Target – I enjoy scanning the clearance racks at Target. When marked down 75%, sometimes I can find t-shirts for very cheap (I’m talking under $1!). Yes, the quality isn’t that great, but summertime clothes get roughed up a bit here, so cheap clothes are ok with me. I don’t feel as bad when I see holes and have to toss them out! Target has clothing coupons online from time to time. I like to print them out as soon as they’re up (they go quickly!) and get discounts that way, too!
• Kohls – I know Erika mentioned this one, but I like Kohl’s clearance a lot! I don’t shop there often, but when I do I check out clearance racks and try to grab items for the following year or season.
• Old Navy – Another of Erika’s suggestions. I LOVE their clearance also (can you tell I’m a clearance rack fan?!) . I feel like their clothes are maybe a step up in quality from Target’s clothes, but Old Navy still has cheap prices on clearance and again, I don’t feel as bad if they get ruined after just a few wears.

I can’t remember the last time I paid the full price for a clothing item for the kids. With 4 kids, most of our budget goes toward food! So, I try to be sensible about the AMOUNT of clothing I have for each child and the PRICE I pay for it. My kids are rough when they’re outside. We already lost 2 pairs of jeans to holes in the knees this Spring. So, I would hate to spend $20 for a pair of pants for one kid and then have the knees worn through a few weeks later. Granted, I will keep the jeans to use as strictly play jeans, but still….I would never pay $20 for jeans (even for myself!).

If you are trying to save money, paying full price for clothing is a good thing to avoid. Try hitting the clearance racks and be sure to ask employees when the items go to clearance. For our Target, Mondays is when kids’ clothing moves to clearance (or the next bracket of clearance – 25% to 50% and then to 75% off). If I need to pick up clothing, I try to go on Mondays (EARLY!) and get a huge discount. Otherwise, I try to hit up Old Navy for clearance.

Do you have any tips for saving money on purchasing new clothes for kids? I am all ears!!

Related articles

• 3 Places To Shop For Childrens’ Clothes (hellobeautiful.com)
• Children’s Clothing Retailer, Blueturtlekids.com, Kicks Off the Christmas Season with a Trend Outlook on Children’s Clothing for Holiday Dressing (prweb.com)
• Cheap Junior Clothing (livedirtcheap.com)

Menu Plan

This plan wasn’t very well thought out. I just wanted to get something written down to have a guideline for this week’s meals. This month is going to be extremely busy with my brother-in-law’s wedding preparation (showers, parties, etc.), so I need to at least write down some meal ideas each week so I don’t lose my mind!

Breakfasts

Cereal x 2 (organic), fruit

Banana Bread or Toast, fruit

Cinnamon Rolls, fruit

Pancakes w/agave nectar, fruit

Waffles, fruit

Baked Oatmeal and….you guessed it….fruit!

Lunches

Leftovers x 4

PB & Honey, fruit, yogurt

Parmesan Couscous (Lundberg brand – boxed mix; organic), pita chips, fruit

Dinners

Veggie Barley Soup, naan

Pearl couscous w/peas, Raw Carrots, Cottage Cheese

Lentil “Tacos”, Salad

Veggies and Brown Rice, Bread

Beef Roast, Cooked Carrots and Green Beans

Taco Pizza

Pasta w/Homemade Sauce, Breadsticks (this pasta dish has become almost a weekly dish….so easy and yummy)

Snacks

Banana Bread

Zucchini Cake

Fruit & Maple Yogurt Dip (1/2 cup vanilla yogurt, 2 tsp maple syrup)

Homemade Trail Mix

Feel free to share your meal plans for the week! I’m always looking for new recipes/ideas/suggestions!

Weekly Recap

I am so lazy today. Arthur had to go in to work on his day off for a few hours, so I am doing absolutely nothing so far today. The girls have been rotting their brains to cartoons all morning. I finally took a shower about an hour ago. I have some cleaning to do and have very good intentions of getting it done, but I just don’t see it happening until nap time!

School went well this week. We’re all starting to get the itch for Summer break. I thought it would make us all a bit antsy, but it’s actually motivating the girls and myself to focus and get done what we need to get done. Yay!

Iris is reading great. She is working on long vowel words and has taken to them so well. I am extremely impressed. Lily is working on sight words while Iris is reviewing the ones she’s learned so far. Addy has kind of quit on school, unless she gets to color a journal page. I’m okay with that – she has done a great job this year with her busy box activities and sitting through Bible lessons and crafts. I’m super proud of her attention span. I mean, she’s only 2! She will be 3 next week, though! I just can’t believe it! She is still so tiny.

I successfully got up at 5:20 every day this week! I’m proud of myself. It was a struggle, but I felt so much better for doing it. I was able to not have to rush and get breakfast made, chores got done without rushing, and I felt much more relaxed when it was time to start school.

We are all fighting the tail end of a cold, so I wasn’t sure about getting up early. I’m glad I did, though, because the girls decided to get up early every day this week, too. Mostly because they were coughing. Everyone was up by 6 AM every day. Ugh! That is pretty draining for a Mom by lunch time! But, they also took decent naps because of the illness and ate well, so I won’t complain.

Yes, this is our first bout of illness since going organic. Wasn’t sure what to expect, but I think we did pretty good. The girls took some all natural cough medicine (Hyland’s brand), and I drank  A LOT of hot honey and lemon water. The yucky feeling lasted way shorter than before we were eating this well, and now we’re just dealing with the drainage that makes us cough. We are all feeling great and sleeping well. It started last Friday for Arthur and I, so I feel like it isn’t lasting as long as the colds use to, when we weren’t eating organic or being careful of the medicines we take.

I am on my 3rd full day of the oil-cleansing method for face wash. And I’m still loving it. I am excited to see how it works long-term, but for now it is working great to help regulate the oil on my face and help heal my breakout much faster.

Buddy is awake now, so I’ll wrap this up. Today we are going out to the new house to see the progress. Last Friday, they had the entire frame up, including the roof. Not sure how much they’ll have done since we had rain at the beginning of the week, but hopefully they got some windows on. Here’s the latest picture from 8 days ago.

They were working on the roof while we were there, and our construction manager emailed me that evening to say it was finished by the end of the day! They work so fast! I just can’t wait to get in there! So thankful this is happening!

Related articles

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Oil-Cleansing Method

I’ve been dealing with acne and imbalanced skin since I was about 14 years old, so I decided to start researching alternative face cleansers. I have taken pills for my acne, rubbed prescription creams on my face and back (yes, the dreaded acne on my back! very embarrassing for a teenage girl), and tried what seemed like every affordable face wash under the sun. I refused to spend $30 for a face wash – mostly because I never could afford it.

I thought I had it under control right around when I got married, but then I started having children. Pregnancy hormonal changes really do a number on your skin. I was back to the confusing bi-weekly breakout and constant blackhead war. It was very embarrassing to me. Here I was 23 years old, married and with a baby but my face looked like I was still 14! As if I didn’t have enough to worry about with my first baby, I was stressing over my skin, too!

For the past 6 years, I have continued to struggle with acne breakouts and still did not find a product to combat what seemed like an overabundance of oils in certain areas of my face and dessert-like dryness in other areas.

This past Fall, my family and I started switching from a conventional diet to a natural and organic one. That change affected my face drastically! All the impurities from my body were coming out through the pores on my face. Hello again, ACNE!  I have been struggling more than ever for the past 5 months to get this acne under control.

Just last month, I came across several blogs online that talked about a natural face cleanser than could be made at home. I am often skeptical at first of homemade cleaning agents because I always feel like maybe the chemicals that I grew up with would be the most effective. After reading several people’s opinions on the natural, homemade face wash, I decided to give it a try. It would give me a break on buying any more face wash for a while.

Well, then I noticed I still had 3/4 of my current bottle of face wash left. I couldn’t justify buying the ingredients to make my own and waste the money I had already put into the current face wash. So, I vowed to finish up what I was using and then make my own.

That was about a month ago, and I caved about a week after that and bought the supplies to make my own. I just can’t take this crazy cycle of acne and oiliness on my face!

The homemade face wash I’ve been reading about uses the oil-cleansing method. When I first read the title, I thought it was going to be a way to rid my face of oil. Wrong. As I read, I didn’t think it could work on my face. The method works by combining 2 oils and massaging then into your face before applying a hot wash cloth. Rub oils on my face?! I was reluctant but decided to just go ahead and buy the ingredients to have this face wash ready for as soon as my current one ran out.

Here’s the ingredients:

castor oil

sunflower oil (or any other vegetable oil)

That’s it! I used 1 part castor oil to 3 parts sunflower oil because of my combination skin.

Sound a little gross to use castor oil, but if you read about the oil-cleansing method it is explained why castor oil is perfect.

I am almost out of my commercial face wash, so last night I was staring at the disgusting breakout on my face and went ahead with my homemade oil wash.

It was very awkward at first, rubbing oils on my already oily face, but the hot wash cloth felt really great. I massaged the oil into my face and neck (while my makeup was still on) and laid a hot, wet wash cloth over my face until it cooled. I repeated the wash cloth part twice and gently wiped off the oil and makeup after each wash cloth application. I realized my water-proof mascara was still on and SURPRISINGLY it came off with ease just rubbing the wash cloth over my eyes. The oil even helped get that off!

Afterward, I felt like my face was oily, but about 5 minutes later I noticed how shiny (but NOT oily) it was. It felt really nice! I was excited to see how it was in the morning.

This morning, I woke up for the FIRST TIME EVER without an extremely oily nose! I was very impressed. Maybe there’s something to this oil method. I noticed my breakout areas weren’t red and my very dry areas were flaky. It really was amazing. Just from rubbing oils on my face.

I plan to continue to use this method every night. I read that it should keep me from having to use any wash on my face in the morning, but I’m not quite that confident yet. I am using my commercial wash until it’s finished as my morning wash. I hope that doesn’t mess up the progress my face makes with this oil-cleansing method.

This is definitely something I’d recommend trying. Castor oil cost me $1.99 at Meijer. The sunflower oil cost me a bit more because I didn’t have it on hand. I chose organic, cold-pressed sunflower oil at Whole Foods for $4.99 on sale. That still wasn’t too bad. Total of $7 or so and you don’t use a whole lot of each at one time, so it’s going to last me longer than any other face wash I purchased for $7!

Two thumbs up here from me for the oil-cleansing method!

 

Related articles

• We’re Trying the Oil Cleansing Method: Week One (bellasugar.com)
• I’m Trying the Oil Cleansing Method For a Month (bellasugar.com)
• The Wonders of Castor Oil – Oil Cleansing Method (OCM) and 6 Other Uses for Castor Oil (hildablue.com)
• We’re Trying the Oil Cleansing Method: Week Two (bellasugar.com)
• Why Cleansing Oil Is Awesome (bellasugar.com)