Answering a few popular questions.

 Look out two post in one night! So I have had a couple of people wanting to know what I am doing now face wise, what my routine is and ask if I can just put it all in a nutshell so they don't have to read all of these post. So here you go, the highlights:

I use a tea tree oil shampoo and conditioner by Natures Gate that I get a Whole Foods (it's also sulfate free)

I use Dr. Bronner's tea tree bar soap for my body and sometimes my face if it's feeling extra gross (I work with dogs now so that is pretty much every day).

I no longer use the wash that I did in the beginning of this journey.

I still use the 50/50 agran oil/tea tree oil mixture. I don't use it every day, I use it about every other day and my face is still good. It is the only moisturizer I use so if my face feels dry I use it. I'm not nearly as fanatical about it as I was in the beginning, I use to carry it with me and apply it several times a day now I am really lax about it.

I didn't start out with a 50/50 mix and I don't recommend anyone do so. I started with just a little tto to a lot of argan oil. I think it was like 5 parts argan to 1 part tto and slowly upped the tto. I took me about 2 weeks to get up to the 50/50 ratio. It was strong at first and tingled but now I don't feel it, I guess your face gets use to it. I would say if your face is really burning or dry you are using to much tea tree oil and you should dilute it more. More is not always better, especially if it is causing other issues. Just because my face could handle it that quick doesn't mean everyone's can and I would hate for you to give up just because you tried to rush it.

Yes I used my oil on my lashes and eyelids but I DO NOT recommend it to anyone. It BURNS and it could cause DAMAGE to your eyes. I didn't drench my eyes in it or anything, I would rub the oil all over my face and then just brush my fingers over my eyelids and lashes. Even just that tiny leftover oil BURNED. IT BURNS your eyes. I don't want to be responsible for anyone going blind or damaging their eyes.

I ran out of the tea tree oil for about 2 weeks and my face didn't freak out or anything. I did get 1, yes 1, pustule but that was it. I'm sure if I really quit using it all together my mites would begin to over populate and my face would return to it's former glory.

When I had really dry, flaky, lizard skin (it was bad) I used raw shea butter on it and it helped a lot. I am now a huge fan of shea butter and I slather it on my whole body. I made a bunch of shea butter body butters for friends and family for Christmas and they all loved them and apparently so did anyone they shared them with and I now sell my homemade body butters. I believe in the healing powers and moisturizing powers of shea butter. lol.

I still drink coke.

Highlights of the highlights. I still use my oil mixture just not as strict about it, I use tea tree oil shampoo, conditioner and soap. Start with a very diluted tea tree oil and work your way up, if it burns or is causing other issues it's to strong. There is no need to rush it to a certain ratio. I believe even just a little tto oil is still very effective. Shea butter is amazing for dry skin.

Thanks for all the positive feedback! It's nice to know that I'm not alone and that people actually get use out of my ramblings.

Day 37. Looking good.

   So my face is looking better and better. I still have some dry spots left from the nu-stock but they are getting smaller and smaller and my soft skin is coming back. My face is getting less red by the day. I am almost back to the point of being okay to leave my house without makeup again. I mean my skin is leaps and bounds better than it was.

   So I am still not using soap on my face or any face cleansing products, just oil to clean it. I think the tto is strong enough and it removes make up really well. I have noticed that all of the blackheads and large pores on my nose that I have had since puberty started are really shrinking, some I can't even see. It's pretty amazing. I am still putting honey on my face is it feels really tight and dry and I have been putting shea butter on my face when I think about it and I am at home.

   Okay as for pictures, I took a few in the car when I was waiting for the ferry this morning on my way home from work. They lighting was good but I am wearing some makeup but it's 12 hours old and mostly worn off. I took a few more when I got home and took off the makeup and I took a few close ups of the dry scaly skin so you can see what I am talking about. It is almost gone now, it was a lot worse. I think in a few more days it will be all gone. Sorry the close ups are gross but everything about mites living in your skin and rosacea is kinda gross.

Day 37

Day 23, sorry I missed a day.

   Sorry I missed a day, my sister was in town from Texas and she is newly engaged so the day was filled with wedding stuff.  Yeah. Okay back to the face. My is looking really good, I have 2-3 actual pimples that are healing and have nothing to do with the rosacea, I'm just lucky like that and get pimples just because. The dry skin is starting to go away, I haven't done anything special but it's starting to go away. When I think about it I put some shea butter on it, but that is it. I did notice that my face flushed last night while eating crawfish, that sucked but I sure as hell am not giving up crawfish. First time I have flushed in a few days so I thought I would mention it.

   I have to say, I am STILL amazed that my face looks just as good now by using oils and natural products as it did when I was taking expensive meds that are not good for you anyway. I am actually confident enough with my face again that I am willing to go out in public with no makeup again. I have never been one of those girls that wears makeup to the store, so it's nice that I can go back to being mostly makeup free. I was going to do closeups of the dry scaly skin, but it's gone. The texture is improving which is good and I noticed that the large pores that I have had on my nose since I hit puberty are starting to get smaller. Nice bonus. Okay so on to the pictures.

Day 23

Day 21, Look at that I put on a shirt!

   Day 21, not much has changed. Sorry if this is kinda boring but I like that my face is becoming kind of boring. Still just using the tea tree oil/argan oil 50/50 mix, I will probably pick one day a week and due the nu-stock/coconut oil mixture just to make sure things stay at bay and do the borax soak every second or third day. I have been drinking the borax mixture everyday for the last 3 days, I don't seem to be having any negative side effects and I can't taste it so why not.

   My face is REALLY dry still despite the honey mask and the pure shea butter I have been putting on. I think this is making my face itch now and not the mites. It's a different itch, the mites you can actually feel moving and it's really gross. I still get that every once and I while and when I do I hit that spot with a dab of tea tree oil and laugh an evil laugh as they die. Boowawahahahahaha. Yeah, kinda like that. So now I just have to find a balance to keeping the mites under control and keeping my face from cracking like the desert landscape. It's not so obvious unless you are right in my face like I am in the mirror all the time or if I am wearing makeup which I don't do a whole lot. So yeah, that is about it for now. Picture time! Oh and I was even nice enough to put on a shirt for you this time. Feeling fancy.....your welcome. One last thing, I haven't been doing close ups because there really isn't anything to see like the bazillions of p&p before but tomorrow when the sun is back I will try to get close ups so you can see how everything looks and how dry my skin is. Any tips on helping with that would be much appreciated!

Day 21

It's update time.

   So yesterday I actually left my house and went out into public and only one person commented on my face, which is normal. So yesterday I did the 8:1 in the morning, shea butter once when I got home, put on the 1:1 before bed and that was it.

   I haven't been having the creepy crawly feeling as much although when I was at the movies yesterday and all the lights where out there was once or twice when I did. Today when I work up I only had 1 p&p which is amazing! I don't know if I ever had that even on the oracea. My face is more pink and still healing. The texture is still rough and bumpy from the p&ps healing and it's still dry so I will keep up with the shea butter since it seems to be helping with the flaky spots.

   Oh before I forget, one thing if you are using the tto make sure you overlap it on your lips a little bit. I noticed I had gotten a lot of p&p on the edge of my lips where I had never gotten them before and I think it's because I wasn't putting the tto that close to my mouth and they ran for cover. I also take it down to my neck. I am telling you if you miss a spot these little fuckers will find it and hide out. I had NEVER had a p&p on my forehead till I started doing this and as first I just treated my problem areas and they migrated, now I do my whole body. Shampoo and conditioner, body soap and oils on my entire face and neck. Okay on to the pictures!

Day 10

Still improving!

   Well my face is still improving much to my surprise and joy. Yesterday when I woke I did the 8:1 argan/tto all over my face, coconut oil once during the day and the 1:1 ratio argan/tto before bed. My face is pretty dry in my rosacea areas which I am pretty sure is just it healing and the tto tends to be drying. I did a test spot of 100% pure shea butter to see how my skin would react and it did fine so I might start putting that on my dry spots. After I drank my last coke (I will miss you my love) I didn't have anymore flushing yesterday.

   So the changes today are pretty impressive from a week ago, I will post a side by side from the beginning to now. My eyes are not crusty/gritty when I wake up anymore, I haven't been feeling them crawl as much (which is the grossest feeling ever!) I feel them on my nose sometimes after I put the 1:1 on at night so I dosed my nose pretty good. I do still feel them on my scalp a little bit but I think the tto shampoo and conditioner is really helping that a lot also. When I woke today I only had two p&p, so I am pretty excited. I was pretty convinced that nothing but oracea was going to work. I just wish I had found this sooner. My face is more pink now than red which is normal, it's healing. I am just scared that there is going to be a setback soon.

   Okay, enough chatter on to the pictures! I know in the picture that my face looks more red than yesterday but I think yesterday was just washout from the lighting. In person today is defiantly less red.

Day 9

It's working! It's working!

   I can't believe it's working! After years of prescription medications (some $150 dollars or more each) and over the counter medications and over a year on antibiotics (which worked but wasn't good for my body) all this time all I needed was the oils already in my cabinet. It almost seems like a joke.

   So when I woke up my face felt great, it felt normal, I felt nothing. LOL. Most of the p&p are healing, I did have about 5 new ones but it's better than waking up to 20 or more and I know I will still keep getting them for a while as I keep killing off the mites. My face is a lot less red, more pink healing skin than red inflamed pissed off skin. It is REALLY dry and flaky. I am not sure what to put on it to help, I have some pure shea butter but I am not sure if I want to use it. Since I have cut back to using just 3 items on my face it has greatly approved and I am a little scared to add something new and screw it all up. I will have to think about it, for now I am just going to put some pure argan no tto on to help.

   Okay so on to the pictures! Sorry about the last one being a little washed out but you can see the amount of redness in the other two. Oh and sorry about the sleep creases, I take these first thing when I wake up so that you can get a true idea of how my face looks before I do something or eat something and make it flush somehow.

Day 8

Day 5

      So last night I took a shower with all of my new tto products, they all have that same tto smell which is strong but I am getting use to it. After my shower I put on the wash and didn't rinse. After about an hour all of the oils had absorbed but the honey left my face feeling kind of sticky so I went ahead and just splashed some warm water on my face to get rid of it. Also almost immediately my eyes started getting gritty, dry and itchy. If you look up close you can see the white dots along the lash line but you can only see it if you look really close.  Also my eyes were kind of dry so I put in some eye drops to help. When I was in the shower I used the soap on my lashes and sat for a few minutes with my eyes closed. Right before bed I covered my face and neck with the argan /tto mixture and then used just what was left on my fingers and ran it across my eyes and lashes. It didn't burn or anything just felt kind of menthol like but it wasn't painful or anything. For the record I am not suggesting that any one else should do this I am just telling you what I am doing. 

     When I woke today I had a bunch of tiny  p&p but nothing big and new. I know from what I have read that it gets worse before it gets better and not to expect big improvements any time soon that I have to wait for a couple of life cycles before they are really under control, still sucks. My face isn't as red as it was  and the burning, fire face feeling has diminished greatly. I do notice that about half way through the day it will start to creep back so I might carry some oil with me to put on when that happens. The areas of my face that are not affected are really soft and smooth, I really hope that one day all of my face will look and feel that way. So for now I'm just going to keep with it and taking pictures of the journey. 

Day 4

     Okay so my face has been really dry and flaky so I have decided to not do the ACV anymore, also it was stinging when I applied it so, no more of that. I also made a few other changes last night, I put on the wash  that I made but I didn't rinse it off I just let it soak in. Also I have been using argan oil for a few months and it has really helped with my dry, scaly skin and my skin sucks up like crazy so I added some TTO oil to it and hopefully the argan oil will pull the TTO into my skin with it when it absorbs.

    So back to the regime, slathered my face with the wash but I didn't rinse and watched tv for a little to see how it would absorb and it absorbed better than I thought it would. Right before I went to bed I covered my face in the argan and tto because I know that absorbs pretty quick. Not long after I got to bed I knew it was working because I could FEEL them and it really freaked me out. Okay now on to the pictures.

Day 4

Okay so redness is getting better, p&ps are getting better and drying up, I did wake up with one really big throbbing zit under my lip that you can see in the last picture. Nice right. Anyways one big difference I had this morning is my eyes were super itchy and crusty and watery and my scalp has been itching like crazy all day. So with that being said I am pretty positive it is the mites. From what I have read from other people doing the treatments they will run to these areas that don't have the TTO and look for safety. You could actually see the little white dots on my eye lashes like in this picture (it's pretty gross) I tried to get a picture but it's really tiny (still really gross). So with that discovery I have decided it's game on, all out war time! Me vs demodex rosacea. So today I went to the store and bought an arsenal of products to combat this and try to get my skin back! I would like to also include that along with these products I plan on trying to maintain a beef, pork and poultry free diet. I already know I am not perfect and I will occasionally eat one of those products so don't bash me for it later but for the most part I will be cutting that out of my diet. I did this before and not only did I feel better and lose weight really easily but my skin looked better.  So this is what I bought today

Tea Tree Oil Shampoo
Tea Tree Oil Conditioner
Tea Tree Oil
Tea Tree Oil soap for face and body
Probiotics
Shea Butter

So tonight I will start my full body eradication and I will keep this updated. Wish me luck!

What I am using on my face.

Okay so I got the original recipe here, but I modified it a little bit and this is what I ended up making

¼ cup castor oil

1 cup olive oil

1 ½ tsp tea tree oil

¼ cup coconut oil

¼ cup honey

Mix everything together. I had a hard time trying to mix the honey, even using a blender it just kind of sinks and sits at the bottom. After I mixed it all together I put it in a amber glass bottle. Since the coconut oil is solid at room temperature it turns into a solid at the top so before I use it I set it in a sink of warm water and this seems to help melt the coconut oil and the honey so it mixes a lot better but still not 100%. The original instructions said to wash it on and use a warm cloth to wash it off and the first few times I did this and now I am just letting it absorb into my skin and not washing it all off. I am doing this at night before I go to bed since that is when the mites are most active. 

For a moisturizer I use argan oil and I put a little bit of TTO in it hoping the argan oil will pull in the TTO when it absorbs. I slather this on pretty good in the morning and whenever I feel like I really need it. I also bought some shea butter to spot treat on those really dry chapped spots. 

Also everything I use is 100% natural and organic and cruelty free.