Can We Talk About Dry Skin?

Disclaimer: I haven't been paid to promote anything, just wanted to share x

Hi Honeys
I hope you're having a great day.  Our furbaby Jade and I have been doing laundry and editing photos today.  Technically it was me hanging out laundry and using the laptop to edit blog pics but Jade kept her Mummy company and we make a great team :)

I was originally planning to share our recent purchases from Ikea today but since I've written two Ikea posts yesterday and the day before i thought I'd postpone it a little :)  Don't worry I will share soon but today I thought I'd talk about something that's been bothering me for a while and I'd love to hear any tips, hints or advice you have honeys.

This does feel a little on the personal side to me, it really does.  I've thought about writing this post a few times over the past couple of months, and always decided not to because it seemed a bit personal and also because I thought it might sound like I'm having a "pity party"  Not something I'm a fan of.

I've done what everyone else does when they have a problem of course, I googled it, but I have to admit it wasn't really much help.  There is maybe too much information out there and I ended up feeling overwhelmed :/
I'm waffling!  OK, back to the beginning then.  For the past 2-3 months I've noticed the skin on my face is increasingly dry and even, around my forehead and eyebrows especially, flaky.  I mean ewww!

Everyone has skin issues I hear you say but that's just it honeys. I never have.  Even as a teenager I was fresh faced and spot free (don't hate me!) My only face care was soap and water.  For a few years now I've been a huge fan of the Soap and Glory range and I use their body products daily.  For my face though, mostly just soap and water,

The only time my poor face gets any real attention is when I've worn make up.  Then I use Soap and Glory's Peaches and Clean cleanser to remove it.  This is very, very rare though.  I actually can't remember off hand the last time I put on make up.  I used to wear it to work but I haven't done that for a long time.  There hasn't been a lot of self care going on around here honeys.

Here's the thing.  I have arthritis and because of this arthritis I take a lot of medication. Some of which has side effects, in the past these side effects have included vomiting, blinding headaches and losing my hair. There have been times I've wondered if the treatment isn't worse than the pain of the arthritis.  During a recent visit to our Drs surgery I asked our Practice nurse about the dry skin and whether it could in fact be a side effect of the current drug I'm taking.

She said it could be or it could also be any number of other things such as a natural sign of aging. Not overly helpful but I'm sure she meant well.  I don't know what it is honeys but I decided I had to do something.  For the last few weeks I've been using an exfoliator on my face and then washing as usual.  I've been using The Scrub Of Your Life (another Soap & Glory product and I used it because I had it in the bathroom cabinet.) It helps get rid of the face dandruff (again ewww! sorry honeys) for a few hours but next day it's the same again. It's a body product though honeys so probably not ideal to use on my face?

While shopping for fruit in Asda recently I wandered round to the health and beauty aisle to see if they had any moisturizers intended especially for use on the face.  Good grief there were so, so many of them! It was dizzying honeys.  Well, since I work part time for minimum wage I wasn't about to spend £14 each for both day and night cream and to be honest I wouldn't even if I could afford it.

I have a voice in my head honeys that constantly tells me (at length) that any money spent on myself is wicked and wasteful and to be honest, mostly I agree with her.  Anyway, I discovered something called the Skin System.    

 Has anyone heard of it or tried it?  If so I'd love to hear what you think?  It says on the packaging that each of the creams, one for day and one for night, have been dermatologically tested and that they are both hypoallergenic too.

They both have as an ingredient a coenzyme Q10 which I read about during my googling research so that seemed hopeful.  In addition the day cream also has an SPF of 15 so it would protect against the sun too although, living as I do in Scotland, this isn't a priority.  We don't see an awful lot of sunshine :)

Having decided to give them a try I was stunned to discover how little they cost.  The day and night cream both cost £2 each! I'm still a little stunned by this because I had expected to pay at least around £5-£6 for each jar.

Having gotten them home I opened the packs and took out the two jars. The packaging is pretty and both jars are made of a thick glass.  The creams are very thick and both smell amazing, there is definitely a hint of roses about the night cream and sure enough it does say it contains rosehip oil. Each jar contains 50ml of product which again for the price seems excellent value.

I waited till I had my evening shower and while my hair was wrapped in a towel (and so out of the way) I used the exfoliator to get rid of the flakes (again ewww!) and then followed the directions to apply the night cream. A little really does go a long way honeys and it does feel nice on my skin. Not sticky or heavy.  It absorbs into the skin really quickly too.

I've only been using them for a little over a week, 11 days to be precise, but my skin feels less "irritated" and there are far fewer flakes.  None from my forehead at all and only a little still in my eyebrows. To me this feels practically miraculous.  I've never thought of myself as being vain, I have nothing to be vain about, trust me, but this awful flaking has been really upsetting.  

I'm going to keep using them and see what another few weeks does. I think I'll buy another jar of each when I'm next in store.  OK, over to you then. Please tell me I'm not the only person who's battled being a living zombie with bits of flesh falling off (seriously Rosie, ewww!) and if so (not that I wish it on anyone) what did you do? Is there just a time in a woman's life when she needs more than soap and water on her face?

Moans over honeys, and I'm sorry if I grossed anyone out <hugs> xx  Till next time dear ones, huggles always from a happier and much less "flakey" wee Rosie xx