In Defense of the Facial Scrub: St. Ives Green Tea Scrub

Happy Tuesday!

So I made a little note in my last (and first!) post that my next one would be about the new Green Tea scrub I've been using..and here it is!

So this is the St. Ives Green Tea Scrub...obviously...and I LOVE it!! So a little background...I've always loved facial scrubs because they always made my skin feel clean and refreshed. Also after dealing with soo much acne when I was younger I think I just liked to take it out on my face and scrub until I felt like I'd gotten rid of the bumps (Hint: that didn't work, and I was using it wrong).

But even though personally I love scrubs, I would always read about it's negative effects, and how the beads were much too rough for the skin on your face blah..blah... But then my freshman year of college I was having another episode where I just wanted my acne GONE, especially the white heads and the crazy pores I wrote about in my last post. So I used the St. Ives Apricot Scrub (noticing a brand pattern here?) and their Facial Cleanser (bleh more on that in the future) every single day. BAD IDEA! I thought my skin was just too tough so I needed to be tough in return, and yeah as you can imagine I broke out like CRAZY! I mean like huge pimples that were deep under my skin. My felt so sensitive! Let me just say that when I went to see a doctor and she said she didn't like scrubs, I finally stopped rolling my eyes and started reading the directions on the back! Most facial scrubs advise that you only use them 2-3 times a week...not the sometimes 14 times I was doing!

So I laid off the scrubs for a while and I still had the same issue...out of control pores and rough skin. Around the beginning of the fall semester I started using the Apricot scrub sporadically, only to find that It wasn't really helping. I'd always read about the Green Tea scrub, so while I was out looking for new products to try a few weeks ago, I saw it on the shelf and squeezed a bit out onto my finger to test the quality. It was sooo smooth! The beads, sand, whatever, are incredibly fine so it has more of a polishing effect than a scrubbing one. It also smells ah-mazing!

You can't even see the grittyness!

Currently I'm only using it once a week on Sunday nights to refresh my face for the upcoming week of school stress, sweat, dirt and this week, a special monthly visitor and all her accompanying breakout inducing hormones...FUN...yeah not really!

M-Tip: Ladies try not to freak out when your face suddenly goes bananas, it's probably the annoying Aunt Flow and it should be gone within a week and a half. 

Verdict: So far so good! It's definitely a lot more gentle than the Apricot Scrub, and it really get into my pores and clears it all out! For now, I'm only planning to use the Apricot Scrub pretty randomly on days when I feel like I need an even deeper cleaning and apply a mask to cool my face down.

The Charcoal Scrub is still great! I'll do an update with pictures maybe next week after all the hormones chill out a bit ;)

I'm thinking either a dorm room decor tour for my next post? Or maybe another review? We'll see;)

Have a lovely week!

M.M