Cleanse, Tone, Moisturise

Question 2 is the key one

i dunno about toning. it's something to do with opening or closing your pores. sounds icky. if men did it toner would be a lot less expensive, though since i dont BUY it that makes no diff to me. my skin "care" routine when i remember: wash face at night with organic lavender thing. rinse face with cold water (i think this could be construed as "toning"). slap on a mixture of wheatgerm oil with a few drops of lavender/bergamot - grebt for skin and also the lovely fumes help you sleep! then when you wake up face is all clean and soft mmm!

I saw a remarkable ad this morning which, possibly due to insomnia I did not understand. It was for some Simple anti-wrinkle cleansing pads or some such nonsense which suggested that smiling stretched the skin on your face and hence helped combat ageing much like their new expensive pads.

It begged the question: why buy the pads when you can smile for free?

Because we live live a hypersexualized and hypmediated world that shows every sign of worsening, hence even intelligent humans can't find happiness.

I have my own toning question - the pads I have say one side is ideal for cleansing and the other is ideal for toning, but I use a combined cleanser and toner. I am using each side alternately and hoping I don't do myself any permanent damage.

Ah - that would explain your terrible skin Graham. Wash in Fairy Liquid for baby-like skin.

I wash my face with water.

Thanks Pete.

Reputable beauty experts (if there is such a thing) will tell you that if you use a cleanser which you rinse off with water, you don't need to tone as well. Most toner , whatever the bottle claims, doesn't really have much effect on pores etc, but can remove vestiges of cream-based cleansers. Otherwise a good splash of cold water is just as good. I probably have a very slapdash locking-the-stable-door- after-etc attitude to skin care - I use a mild face wash and water daily, and if my skin feels a bit icky one day I might splash some toner on, likewise if it looks dry some moisturiser. But really, life's too short.

As for Q2, quite a few men I know DO moisturise. Quite a few women (as well as me) don't. What difference does it make? Dunno.

Toner is best for oily skin really as many astringents can be too harsh for dry skins.

If men went through all this they would be big soft jessies and women would laugh at them for buying into our special women's ways. Men should be craggy and marked (not spotty though obv.) to prove that they can defend you from mammoths and stuff.

emma wins BY THE POWER OF ANTHROPOLOGY!

No she doesn't. How does a bit of acne prevent effective tackling of hairy prehistroic monsters?

Don't know anything about cleansing or toning but I do moisturise. I also use a powerful sun-block at all times.

David: what effect does it have? how does it effect you when you don't do it for a while?

For the record, Clinique Facial Scrub is absolute genius. Especially if used pre-shave: but not every day, otherwise it will exfoliate your face right off.

genius - why? SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT?

And don't say "the hats"

Acne = largely (though by no means exclusively) adolescent problem therefore a man with no acne has probably successfully fought off oodles of mammoths to survive into his 20s or 30s (but sustained one or two manly scars along the way).

My mum uses Oil of U/Olay and always has done and doesn't look a day over 30. Well OK 40. But she is in her 50s so that's pretty good.

David: what effect does it have? how does it effect you when you don't do it for a while?

I don't know because I never stop doing it. I hope it keeps me 'young- looking'. Current wisdom is that a lot of skin ageing is down to day- in-day-out sunlight exposure, so I think it makes sense to use sunblock all the time, not just at the beach or whatever.

b-but acne = why mammoths are extinct!!

sun-block I can see the point of -- it's science innit. but how do you know the moisturising thing isn't just a waste of time/money? (unless it's part of the sunblock). i want to concentrate on the moisturising thing.

(unless it's part of the sunblock)

It is. But straight moisturiser I just slap on a bit before going to bed. It's probably more psychological than anything but it's just a routine now so I keep on doing it.

Is acne fatal in mammoths then? That can be my thing I have learned today.

The proof that it works is girls = sugar and spice and all things nice and boys = oh can't remember the first unpleasant thing and snails and puppy dog tails.

it's "snips"

Right yeah. So what does that mean exactly? Snips of what?

i always thought it was slugs. not snips of slugs! whole slugs!

snips of de-moistured sugar and spice apparently.

I go through all that palaver (toning excepted) and thanks to it people usually think I'm about 5 years younger than I really am (either that or my immaturity).

Graham, the rough side of the pad is for cleansing, the smooth for toning, and thanks for reminding me I need a new pot of the little buggers.

It was slugs where I grew up (yes in the rhyme too hardehar).

I neither tone nor moisturise and I could be mistaken for a young- looking 47 year old on a good day.

BUT Chris, which do I use with my "Cleanser and Toner"?

neither, you get pads that are already impregnated with the stuff.

if you insist on using the combined stuff, I'd say put it on the smooth side.

Oi Chris stop faffing about with bits of cotton wool and KILL SOME MAMMOTHS.

Hmm, I'm not convinced about this man moisturising mularkey. My facial regime is soap, water, shaving brush and safety razor and yet I get accused of being 20 all the time here (we don't allow students in the staff common room!!!)

Cleanser and moisturiser seems a bit Wax On / Wax Off to me.

http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/manarchnet/ch ronology/paleoindian/hunt1.jpg
Early adverts for Clinique products didn't click with the target audience for some reason.

they're not cotton wool! some strange material instead that's smooth one side, rough the other, I could probably choke a few mammoths with them though.

Ha ha Pete you don't look a day over 35.

All this mammoth stuff comes from Emma's Rants About Men Vol. 1, remind me to share more of this quality information at some point.

Choking the mammoth... is that some kind of euphemism?

I've just worked out that I've been on Clinique for eight years. Blimey! It must be worth it though, as I've recently been mistaken for a 23-year-old (I'm 27 and a half - grow, ego, grow). I've recently started supplementing the 3 steps with an eye cream (preventative measure) and a more intensive moisturiser on my cheeks, which tend to get dry. Clinique toner is great - it has menthol in it which makes you go all tingly and it sloughs away dead cells and makes the cotton wool look mingin.

I wish I had the stamina to do the whole routine before bed at night, though. If I'm feeling particularly virtuous I'll use a Simple cleanse/tone wipe thing, but often I fall fast asleep with a faceful of grime and wake up with mascara all over the pillow. Bad girl.

Thing is, I do all this nonsense with the Neutrogena or whatever then go down the pub and smoke 20 fags and undo all my good work and fill myself with free radicals or whatever the things are that are bad for your skin. Bah. I am relying on my good genes. Someone mistook my auntie (in her mid 60s) for the mother of her 14 year old grandaughter instad of the grandmother (that was a bit convoluted...).

Emma obviously doesn't want me anywhere near her mammoths.

CREEPY ALERT.

(This is creepier than the man who walked down the street towards me with his eyes fixed on my cleavage then sighed as he passed me today. Dearie me.)

I need some serious skin help over here. I make a good effort to wash + tone + moisturise my face every morning and night, and yet, my face looks like CRAP. Luckily I am the mastress of MAC Concealer so I don't look *too* awful, but goddamn, seriously, SOS over here. Am I doing something wrong? Is it hormones? Bad genes. As a teenager, I NEVER got zits. Ever.

Well now who's the Pervertalist? I completely innocently wondered why you didn't ask me to down tools and cotton pads and go slaying. Nothing to do with your "mammoth" breasts, you conceited interweb crepe.

Snips = boys are circumcised.

Emma: forgive the man his creepy sigh, and pity his defeatist attitude instead -- surely he strolled by thinking "ahh, lovely breasts, never any of those in my life." You filled him with regret for the unattainable, which is surely flattering.

(Or he'd just come)

Somehow I'm thinking Emma wants to be a bit more in life that the expression of so many lonely men's unattainable fantasies. But I'll leave her to decide that one.

*covers eyes, looks down shaking head*

THAT WAS MEANT TO BE AFTER GRAHAM'S POST!

Nice attempt at recovery. ;-)

go slaying? graham are you on crack?

Hey Emma started the whole thing Katie, don't call me a mentalist.

My Life + Emma = Ruins

Actually I was 1. flattered 2. seized with a sense of grebt superiority over weak men and their overwhelming libidos, I would never SIGH at a man on the street. Well not audibly anyway.

unless they were dragging a dead mammoth behind them

Mmm, dreamy....

I'm enjoying this thread.

"Is that a dead mammoth or are you just pleased to see me?"

"Dead mammoths don't fly from their nests, my dear" (W. Churchill)

"You must remember this, a mammoth's still a mammoth, a sigh is just a sigh..."

Can you use the stuff the men put in photocopiers or does that not work?

Nick you should READ THE QUESTION you fool.

Oh yeah - I really must learn to do that.

2 - what difference would it make if men went through this ritual?

See the "metrosexual" thread from earlier this week. (Not that I mean to imply anything about the men of ILX who have shared their grooming rituals in this thread.)

What one looks like is largely based on one's luck, good or bad, in the genetic lottery, factored by sun exposure and other bad habits such as smoking. The ability of moisturizer and other cosmetics, apart from sunscreen, to do much of anything about this is probably not as great as the advertising would imply. That said, I ritually use a sunscreen during the day and an alpha-hydroxy lotion at night, and am routinely guessed to be 5-7 years younger than I actually am.

I'd like you all to know that I bought a superfluous beauty product at Body Shop for the first time in, like, forever, today.

I bought coconut scented body butter. It excites me in strange ways!

I am clearly going to have to start using more toner, i.e. some, since a machine at work criticised me for it today.

I moisturise every day, in that I have pathetically sensitive skin and it feels all sore and burny after shaving (carefully with an electric) so I rub moisturiser on to stop it hurting. Not quite the same as bringing down a mammoth armed only with a twig, is it?

I don't believe toner does anything other than make your skin either too tight or slightly sticky, so I stick with soap, moisturizer with sunscreen, and weekly use of Burt's Bees Citrus Facial Scrub. It smells like ginergerbread cookies, yum!
It must be working, because when I was at a doctor's last week, the nurse taking my blood pressure asked if I had just graduated high school. I got horribly embarrased and had to mumble something about graduating college a few years ago.

As a paramedical aesthetician I will give my worthy two cents. Toners were formulated to capitalise on human beings. Originally toning was marketed to return skin's pH balance back to normal after cleansing or exfoliation, etc. Funny thing is, though, that skin's ph balance will return to its normal ph of 5.5 in a half an hour in almost any case, whether it be washing your face regularly at home, or having an institute treatment. It will temporarily tighten pores and remove any remaining residue after rinsing when you wash your face (that's why most men and women use it), and it makes your skin smell nice. In a nutshell, do you need it? Not really. Just make sure you rinse your face well (with lukewarm not hot water), and use a reputable cleanser that's proper for your skin type - i recommend BioMedic purifying cleanser, which you can only obtain through a doctor's office. Wash with it for a full 60 seconds and you'll have a nice healthy glow, no matter if you're a man or a woman. Unless you don't eat five servings of veggies every day, drink a glass of water every hour, etc etc but you all do this don't you?

patrick bateman was big into such grooming routines.

It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.

http://www.markallencam.com/EasternEuropeanSkinCondition1.jpg

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2007/03/missionary_enco.html

Saw that the other day...turned me right off oyster mushrooms.

that is f'in nasty. . .

Holy crap - that is the most disturbing thing I've seen in a long time. I all itchy and disgusting now.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/lookaroundyou/people/lavender.shtml