{"id":6834,"date":"2013-10-08T05:00:13","date_gmt":"2013-10-08T12:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/?p=6834"},"modified":"2013-10-08T01:42:06","modified_gmt":"2013-10-08T08:42:06","slug":"its-that-time-of-year-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/?p=6834","title":{"rendered":"It’s that time of year again…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s getting chilly, and my hands are starting to feel rough and dry with the cooling temperatures. This reminded me that I had posted about my tried-and-true hand cream and lip balm last year (and that I need to get more hand cream). Sure enough, almost to the day, I had talked about skincare<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Around the time of that post, I had discovered a new-to-me face soap. I don’t talk about skincare here much, but it’s sort of a side obsession of mine. My ignorant days of youth in sunny L.A. (baby oil may have been involved while lying out in scorching weather) are now resulting in a lot of hyperpigmentation and I’m prone to acne. Though the worst of my adult acne is mercifully a bygone memory, I still get monthly break-outs and I’m diligent about taking care of my skin. I have yet to find a foundation that doesn’t make my face morph into bubble wrap texture, so I don’t wear any. In fact, I’ve tried a ridiculous number of products and most things don’t work for me.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Recently I noticed that there’s been a lot of hype about charcoal skincare products, and I’m here to add to the chorus of believers. The soap is very black, which was a little off-putting for me. And quite messy, I found out. The first time I used it, I was freaked out by the amount of sooty, black liquid that sloshed around my shower.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I got the Binchotan<\/a> brand, but I didn’t think it was making much of a difference and assumed I would have to relegate it to my shelf of failed products. After a solid couple of months of using it daily, though, I noticed that my time-of-the-month-zits weren’t quite as angry-looking. And after six months, my break-outs were so minor, they barely counted. I’m sure the green juice was helping too, but it was so lovely not having to deal with copious amounts of salicylic acid and benzoyl peroxide.<\/p>\n

Then I ran out of the soap about two months ago. It’s kind of pricey so I thought I would just try to find a cheaper facial cleanser. However, shortly after, bulging-pulsating-holy-cow-what-is<\/em>-that cysts started to erupt on my chin (this made me wonder if my green juice was losing its potency). Not my best look. I went to the fancy schmancy shop<\/a> where I’d originally purchased the soap nearly a year ago, but they were completely sold out and it was on back order. I was practically bathing in acne ointments at that point and the cysts were getting worse.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So I ordered the Binchotan online (and discovered that there are cheaper charcoal soaps like this one<\/a>\u00a0and this one<\/a> and this one<\/a>, which I’ll have to try, but for now I have serious brand loyalty. And hey, you can even make your own<\/a>!). I’ve been religiously cleansing my face with it for about a month and voila, the cysts are almost all gone. And I am a complete convert. I know that skincare is a highly personal thing, and different products work for different people, but I wish I’d known about this years ago! Charcoal is supposed to exfoliate and purify the skin, and I can tell that my pores are smaller after using the soap. Now hyperpigmentation…that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms. Let’s just say sunscreen is now my best friend. Do you have skincare products you swear by? I love to know what other people find helpful — I can talk about this stuff forever<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s getting chilly, and my hands are starting to feel rough and dry with the cooling temperatures. This reminded me that I had posted about my tried-and-true hand cream and lip balm last year (and that I need to get more hand cream). Sure enough, almost to the day, I had talked about skincare. Around the time of that post, I had discovered a new-to-me face soap. I don’t talk about skincare here much, but it’s sort of a side obsession of mine. My ignorant days of youth in sunny L.A. (baby oil may have been involved while lying out in scorching weather) are now resulting in a lot of hyperpigmentation and I’m prone to acne. Though the worst of my adult acne is mercifully a bygone memory, I still get monthly break-outs and I’m diligent about taking care of my skin. I have yet to find a foundation that doesn’t make my face morph into bubble wrap texture, so I don’t wear any. In fact, I’ve tried a ridiculous number of products and most things don’t work for me. Recently I noticed that there’s been a lot of hype about charcoal skincare products, and I’m here to add to the chorus of believers. The soap is very black, which was a little off-putting for me. And quite messy, I found out. The first time I used it, I was freaked out by the amount of sooty, black liquid that sloshed around my shower. I got the Binchotan brand, but I didn’t think it was making much of a difference and assumed I would have to relegate it to my shelf of failed products. After a solid couple of months of using it daily, though, I noticed that my time-of-the-month-zits weren’t quite as angry-looking. And after six months, my break-outs were so minor, they barely counted. I’m sure the green juice was helping too, but it was so lovely not having to deal with copious amounts of salicylic acid and benzoyl peroxide. Then I ran out of the soap about two months ago. It’s kind of pricey so I thought I would just try to find a cheaper facial cleanser. However, shortly after, bulging-pulsating-holy-cow-what-is-that cysts started to erupt on my chin (this made me wonder if my green juice was losing its potency). Not my best look. I went to the fancy schmancy shop where I’d originally purchased the soap nearly a year ago, but they were completely sold out and it was on back order. I was practically bathing in acne ointments at that point and the cysts were getting worse. So I ordered the Binchotan online (and discovered that there are cheaper charcoal soaps like this one\u00a0and this one and this one, which I’ll have to try, but for now I have serious brand loyalty. And hey, you can even make your own!). I’ve been religiously cleansing my face with it for about a month and voila, the cysts are almost all gone. And I am a complete convert. I know that skincare is a highly personal thing, and different products work for different people, but I wish I’d known about this years ago! Charcoal is supposed to exfoliate and purify the skin, and I can tell that my pores are smaller after using the soap. Now hyperpigmentation…that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms. Let’s just say sunscreen is now my best friend. Do you have skincare products you swear by? I love to know what other people find helpful — I can talk about this stuff forever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6834","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-skincare","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6834"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6837,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6834\/revisions\/6837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}