Anything With Bee Venom

Melanoma runs heavily and strongly in my family

I don’t do ads here.

So if these have been mentioned before, it’s because I’ve truly been using and trying them for some time now (with a few new tricks thrown in at the moment!)

I’ve talked about cold creams and Zinc basting recently…

But Jergen’s Face Cream (the traditional old pink one) continues to be one of my all time favorites. I use it morning and night (along with Ponds) and, often, that’s all I do. A double-cream and cal it a day.

Jergen’s lasts me forever and I can find it at certain stores for only $4. I love how it smells. (I basically collect scents for my skin via product, so long as they don’t irritate.) The texture before you “break the seal with your finger” is divine.

I Iike to keep a small bag of “on the go skincare products” with me in my car - so that I never am late because I haven’t washed my face, or have to skip washing my face after a long day- I normally take some of the pink cream and put it into a smaller container so that I have one for home and one for wherever I am.

At base, it’s really just two basic creams that have been tested on faces over a very long period of time.

At night, one of the creams is mixed with some diaper ointment for a thicker paste type of mask, and by day - only if I care or am wearing makeup- I’ll sometimes make a small “primer putty filter” with the paste and Pond’s. They all can do multiple things. Ponds can work on hair, Jergens can be a great face mask while taking a shower or a rich body cream. I care about their multitasking a lot as a frugal finder.

I’ve always used tretinoin (for years, anyways)) and can’t say with clarity if it’s holy grail. I’ve read the studies that it’s supposed to be (?), so I keep using it right after micellar-cleansing my face at night. Or… I was, anyways. Every night.

Lately, however, I’ve started “skin cycling” to see if I could reduce a lot of dryness I was experiencing, and have started to do tretinoin one night, a toner type pad the next (the only one my skin can semi tolerate so far- more on that soon) and then just a night of my gentle creams.

If I I have eye makeup on, I’ll use Johnson’s Baby Oil Gel as sort of a “poor girl” trick to recreate my all time favorite: Almay oil eye makeup remover pads. Nowadays, I’ll use baby oil all over my face, wipe with water or micellar… and then that’s that.

It’s not like I only use creams… thought that’s almost essentially what I do lately.

If you want more steps in your system, I’d also strongly recommend trying a bee venom and snail mucin type serum or essence for between steps (if you aren’t allergic to bees). The emphasis being on the venom part.

Yes, I’m just a lowly research obsessive and yes, I tend to only go for time-tested granny-goods, BUT other cultures have been heralded things akin to this OR albumin found in egg. One of my nurses told me about her homemade egg mask she’d made her whole life and I was riveted. There are a few products with albumin in them if you’re lazy like me and prefer that way, but right now I have budget for trying, so I’m in bee venom land.

I use up every last drop of products OR (if for some reason my surprisingly sensitive skin over reacts or it isn’t my shade no matter the amount of research). I’ll trade with a friend or normally my daughter. We like very different things but somehow it always works out.

You can find similar egg results in the Zombie Mask I’ve been toting for years and use once a week as my special thing, but Im currently out and can’t afford and almost out of the Dessert Oasis Proot mask that works similarly too.

I found a Zombie Mask knock off equivalent that’s a few bucks cheaper (I think $12 and it lasts me like a year?$) but the only funds I can afford right now are for streaming.

That being said, I can’t still tell you that the two old fashioned creams and then the intense essence or the intense face mask once a week are a win.

Another ingredient that comes up again and again is Manka honey.

In fact, I recently asked a nurse what her secret to glowing was and she said she uses products in Alicia Key’s line that feature Manuka. But meanwhile, I’ve loved manuka myself for awhile in anything drugstore I can find.

If I could, I’d try Alicia’s line, but given how many creams I happily utilize- I’d probably aim for a manuka themed serum or something.

Two cold creams, days and night.

One bee venom something by day and one manuka or albumin something by might.

Then, the fancy mask once a week - which currently is zombie tightening themed, but I also have another confession to make.

Though I honestly could stop there, at night I have started using something I thought I’d never use:

Acid.

(Sort of.)

For a long time I’ve avoided anything with strong acids in it like the plague, since my skin reacts poorly. Every time I try (and it’s been almost every kind over the years), I break out.

I was accidentally ‘fluenced by someone online showing the Medicube toner pads. I researched and researched and finally got with a gift card a few months ago and it took me awhile to get up the nerve to try because my skin didn’t react well right away. But now? Now I alternate micellar water on a pad at night and the toning pads instead at night.

If my skin starts to feel a little too tight, I’ll make the time between longer. And I don’t use my tretinoin on the nights I use the toning pads - I just use the nourishing a creams.

Finally, the big game changer at night has not been the every other toning pads or adding Ponds back in (though, yes). And it probably IS the Zinc basting added to my ponds. But in actuality, a lot has been a silk hair cap I got to keep my curly hair from tangling when I’m wearing it natural ($4 Walmart), after I realized that I could pull it down lower on my forehead so that it acts like a frownie or a relaxing tension product.

I’ve tried almost every “tension forehead” there is on the market (that’s cheap), and they ALL give me adhesive rash in the end.

Even when I think I’ve finally found The One. This is the close I’ve gotten to a relaxing forehead thing that actually stays on, and is actually for my hair (brilliant!)

But want to know a confession I have that I haven’t done but probably could?

I want to wear sunscreen at night.

Hear me out:

I don’t (yet) but I want to start applying sunscreen with my nighttime routine so that I feel slightly protected during the day when I'm too lazy to deal with… days.

I read an article about a woman who "sunscreen masked" at night by using Zinc to help heal and calm her skin (which it does, personally.

My ‘The Ordinary Niacinamide serum’ WITH zinc is way better than kinds I’ve tried without even though I’m not currently using it since I ran out), but the bonus of Zinc-masking was having some low level protection on the face when waking up in the morning.

At the time I thought, "That'll make me breakout but I’m going to try it" (logic) and then did and it didn't and so, I want to keep doing it until the day I care enough to wash my face before lunch. (That day has not arrived.)

I’ve had starting-to-become-skin-cancer spots removed before with just a couple stitches, and then large spots like a multi-inch stitch-fest down my jaw almost 10 years ago.

Even though I tend to have a skin tone like my Dad and thus really only burn by accident if I’m on harsh medications OR forgot some sort of product I put on that day had essential oils in it… Melanoma runs heavily and strongly in my family regardless.

Not only are we a melanoma family, but I’ve lost multiple online friends to melanoma post-transplant from CF (likely visa vie medications,l) before they’d even hit 30.

I know that even incidental sun exposure (through windows and blue light and so on) isn’t good, but I also get incredibly depressed without as much warmth as possible.

I’ll step outside to have a meal, and go 2 shades darker without even trying.

Often, I’m reverse ombré (certain areas of my body dig melanin more than others). So my legs most of all, but also my hip bones - which rarely ever see the light of day- are brownest of all.

I am a dalmatian whose coat Cruella would probably reject.

“What doesn’t hurt you… is less instantaneous than painful things but probably makes you feel like you have your sh*t together anyways so it’s fine.”

Write that down.

I’m getting back on the sunscreen-masking horse ASAP (if only SPF wasn’t generally so expensive) BUT for now, my zinc basting at night mixed with Ponds seems to reap really gentle benefits without as much eye-sting.

I know my silly beauty stuff isn’t everyone’s fav - and I’m all about playing with what you got and not changing what you’ve been given - but sometimes being a legit beauty writer in my former life bubbles up and I just want to yell excitedly at strangers about the new chemicals I’m making into potions.

I’m not catfishing anyone because my dang face is overposted on here like 90% of the time without a lick of makeup-stick (Im at peace with my freckly little human oval as much as any of us can be). But: it doesn’t mean I don’t love reading about potions at 3 AM.

There are worse vices.

If I had to break down what my current sink vanity looks like, it’d go like this:

DAYTIME

Micellar to partial cleanse

Something with manuka, bee venom or (ideally one day) albumin. Alternating out which ingredient whenever product has run out makes me feel like I’m keeping myself guessing

Jergens Day Cream

Ponds Day Cream

NIGHTTIME

Baby oil gel and micellar water on makeup days

Cocoa butter Vaseline or Ponds and micellar water to wash face on no makeup days

Currently, once a week: Medicube pads instead for cleansing, once makeup is off

Tretinoin prescription on slightly damp skin every couple of days

Jergens Day Cream

Ponds Day Cream + Diaper Zinc Ointment

When possible, black silk hair mask for hair, but doubly duty as a “Frownie” type of forehead relaxer

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But what about makeup?

I definitely have never had a brush like the Danessa Myrick’s one, and it’s felt like a complete game changer for me.

I carry Bactine with me wherever I go (and use it whenever I think I have a breakout, friction from kissing pseudo beards, and now: cleaning my first brush worth cleaning. I never use brushes so this is huge!)

I also have been working on an all time, drugstore, filter face look too that has a surprising amount of powder and shockingly calms down expressive muscles like mine.

I have even figured out some “hacks” that let me have a no makeup makeup look for days at a time, without having to spend a lot or take too much time on my boring ole’ mug. It’s basically like Miss Maisel style long term makeup… Is anyone interest in 1950s regression with me?

I’m wondering if I should spill the tea on the gentle powder filter makeup routine too?

I’ve been trying to wear Vaseline on my cheeks with my makeup like Marilyn Monroe did for a glow. Is it working?

Vaseline can also be used multiple ways (I prefer the cocoa butter one for the beachy smell). I personally don’t slug anymore - it hasn’t brought me as much notable benefit as Zinc and cream basting with a satin cap- but I DO use a tiny To Go container of Vaseline for my cheeks (the Marilyn Monroe trick), to take off makeup with micellar water in a pinch, and always for lips.

After sun creams are good for all over trusted magic.

Like, if you want to pack just one thing: I’d pack the Hawaiian Tropic after sun cream that’s green and smells like heaven because it’s your perfume, it’s for your body, and it’s great for your face.

Even leaving a “cream mask” on of any brand of after sun cream (I’m obsessed enough that maybe I should try a “Testing Each One” slowly all spring, budget permitting - to post this summer?)

Also, I use after sun creams in the ends of my hair all the time when I don’t have anything else around (Pond’s can do that too, just use a light hand).

I’ll use it on my forehead sometimes before Zinc/Ponds paste and then again after bronzer and that’s all.

If I could pick one product to use on blank skin that’s not skincare (so not ponds, for example) it would be this. And it’s new to me and yet I love it that much!

I definitely apply it under my eyes after all skincare is done, and then again after all makeup is done. It has a yellow undertone which isn’t for everyone. I thought it wouldn’t be for me and was worried, but since I saw it on sale for a couple bucks and it was so many product types in one, I hoped for the best.

Somehow, the overly bright shade melts away pretty fast and just looks filter’y’. But clear disclaimer: I have no idea how this might work on other skin tones.

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If I could make a master list of all the dream products I’d never turn away from, or would rotate through, or would recommend (outside of the cold creams and things I always say), they would include the following - but only using one or two until down to the last drop, of course.

CREAMS

Loreal Rose Tone cream

Loreal Honey Balm (or anything Manuka honey)

Loreal Collagen Cream

CLEANSE AND CREAM

Albolene

Noxzema (can use to cleanse OR can leave on and let absorb overnight for an old school, gran-fan face mask)

Vaseline cocoa butter OR Baby oil gel

CREAM AND BODY AND SCENT

Sun creams that can also multitask as a face cream and that smell amazing: Bella and Bear Shea Butter or Hawaiian Tropic After Sun

SERUM

Niacinamide of any kind

Anything with bee venom

Thanks for tolerating my dorky master list.

Oddly, I am still discovering and uncovering as my skin continues to change with hormones and time so…

Give me time, and I’ll update you soon?

What is something you’ve loved throughout time, that never seems to get old?