Howdy all,
I'm a 31 year old woman and I'm having a dilemma.
My skin has never been great. It's always (well, since puberty) been extremely oily with blackheads like nobody's business. It has been tolerable, though - until now.
Over the past year or two, the oiliness has lessened a fraction now that I'm using jojoba oil, but still even the lower parts of my cheeks, my neck, shoulders, back (to say nothing of nose-forehead-chin) are very, very oily within 30 minutes or so of a wash. Too, the blackheads are making me nutty. I have those waaay outside the golden triangle of forehead-nose-chin (even have them on my forearms, of all places). While for years, they were just little dark dots that weren't too noticeable, now my skin looks very pitted, with a blackhead in the center of each pit. It's not acne scars - I've only ever had the occasional pimple on my face (I get them everywhere else, though, especially on my lower back and shoulders - ??).
Also, my skin has become extremely sensitive with lots of flaking and scaly patches (seems like my whole self is shedding inordinate amounts of dead skin or somesuch), and is red and irritated all the time - a neem soap that I've heard good things about caused my face to form little crusty scabs, even. I've tried every store-bought cleanser I can think to try, but if it's for oily skin, it also feels like it's melting my face off. If it's for sensitive skin, it leaves my skin feeling grimy and scaly and greasy. Even Cetaphil makes my face-bits sting and burn and get scaly.
I'm very much interested in anything that I can do for my poor face without paying a dermatologist a gajillion dollars to blast my face off with some torturous machine. I'd like to find, ideally, something that I can cleanse my face with that I could concoct at home. Also, anything else that could help - essential oils, other oils, herbs, etc., would be a wondrous boon.
Thank you all for reading and any suggestions!