Summer Oily Skin, Solved

Vermont is a green and humid place in summer, which is very easy to forget over the winter. My thin skin seems to need extra support from my shaving products against this dynamic atmosphere. I figured out that in the winter, dry soaps coordinated best with my natural oil production, and I also knew that oil cleansing could relax and tighten sebum-swollen summer skin.

Working moisturizing shaving soaps and creams into my summer routine is logically expected, but has been problematic in practice. Oil is the local currency of exchange in my skin; you can't just walk in, turn tables and declare glycerin the new ruler. Irritation and a sticky flood of oil swept me away from soaps I would otherwise love to be using: Kiss My Face and Stirling.

I think I may have just found the key to the camel, though, in the form of good old alum. Taking my cue from a forum comment, I tried pairing alum with balm (3-in-1 moisturizer) instead of the usual chaser, alcohol splash. The adsorbent salt seemed to make my stratum corneum, usually closed to aqueous media, function in the normal, spongy way. Tacky, poorly textured skin was smoothed and dried.

And now, for the past couple days, I have found that I can safely use my lump of Stirling Coconut, hardened to a triple-milled-like state by months of neglect in an open dish. I'm making lumps of all ring remnants, now, so I can load my brush in the same palm used to subsequently work the lather up. It's a very casual form of lathering, with a bit more dripping waste than my careful, paint cup method, but it does feel like the most natural meeting of the tool with the medium.