Hello!
Yes, I'm sorry for being MIA for a long time (it's been almost half year!). The reasons were this and that, from simply didn't feel like reviewing, then holiday, and finally, pregnancy :)
I am 19 weeks pregnant right now and due in February. I thought I'd write about my pregnancy skin care here in the blog.
During the first trimester I didn't feel like wearing make up AT ALL. I rarely did my hair either despite the horrible structure I have. Mostly I put it in a ponytail and smeared some SPF on my face then got out of the house. It wasn't because of morning sickness, mind you, I didn't get any morning sickness at all. I just had a weird bitterness in my mouth on random days but nothing bothered me too much. After the 14th week, however, I felt more like myself again and started putting some more make up and back straightening my hair ;P
Before I was pregnant I was all about acne treatment and balancing/exfoliating my oily skin with BHA. Since we were trying to conceive, though, I tried to limit BHA in my skincare products. And when I was confirmed pregnant, I gave it up fully.
Products I used before:
1. Neutrogena Pink Grapefruit Oil-Free Acne Wash
2. Paula's Choice BHA Gel
3. DiorSnow UV Shield Moisturizing UV Protection
4. Mario Badescu Drying Lotion
Most of these (1, 2 and 3) contained Salicylic Acid, which was why I stopped using them. I still would love to use DiorSnow but sadly I ran out of it.
Right now I use:
1. Nivea Daily Essentials Facial Wash Gel
2. Nivea Daily Essentials Light Moisturizing Day Cream
These first two were very easy to find at the drugstore and considerably affordable. Sometimes Nivea products went on sale or in a buy 1 get 1 free offer so I can always buy more. It's very simple and although I don't see huge improvement or so, I just love that it didn't break me out. I tried using Cetaphil for some time when I ran out of the cleanser, but it resulted in little bumps. Once I got back to this it all went away again. I guess my baby was telling me to use this instead of Cetaphil ;P
3. Mama Mio Tummy Rub Butter
This was fairly recent. During my first trimester I used Palmer's Stretch Mark Cream and even though I think it worked well enough, I was intrigued to try this one (sucker for good reviews). Compared to Palmer's, this has thicker consistency and fresher scent. Palmer's scent somehow reminded me of white bread with chocolate sprinkles, I don't know how that's possible. Mama Mio's scent was more lemony and reminded me of the spa session we had during our honeymoon ;)
4. Shu Uemura A/O Cleansing Oil
I used to use Bioderma to remove my make up at night. At some point I realized how many cotton pads I wasted while I was using it. During our vacation, I managed to grab this cleansing oil at duty free counter, so I thought I'd give it a try. I love how I only need this and water to remove everything (I rarely wear mascara but I think this will work quite well for that too). At first I used this then my Nivea cleansing gel to wash my face once more, but after some time it grows on me to leave it as is. So at night I only cleanse with this and leave it moisturizing my face afterwards. That way it didn't break me out either, so it's very convenient :)
I had some thoughts about purchasing a serum to add to my skincare routine but so far I haven't found anything that suits me (price-wise, formula-wise). Right now all these products work well for me and I am not sure I want to try anything new because I can't really predict how the reaction would be :)
I think that's it for now, let's close this post with a little bump picture ;)
