You know when you meet a new person and you’re so wild about them that even their snoring is adorable? You think about them when they’re not around and find ways to work them into conversations no matter how much of a stretch it is? That’s basically how I feel about the Kahina Giving Beauty Toning Mist, which I’ve been using religiously for exactly a month now mainly because…

It’s not every day one of your favorite brands puts out a new product, and it’s not every day you find a product that is loaded with actives, feels and smells good, and—gasp—works.

A word about the word “works.” This is obviously to a certain extent subjective, but seeing is believing when it comes to skincare and based on what I see in the mirror (even in the super-unflattering lighting in my bathroom) and on the ingredient list (posted below), I’m a believer. I feel almost certain that my skin has been more hydrated, calmer/clearer, plumped and glowy since I started using it—which I credit to the sodium hyaluronate, argan leaf extract, willow bark and rose water. There are also a lot of antioxidants in there.

Here’s how I use it: After my morning shower, where I typically wipe my face with a muslin cloth from Pai (with no cleanser), I spray my face with Kahina’s Toning Mist, wait a couple of minutes, and then apply moisturizer and sunscreen. And at night before bed, after washing, I spray, wait a few, then apply my night oils and an eye cream. It’s also nice over makeup (it sets minerals very nicely) and as a refresher after a long flight. So far, so great.

Plus, 25 percent of the profits are set aside for the Berber women in Morocco who harvest and produce Kahina’s argan oil.

You can get it from their site, for $36. I’m not sure how long it will last but with a month of twice-daily use I have a long way to go before it runs out.

Ingredients: aloe barbadensis (aloe vera) leaf juice*, aqua, rosa damascena (rose) flower water*, salix nigra (willow bark) extract, populus tremuloides (aspen bark) extract, medicago sativa (alfalfa) extract*, sodium hyaluronate, argania spinosa (argan) leaf extract, oryza sativa (rice) seed extract*, camellia sinensis (white tea) leaf extract*, sodium PCA, glycerin, sodium levulinate, sodium anisate, maltodextrin, sodium benzoate.

Have you tried this mist? Do you have a toner you like?

Breakouts suck.

There’s no two ways about it. If you get pimples, you’ve probably at some point felt ugly, shy, embarrassed, dirty, or like you want to put a paper bag over your head and cry. So you read acne advice from “experts” and it makes you want to scream because it’s always the same, none of it works, the products are expensive, and they’re loaded with toxic chemicals. But this list isn’t about how to banish breakouts. (You can read that one here.) Instead, it’s about acne psychology, which is way, way worse than pimples—trust. Here are my 10 tips for getting over a bad skin day. I can’t wait to read yours, in the comments.

Know that the good ones don’t notice. And if they notice, they don’t care. If you’ve ever had a very nice boyfriend or girlfriend, you know this one is true: Literally no one cares about your pimples except you…and really mean people. One time, I was writing a profile of a famous musician who looks in person, and without makeup, like an airbrushed photograph. We were driving around in her car and she saw a friend of hers on the street so she pulled over and rolled down the window. Her friend, smiling, said, “Hi! Welcome back. It’s so nice to see you!” or something to that effect. So what did the famous lady say? Did she say “Thanks, hon, it’s great to see you too! Wanna get a slice of pizza and catch up?”? No. The famous person said “Your face is a mess! What have you been doing?!” Her friend’s face fell. And so did mine. You maybe think I’m making this up because no one would ever speak to another person like that, right? Especially not a rich and famous and genetically blessed person, right? Right! Except I didn’t make it up. Moral of the story: That person is really mean and the reason it sounds implausible is that most people are not like this. Most people, and you’ll just have to take my word for it, do not notice your pimples, and if they do notice them, they don’t care.

Wear red lipstick. You know when someone says “Look over there!” and then steals one of your fries? This is like that, but on your face. By drawing attention to your mouth with a bright color, you are drawing attention away from whatever it is you wish wasn’t there. Also, red lipstick is a mood booster and it makes you feel bold—which is a great way to counter the “I want to cancel my dinner plans and hide” feeling.

Do your hair. This morning I woke up with an unfortunately placed spot and even though it’s raining—I usually skip doing my ‘do on rainy days—I made sure to get my hair extra smooth. The logic? When you’re broken out, it’s hard to feel pulled together even though, remember: you still probably LOOK pulled together because no one can tell by looking at you that inside you feel like a teenager. But when your hair is done nicely, you all of a sudden don’t care about the constellation on your chin. This is a time-tested coping strategy. Work it.

Smile at strangers. A friend once said that when her skin is spotty, she finds herself staring at her feet in public because doing so makes her feel invisible. It’s such a sad sentiment and I’ve totally been there: The psychological toll of breakouts is literally 95% of it, and it’s awful. To counter this feeling, try doing the opposite and then some: Hold your head up and smile. Seriously. Don’t be the crazy person on the train about it, but a gentle smile is disarming, pretty, and it makes you feel better, too.

Don’t wear a scarf. I used to do this a lot: Pashmina doublewrapped around my neck, even in the summer. Except here’s the thing: Scarfs may make you feel protected because you’re essentially swaddling yourself, but they do not hide what is on your face. And in fact, by wrapping the area around your face, you are more likely drawing attention to it as opposed to away from it. Also, maybe it’s dirty and giving you pimples.

Point it out to a friend. Don’t do this with the mean chick I told you about, but pointing out your zits actually erases the terror that the pimple-afflicted feel which is: DO THEY SEE IT? ARE THEY STARING AT IT? Again, no, they’re not. But by pointing it out, you’re taking out the paranoid guesswork, and probably your friend will say something nice like “Aww, I hadn’t noticed,” or “I’ve been trying this green tea clay and I feel like it might work—do you want some?” or simply “You look so pretty, don’t be silly.”

Cover the damn thing. People say pimples heal faster when you leave them alone and don’t wear makeup, and people say that covering zits only makes them look worse, and that all may very well be true, but if a little makeup, even terribly applied (but with a clean brush), will make you feel better mentally, then do it. Just be sure you aren’t compounding the problem with something irritating.

Pronounce vulnerable with a W. OK this one is weird but hear me out: Breakouts make us feel vulnerable. To counter this, try this thing that my yoga teacher Matt said once in class: When you’re vulnerable—awful feeling, am I right? But such a rich one, too!—your feelings are the most serious, enormous, important things in the whole wide world. Take away their power by pronouncing that word, out loud, with a W. Seriously. Next time you look in the mirror and feel bashful, say it. I promise it works.

Visualize it shrinking. Another weird one. I can’t promise this will make your swelling subside, but it sure feels good: Before bed or in the bathroom at work, close your eyes and literally imagine the zit disappearing. You’ll feel like you’re doing something healing for yourself, and that’s a good feeling to have, zits or not.

Touch your face. Just kidding, but hold on: how-to-get-rid-of-breakout stories are always telling you not to touch your face and not to pick and not to do this, that and the third. Here’s the truth: If you have a zit on your face, you’re going to do anything you think will work to make it go away. For some of you that means picking, and it sometimes means touching. Yes, it might make it worse, and yes you might scar, but it also might make you feel better, because it seems somehow more proactive than doing nothing. So go ahead and touch your face (just be sure to put some kind of natural antibacterial on it before bed, please).

Now it’s your turn. Do you have bad skin days? Have you tried any of these things? What are your tips?

Image via

Siobhan and I just love to self-diagnose. Is it responsible or recommended? Absolutely not. But long before we wrote the book, and got more serious about such things, we’d developed a pretty bad habit of trying to figure out the ins and outs of our beauty and health dilemmas.

Take this website for example: Every time either of us would have a breakout, we’d fire up this Mary’s Herbs site to see what on earth was causing it (our liver? our ovaries?). Chinese medicine says that the face can be used as a diagnostic tool for internal problems. But is it true? Let’s do a little unscientific survey to find out, shall we?

Here’s what we want to know. 1. Where do you break out? 2. Can you associate your breakouts with anything: food, menstrual cycles, partying, etc.?

In our experience cystic acne in the chin area tends to be a product of our menstrual cycles and imbalances in sex and/or thyroid hormones, whereas cheek acne seems more lifestyle related, and breakouts around the mouth appear to be more about digestion. Consider these very loose diagnoses of course. It’s what we have found to be true.

[A note from Siobhan: Example! I've always had clear skin on most of my face, with moderate to bad chin breakouts. Once I got my hormones in check with the help of my endocrinologist, omegas and yoga, my skin cleared up a TON. I still break out sometimes, especially during certain parts of my cycle or if I've been misbehaving, but it's wayyyyy better than it was for almost 10 years—and I don't use any spot treatments other than green tea clay.]

So what about you? Looking forward to your answers.

Very pretty face-mapping drawing via Organic Apoteke