ISSA SKINCARE ROUTINE!!

People do different things when they're having a bad day - some might exercise, paint, write, meditate. Me? I turn it into a "spa day" (in quotations because I don't really go all out), and part of that day includes a sort of deep clean for my face. So check out all the stuff I put on my face!

Don't get me wrong, I DO wash my face more than just once a week (but not every day because that's bad), this is just my routine when I'm off my rocker upset and want to feel better.

STEP 1: GENTLE CLEAN

Make sure you get your face nice and wet when you do this: from experience, dry rubbing with this product leaves it on the skin and can make it feel tight. This isn't for getting all of the dirt off, just most of the surface dirt, so I don't scrub super hard.

Bioré deep pore charcoal cleanser

Walmart

Amazon

Great for oily skin!

Also, is there anything more pleasing than using up all your product?

This is also what I use when I'm fresh out of the shower.

STEP 2: TACKLE THE BLACKHEADS

Gentle reminder: those little dots on your nose are more than likely sebaceous filaments and happen when oil forms around a hair follicle - don't worry, they're perfectly normal, and everyone has them! If you aren't sure if what you have is blackheads or not, talk to a dermatologist.

Garnier Skin Active Clean+ Blackhead Eliminating Scrub

Walmart

Amazon

The one listed on Walmart's website looks different, but they carry the one without plastic micro-beads as well.

STEP 4: EXFOLIATE THAT SKIN, YO!

I use a gentle exfoliator but to each their own.

For this step, I usually use my hands because I have torn open my skin before with an exfoliator, and I assure you: it's not a pleasant experience!

Up&Up Skin refreshing Apricot Scrub

Target

Up and Up also has a blemish controlling apricot scrub and a deep clean exfoliator scrub.

Walmart

St. Ives also has a  fresh skin apricot scrub.

From experience, the Up and Up is a lot finer and more gentle on the skin.

Step 5: Mask it up!

It wasn't until I was in my senior year of high school when I learned about the magic of face masks. Had I learned about them sooner, I'm confident I would have saved myself a TON of embarrassment...

L'Oréal Detox-Brighten Pure Clay Cleanser

Walmart

This stuff feels amazing and leaves skin glowing and glorious! They have other kinds as well, so if your skin is different, you can get what works for you.

Feel free to stop at this point if you so desire, but I do have one more extra and optional step for anyone trying to combat redness or splotches.

(OPTIONAL) STEP 6: REDUCE THE RED!

I dealt with a lot of redness in my younger years, and if any of you youngsters want to avoid that, then boy howdy, is this'n for you!

You can also do this earlier in your routine to help with blackheads.

Remember to be gentle!

St. Ives Blackhead clearing Green Tea Scrub

Walmart

This stuff feels as amazing as it smells and makes your skin super soft!

It also helps to calm redness, and it feels really good!

FINALLY: MOISTURIZE!!

Alright y'all, listen here: we just used a lot of stuff on our face to get rid of the sins of society, so our skin needs a little bit of help. Whenever you wash your face, ALWAYS MOISTURIZE. Yes, your skin is capable of bouncing back on its own (the human body is an amazing thing), but there's no harm in helping it just a little bit. It's like when you get out of the shower, you put lotion on? Well, this is lotion for your face. It's face lotion!

I don't have a picture of it, but I use the St. Ives Timeless skin Collagen Elastin Moisturizer. It comes in a 10oz jar, and it lasts a while - a little goes a super long way!

St. Ives is pretty inexpensive, but their products may not be for everyone. For example, if you have sensitive skin, it might not be a good idea to use a coarse exfoliator, and you might prefer the Up and Up more since it's a finer texture.

Some important things to know:

-What works for me may not work for you: finding a skincare routine that works for your skin type takes time and patience, but you can always ask a dermatologist for help.

-DO NOT WASH YOUR FACE IN THE SHOWER! I wash my face in the bathroom sink after I get out of the shower. Speaking of, don't use boiling hot water in the bath or shower - your skin produces oils that help protect it, and stripping it of that causes dry, flaky skin and no one wants that. Remember: you aren't shabu!

-Before you wash your face: WASH. YOUR. HANDS. There's really no point in washing your face if you have dirty hands because you'll just be mixing that dirt into your products.

TO ANY MEN WHO MAY FIND THEMSELVES ON THIS POST:

Listen, guys, there's no shame in practising good personal hygiene and keeping your face clean. No, it's not "girly" and no one's gonna think you're "gay". Just wash your face...

-If you're looking for a first-time skincare routine, I have two things to tell you:

1.) Listen to your skin. Ex: If it's dry, don't use products for oily skin, because that will make you drier, and

2.) Drink more water, less sugar. I'm not going to sit here and preach to you about how water is the best and only drink (After all, coffee is my bae!), but just drink more than half a cup a day. When I first started taking good care of my skin, the first thing I did was drink more water and I cut out energy drinks. Immediately, I noticed that I felt better, I wasn't as sluggish, and my skin felt so much better!

We always talk about how we don't want wrinkles or dark spots or crusty skin when we reach elder status. The best way to prevent that? Wash your face!

My Favourite Cookbooks!

If there's one thing not a lot of people would guess about me, it's that I thoroughly enjoy cooking. However, I'm not one of those amazing cooking wizards that can eyeball a cup of flour or a teaspoon of salt, so I follow recipes (which there's nothing wrong with). So naturally, I have a few cookbooks, and I thought I'd share a few of my favourites with you!


1. World of Warcraft: The Official Cookbook

Bought at: Books-A-Million
Cost: Somewhere around $35

-Hardcover
-Available online and in-store





I freaking love World of Warcraft. Despite what people say about nerfing, buffing, PvP, Raid culture, and Pandaria, I love every bit of the story in World of Warcraft, so when it was announced they were making a WoW cookbook, I was over the moon with happiness!

For anyone who's played WoW, this book doesn't have every single recipe that you can get in the actual game (it's a cookbook, not a cooktome), but it does have most recipes from all expansion packs, from vanilla to Warlords of Draenor. Well done!



2. Quick and Easy Korean Cooking

Bought online from Amazon
Cost: $16.40 with Prime
-Paperback
-Ten dollar Kindle edition






Ohh, how I could go on about Korea, its culture, people, and food. I'll just keep it simple and talk about the food.

This cookbook has every recipe you'd ever need to explore Korean cooking - It's got side dishes, seafood, kimchi, noodles, and even a guide on spices used in Korean cooking. 10/10 would recommend this to anyone who wants to expand their culinary tastes to new countries.




3. Coffee
Bought at: Ollie's
Cost: $1.99 !!!
-CHEAP!
-Has recipes for coffeecakes and other baked goods as well as recipes for coffee house favourites and other worldwide specialities.

First of all, a cookbook. About coffee and coffee goodies. For only. ONE DOLLAR AND NINETY-NINE CENTS?! Yes, please!!!

I have a few good ideas about what I can make from this cookbook, but it's got TONS of goodies, from mocha lattes to cinnamon walnut coffee cake to Limpa bread, it's got everything you could possibly ask for when it comes to different coffees and baked goods made with coffee, so I can definitely tell you that I LOVE this one. After all, coffee is my bae :)

My go-to Peanut Butter cookie recipe

I like to bake. I like people who like to bake, I liked baked goods, and I'm always up for trying a new baking recipe. That being said, there are also sometimes where I don't want to try anything new and still want to bake something, and my go-to is peanut butter cookies.

Naturally, if you have a peanut allergy or intolerance, you won't agree with me on this, but what's not to love about peanut butter cookies? They're good as chewy cookies or crunchy biscuits, you can dunk them in a hot chocolate or milk, and don't even get me started on how they taste paired with the perfect cup of coffee.

So basically, I like peanut butter cookies, and I think I like making them even more. For me, it's a super easy process that takes probably twenty or so minutes (depending on how big I want the cookies to be), and the recipe I follow has been in my family for quite some time.

*DISCLAIMER: I don't remember where the original recipe is from, but you can find different variations of it with a simple Google search to compensate for any allergies.*

What you need:

• 1 cup peanut butter ( I prefer creamy, but you do you)
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 egg, slightly beaten
• 1 tbsp baking powder

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (176 Celcius if I mathed correctly) and grease baking sheet.
• Beat peanut butter and sugar until well blended, add egg and baking soda. Beat until mixture is thoroughly combined.

• Roll even teaspoons of dough into balls and arrange about 1" apart.
• Flatten balls with a fork dipped in flour making a grid pattern. (This is optional and recommended if you want a biscuit instead of a cookie.)
• Bake until edges are a light golden brown, approximately 10 minutes.

Following this recipe, I usually get about 24 cookies, but you may get more or less depending on how big you want them to be.

Two things I Love

As it is with a lot of other places on the US's East Coast, it's cold here. Like, ungodly cold. It's so cold I thought I could hear Eddard Stark telling me that winter is coming. However, no amount of cold can keep me from food.

There are a lot of foods I love, but if there's two that absolutely take the trophy, it's pancakes and chocolate. So when I went to Bob Evans last night and got their Double Chocolate Hotcakes, I was over the moon.

Now I'm not gonna lie, there are two Bob Evans's in my town: one on Harper Park Drive and another on Industrial Drive. I went to the latter because it was on my way home from an event, and there are some days I don't want McDonald's (is there any adult who still gets excited about McDonald's? I never go there for dinner, I usually end up there). Also, the food in the background is rolls and butter on the left and twisted cheese sticks on the right, both very delicious!

Considering I only got this and my friends got the other two appetizers, the total for just the pancakes was a little less than 8 dollars, which for a stack of four large pancakes is quite the deal.

truth be told, I never really have anything bad to say about Bob Evans: the food is great, the servers are always nice, and the atmosphere feels like I've gone to my grandfather's farmhouse in Ohio's countryside.

10/10 Bob Evans. Well done!

Wasabi Fusion in Beckley

Earlier this week, I went to a not-so-new-but-new-enough restaurant near me: Wasabi Fusion.

Anyone who truly knows me knows that one of my favourite types of food is Asian cuisine, whether it's Chinese, Japanese or Thai I'm always down for food and Wasabi Fusion offers just that.

Information if you're ever in the area

First of all, this restaurant had guts opening at relatively the same time as Golden Corral (which I haven't been to yet). But despite opening the same time as a major restaurant chain that's almost a hop, skip, and jump away from their doors, Wasabi has a major advantage that Corral doesn't: they're located on the same strip as Valley College, and is WELL easier to get to for all you in-town WVU students.

While I neglected to get pictures of their interior, I can tell you this: It's very clean. Like, SUPER clean. It's so clean that I would be comfortable eating my food straight off the table (not really, but you get my point). Their interior decor-wise is very unique, albeit a bit confusing.

Interior and location aside, I'll just start talking turkey, and by turkey, I, of course, mean Asian food.

Notice how it's already half eaten because yo...

 For your starter, you can get a soup or salad, and I started with a simple salad with a sesame-like dressing (pictured above half-eaten), and I was quite impressed. If you had to consider this a part of your meal, this would be the appetizer, and it wasn't too big (imagine a small soup bowl), but it was big enough to really get my stomach growling!

Yes please, thank you very much!

By the time you've finished your "appetizer", your food is sitting in front of you in all of its steamy goodness. Pictured above is the chicken udon, which has white meat chicken, thick udon noodles, green peppers, onions, and broccoli. As far as this dish, the onions and peppers didn't make that much sense to me paired with the broccoli, but in the end, it was still a very enjoyable meal. Now, this serving is your main, so it's waaaaayyyy bigger than your app, and it's enough to fill you up and then some!

Nom nom nom!

Overall, this restaurant has some real potential. It's next to a college, it's good, handmade food, and if we're talking price, then it's spot on - for me to eat there with my mum and dad is well cheaper than going to a fast food joint like Chick-fil-A or McDonald's. Well done, Wasabi Fusion!

You can check out their full menu here.