A 26-year-old woman is likely not the first image that would come to mind when people talk about knitting. You’d probably picture a sweet, generous grandma, swinging back and forth on her rocking chair while knitting a pair of mittens for her grandchildren. She always has Fox’s Candy in her bag, and occasionally offers rational, compassionate advice. Rest be assured, this is far from the reality of our modern-day knitters.
My grandma taught me how to knit when I was very young, during one of the many summers I spent with her. I ma d e no thing o f any significance, just an unwinding, uneven swatch of a knit stitch, which was soon forgotten about. The past few months, after a long hiatus, I was left wanting to pick up my needles again. I can’t recall why, but knitting with dreadful intensity seemed to be a convincing way to block what was happening around us.
I read books about knitting, surfed the Internet for patterns, and rescued balls of yarn from my dog a sweet escape. Threading this into (no, I will not apologise for the pun) my other solace, I recently started thinking about the similarities between knitting and beauty. Did you accidentally knit an extra stitch? Are you using the tips of your needles to stitch? Like strange skin rashes, ignoring knitting problems will rarely make them go away. You’ve got to bevigilant , put on your investigator glasses, take a look at your work, and rip, rip, rip, with a deep breath. Except with skincare it’s less ripping and more dumping.
Of expired products. That you should have discarded, probably sometime last year. Here is a friendly reminder for my lovely readers: it’s been 449 days (and counting) since we’ve been locked in, and the beauty products that you had so hopefully bought sometime last year, are probably expired, or are close to it. Pease take a look at the PAO of all your products (Period of Opening, the little sticker at the bottom of your products with a number and the letter “M” next to it) and clean out whatever could have gone bad. If you can’t recall when you first opened a product, but have had it lying around from a time when masks weren’t a thing, please throw it out.
Most products have a shelf life of approximately one year. It’s not worth the infestation and the potential trauma you are exposing your skin barrier to. Be especially careful about any chemical exfoliants closer to expiry, which can be extremely harmful. Use them up as body cleansers too, I particularly enjoy a good BHA face wash on my back and shoulders to prevent clogged pores from my haircare routine. If you’re inching closer to expiry dates and have a ton of product left, repurpose your face moisturiser on other parts of your body! Your neck, hands and feet will love the extra TLC it’s getting.
Saumya R chawla
@pixie.secrets
Beauty behaviour with a side of dessert