My skin is a nightmare right now. I only have myself to blame: I’ve been playing around with various new products and cleansing techniques in a quest to answer some reader questions and I’ve turned myself into an irritated, patchy, breakout mess. Better me than you though, right?
This happens to me cyclically, and it has for years. I’ll have a few good skin months and then I’ll fly too close to the sun. Products that definitively work for me get pushed to the back in favor of something shiny and new. And when things go south, I try to problem solve with more new products vs. returning to factory settings. One day I’m sure I’ll learn!
These are the times when I reach for my jar of manuka honey. It’s the equivalent of a skin hard reset. Last December, a friend gifted me a very nice jar of 300+ MGO Manuka Honey from the very beautiful brand, Activist, and my midwestern frugality deemed it too expensive to eat. So it’s taken up residence in my bathroom and whenever I need to pare back the routine and give my skin a second to breathe, it never lets me down.
I picked up this habit back in 2018 after noticing many of my favorite beauty products leveraged honey as a hero ingredient. Why not go straight to the source? My gateway drug was the Trader Joe’s manuka, which is perfectly solid but also lightly controversial. Since upgrading to the Activist, all I can say is, “Wow.”
The way my skin absolutely LOVES this stuff. Dry? Sensitive? Breaking out? Great, smear some honey on your face and stop your worrying. By morning, my skin is on its way to something that resembles a state of balance. Redness is reduced, active breakouts are on the mend, and anything that was threatening to erupt seems to have cooled its jets.
It works because the bees that make manuka honey are special. They live in Australia and New Zealand, and they pollinate the manuka bush (sometimes referred to as a tea tree). Their honey is rich in a bioactive chemical compound called methylglyoxal (MGO) — basically a natural hydrogen peroxide antibacterial wonder. The higher the MGO number, the more potent the antibacterial enzymes are. (You may also see it graded with a UMF number, which is a slightly different system, but again, higher number = more MGO = more potent.)
If you can get your act together (I often can’t), I find it’s best applied 20-30 minutes before a shower. Wash your face first, then spray it with your preferred facial spritz (honey is a humectant and should help that hydrating step work harder). I’ve been using the Tower 28 SOS Spray, but La Roche-Posay’s Serozinc Toner would also be a good partner here if you’re on the oily side. Then start globbing it on. I literally go to town and stick my fingers in the jar, Ted Lasso style. Let yourself marinate and then let the shower take care of the sticky clean up. Works like a charm.
Activist also makes a dedicated face mask that is 850+ MGO, which I will happily upgrade to once I’ve emptied my current jar. Perhaps I’ll also spring for one to keep in my kitchen this time.
Edited to add:
Discount alert!
Activist was kind enough to offer You Probably Don’t Need That readers 15% off their first purchase with code EMILY15. Thanks, Activist! Shop here!
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Love this recommendation and it is a sustainable product which I love even more, thanks for sharing!