– This post is a sponsored collaboration with Maria Åkerberg –

I’ve changed a lot over the last year. Not so much who I am to others, but who I am to myself. Studying, finding a job, an apartment and all the other things you need to do in your 20s, somehow made me forget who I am. You know, who I really am. About a year ago I read a few interesting books on slow living and I started to practice yoga. Also, I took the terrifying step and started my own business and I got the best part-time job I could ask for. When I look back, I realize that this was exactly what I needed. I needed space for my creativity and I needed to find myself again. 

When I first started to make changes, it was so hard. It felt weird to work less, it was weird to sit and do nothing, but I needed it so badly. I didn’t see it then but I definitely see it now. During this past year I’ve got to know myself again and I’ve let go of so much stress and anxiety that had been inside me for so long.

My brain is no longer a stressed out machine and I feel so much calmer and happier. I’m not losing my hair, I can sleep at night and my gastritis is gone. And I love to work again. This whole slow living thing has taught me so much, especially when it comes to how you look at things and also regarding my shopping pattern. Quality over quantity has been my mantra for the last months and that goes all the way from my kitchen to my wardrobe and to my bathroom. Buy less – buy better, sort of.

Last summer I read a lot about organic and natural skincare and it all made so much sense. I had been feeding myself and my boyfriend organic food for years, but never thought about what I put on my skin. The skin is our biggest organ and it absorbs pretty much everything we put on it. I was terrified when I read about silicones, parabens, mineral oils and other chemicals and I went straight into our bathroom and got rid of it all. I decided to make my own skincare products and makeup and schampoo. Pretty quickly I realized that the job was overwhelming (or that I was lazy, I don’t know). I needed something organic and natural, but I didn’t want to make it myself. It was then I found out about Maria Åkerberg – Swedish skincare, haircare and makeup, all natural and organic. I was thrilled! I saw it as an investment in my own health and it turned out it was one of the best choices I had ever made.

I’m so happy to have teamed up with Maria Åkerberg once again. This time to share my skin care routine with you. This is the third blog post in the series about my favorite products, you can read the previous ones here:

Organic Hair Care

Organic Makeup 

I’ve always had very dry skin and nothing has ever helped. I do however understand why now. Mineral oils make products (and your skin) feel silky-smooth but their molecules are simply too large to truly penetrate your skin. You use a moisturizer to hydrate and therefore it should always absorb deep into the skin, not just sit on the surface, clog your pores and suffocate your skin. But, that’s what mineral oils do. When I learned about all this it suddenly made so much sense. My skin had never gotten really hydrated, the products I had used had probably only made it worse.

This is where the magic begins. When I switched to organic products I noticed a difference almost immediately. I gave my mum a set of my favorite products on her birthday and she says the same thing. You can actually feel how the skin absorbs the moisturizer. You apply it and poof, gone. The first days I applied face lotion 7 times before my skin stopped absorbing it. It’s true. My skin was starving. Now? My skin glows. And only need to apply my lotion once.

Maria Åkerberg’s products are organic and natural. They contain vegetable oils (that penetrate the skin and rehydrate it deep down), essential oils and only natural conservatives. One thing I really, really love about Maria Åkerberg is that they are so honest and open about the ingredients they use. You know exactly what the products are made of and the origin of the ingredients. I love it. Now, let’s look into my skincare routine to see what created all that magic I talked about. You can see a summary of the products I use on the photo below.

My skincare routine

Face

I remove my makeup by using the Precleansing oil Gentle. Then, I wash my face with the Foaming Wash Gentle before I spray on some Neroli Freshener. I let my skin dry and then I add a Serum. Depending on how my skin feels, I either use the Face Lotion Moist (when my skin feels very dry) or the Face Lotion Clearing (when not so dry). A couple of times a week I use the AHA & Jojoba Peeling to get rid of dead skin cells.

Body

Every now and then I use the Salt Scrub White Chocolate before I shower. It leaves my skin super soft and often I don’t even need to use any body lotion afterwards. When I don’t use the scrub, I use the Body Lotion to rehydrate my skin. For my hands I use the Hand Cream Beautiful and for my feet I use the Foot Cream. Even my boyfriend uses the Foot Cream and his previously cracked heels are now super soft and completely healed.

I don’t often get this excited about something, especially not a product. But when something really works or is really good I just want to share it with the whole world. I hope this can inspire some (all) of you to go organic, even in the bathroom. And I hope you’ll try Maria Åkerberg’s products because I know you’ll love them as much as I do (well, that’s not possible but you know).

<3

Thank you Maria Åkerberg for sponsoring this post (I would have written this anyway but really, thank you). I’m so honored to work with you on this project <3