My mom was in town for a week to watch my niece while her dad was out of town and mommy had to work. I got to see her a couple times and enjoyed our time together since I don’t see her very often. I have a great relationship with my mom, but this has truly only begun a couple years ago. I’m actually very similar to my mom, so much so I used to push her away; now we are great friends and I am thankful for that.

Anyway, she came over the other night for dinner and tea. While she was hanging out with Cooper, I was sharing my excitement for Sephora since we had embarked on their territory earlier that day. I absolutely love that place and can get lost in there for hours. It’s always a good thing Cooper is with me because he keeps me limited to only pursue what I am in “need” of. Anyway, it is my birthday month so I received a birthday gift from Sephora as well as many samples of perfume and cologne due to our upcoming trip. They were very generous and stocked us up. If you know much about Sephora, you know that you earn points, which get you gifts; I received one of these gifts while we were there this time. I have wanted to purchase this item for awhile but can’t justify it because it is roughly $50 for 1.7 ounces. So when I received this gift I was ecstatic.

A little history here: I started washing my face with olive oil as I have heard the fad that this is a miracle cleaner and makes the face look younger. Well, I might say I immediately started breaking out and figured it was “junk” in my skin that simply needed to come out, so I continued my regimen of washing my face with EVOO. I shared this with my mom and she said to stop immediately as she had previously done the same thing. She never breaks out, but after one month of clear perfect skin while washing with EVOO she began breaking out very badly and still is trying to recover three weeks later.

We have been having long conversations as we both had been researching what Olive Oil does for your skin; the benefits and complications that have occurred while using this as a cleanser and moisturizer. She brought up the research she had done for this product, Maracuja Oil and how it is straight from the Amazon. It is so good for your skin and you really do notice a difference immediately. (I also use their Maracuja C-brightener eye cream) She was explaining that using EVOO is a fad that she tried and literally ruined her skin. It is the wrong type of oil to use on your face but neither of us had known as everything we had read was positive things. I started breaking out immediately and I must say I have never broke out like that before. I actually had really good skin until I got pregnant and now 16 months later my skin is just starting to go back to it’s “normal” state. Needless to say, EVOO only made my situation worse but does work great for hands and elbows. :)

So here we are today and she was sharing with me that maracuja oil is a gentle miracle worker. She started using this and is overjoyed with the results. She shared with me that you can purchase a 4 ounce bottle from gardenofwisdom.com and it is the same oil with no fancy bottle that Sephora has but cheaper. It is straight from the Amazon as is the bottle from Sephora, nothing is different about these two other than the bottles being entirely fancy or plain and the name being fancy or not. The fancy name is Maracuja (Passion Fruit Seed) Oil but on gardenofwisdom it’s called Passion Fruit Seed Oil as that is where the oil comes from. :)

Sephora Bottle

So please, all of you, don’t fall into the 4 week fad of washing your face with Olive Oil as at one point you may start breaking out very badly. It may work okay for some people but NOT me; my sister uses it as lotion for her face and she handles it fine, the other three of us girls; my mom, middle sister and I, all have had bad experiences with it. If I were you I wouldn’t take the chance. It was that bad for all three of us.

To save the money, you can purchase this from gardenofwisdom.com; 4 ounces for $17 rather than Sephora. (Normally I would refer anyone and everyone to Sephora, but this is an extreme case) Now that I received the cute little bottle from my Perk Points at Sephora, I can refill it and travel with it as well. It is the same exact product. YAY!

***Update: Oct 30, 2013 The information above was a couple months old but as I was researching a little bit more today I found out that GardenOfWisdom.com is not the cheapest place to get Marajuca Oil (aka Passion Fruit Seed Oil). Tonight while looking further into it I actually ran across the site: FromNatureWithLove.com and realized this site has Maracuja Oil (passion fruit seed oil) for 4 oz at $10.48. This site seems to run out of stock quickly, but you can be notified through email when they get it back in stock. They have multiple size options. GardenOfWisdom.com is the original site I had been told about from my mom which is $17.30 for 4oz. This is still a great deal and seems to keep up on their stock.

I felt compelled to share this with you as I was so excited I found another site with another great deal. :)