I recently came across an article on Bustle.com when looking up information about rice water and its uses in skincare. The author had tried using rice water as her sole means of cleansing her acne-prone face for a week. As you may know, rice water is a staple in Asian beauty. The writer of the Bustle article found her idea from an Asian Beauty subreddit. I was so impressed with her experience that I decided to give it a shot myself.
Rice water is touted to have several benefits for skin and hair. For my purpose, however, rice water was supposed to do the following to my skin:
- Brighten it
- Balance the pH levels so that it appeared neither oily nor dry
- Close the pores, make the skin look tight
- Give a large dose of nutrients to the skin
This sounds great, but a lot of things sound great. How do they actually end up working for you? There was only one way to find out. The Bustle author’s routine with rice water was super easy, which is why I decided to pick it up in the first place.
Let’s find out how rice water affected my very oily, acne-prone skin at the height of humid weather.
Spoiler alert: It did what it claimed to do!
I had zero expectations going in. But the results were visible right away and very compelling. I managed to win my mom over to this very simple and effective skincare routine as well.
Here’s what I did in the beginning.
- Soak a handful of regular white rice in half a cup of water for 30 minutes – don’t wash the rice, just soak it. (Use organic rice if the idea of pesticides in your rice water bothers you.) You can leave the rice water out in the open if you don’t mind it fermenting fast and giving off a nasty odour. Fermented rice water is actually supposed to be even better for the skin! Or you could, at the end of the first day, strain the water, pour it in a small cup and refrigerate it to be used for the next 3 or 4 days. (Throw away the leftover water by the end of the fourth day.)
- Take a cotton ball and dip it in the water, like you would use a cleanser. Apply it to the face and let it air dry. Do this twice a day.
That’s it!
Initially, I did not even wash my face prior to using rice water on my skin. The rice water-soaked cotton ball was supposed to be the cleanser AND the toner.
The results were striking.
My skin looked well-balanced despite the humidity. It looked bright, and not dull, as the case had been with overproduction of sebum in this weather. My skin looked healthy, like it had been infused with a dose of all the world’s goodness. I have used super expensive serums in the past and they don’t come anywhere near the effectiveness of this humble product that EVERYBODY IN THIS WORLD has in their kitchen. My god, we don’t even think about it and it’s so effective!
I did this for a few days and then switched up the routine a bit.
For a week I used only rice water on my face (and nothing else whatsoever). Afterwards, I resumed using the Mung Bean cleansing foam from The Face Shop to wash my face and then apply the rice water to my skin, letting it air dry. The results were even better.
I did not apply any other skincare products on my face while I was doing this and I didn’t think my skin was missing out on anything.
Now, however, I am back to my usual skincare routine, after having tested the efficacy of rice water. I now use it as a toner in my routine, and rather religiously too (it’s that good). It’s become a part of my daily skincare.
What rice water doesn’t do
It has no effect on acne – it neither worsens the acne nor helps it in any way. The pimples are left alone.
It addresses no skin problems, at least not right away. (Maybe over time it does, but I’ve only been using it for a month so I can’t testify to that.) What you do get is fundamentally healthy, bright-looking, and well-balanced skin but any surface-level skin problems, like pigmentation, acne scarring, etc. are left untouched.
In conclusion
My experience with rice water has been so good that it has become a part of my daily skincare routine. I use it after cleansing with a face wash/foam, simply because we have been experiencing over 90% humidity for the past few days. So that’s A LOT of oil production to constantly control.
In less humid climates, however, and especially for those who don’t have such oily skin as mine, this will work wonders on its own as a cleanser. You can apply your moisturizer and other products on top of it, as per your usual routine.
Highly, highly recommended. Get started today!
