Last year, I happened to be at the Ocean House in Watch Hill around the same time as a certain Oscar-party-throwing-Waverly-Inn-owning-Conde-Nast-glossy-magazine editor. No, not Anna Wintour. The name of the mag rhymes with Sanity Flair. My super secret plan was to send him and his wife a bottle of champagne during dinner and then, later, after introducing myself, schmooze my way into a job as a contributing writer. 

OK, so I'm talking about Graydon Carter and Vanity Fair. And my plan was promising but ultimately unsuccessful. It also didn't help that the only writing samples I would have had to show him at that point were Facebook posts, but I digress.

I may not have won over Graydon (or charmed my way into the hearts and minds of Vanity Fair readers), but while at the OH, I did happen upon an outstanding skin care line called Farmaesthetics, all natural and local by way of Portsmouth, RI. Founded in 1999. And I would never have known about it had my disappointment over not meeting Graydon driven me downstairs to the lower level of the hotel and into the OH Spa.

It was the glass bottles with their old time-y handwritten looking labels that originally drew me in. Nice to look at and great news if you're trying to avoid plastic and those nasty BPA's. The products themselves are also made with only a handful of recognizable (and mostly organic) ingredients. No weird chemicals that you can't pronounce or odd ingredients that once you google you find out are a fancy name for horse pee. (Hello, Urea!) Another pleasant surprise? Most of the individual products are priced affordably, between $20 - $45. That's a steal for anyone who is used to shopping department stores for skin care lines where the average prices can range from $50-150 for a single item.

And here I am leaving out the most important part - these products actually work. If (like me) you have oily skin (which I cursed until recently learning that oily skin wrinkles a whole lot less than other skin types), these are exactly what you need:

1) Fine Herbal Cleanser, $38 a bottle and a little goes a long way

2) Pure Complexion Tonic, $27 and the blue glass bottle alone is stunning in it's clean simplicity

3) Rose Hip Clay Mint Mask, $27.50 and lasts practically forever (Still using my bottle from last year.)

I've recommended and even made samples from my own stash of these for friends with chronic skin conditions, who have been SO happy with the results that they then turned around and ordered Farmaesthetics for themselves. Now, I'm no doctor or aesthetician, but it does make me happy to help people improve their skin.

Photo Courtesy: Ocean House photo, Google Images; Farmaesthetics Facial To Go photo; Pinterest