Natural Skincare

Generations ago, women turned to the kitchen for their beauty treatments. The egg white mask was supposed to firm the skin and make it fairer. Here's how you do it.

1. Squeeze a lemon.
2. Separate the egg white from the yolk of an egg. Keep the egg white for this mask.
3. Whisk the egg white with a teaspoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice.
4. Wash your face. Pat dry with a towel.
5. Apply this egg white lemon mask on your face and leave it on for 10 minutes.
6. Wash it off completely.
7. Cleanse, tone and moisturize skin as per normal.

Since you can make your own skincare products (take a look at these beauty recipes and you'll know what I mean), why should anyone buy skincare from the stores?

I used to make my own moisturizers, scrubs and bath and body treats but eventually gave up after several months. Making a good lotion is time consumng. On top of that, you have to sterilize all the equipment before you even begin and be vigilant about hygiene in making the products and storing your creams and lotions and masks. You don't want to make contaminated skincare. Even if you refrigerate your creations, unlike commercial skincare products, they lack preservatives, meaning mould and bacteria thrive in your lotions and beauty products. Apply anything that has gone bad on your skin and you can end up with rashes or a nasty acne outbreak. It happened to me a few times when I left the lotions in the fridge too long.

After making the stuff, you've got to clean up the mess.

Even the easy to do scrubs and masks require plenty of cleaning up after use. Just using an oat face scrub and a coffee cellulite body mask leads to lots of cleaning up after you wash your face and take a shower as you don't want the oats and coffee to clog up the sink and bathroom pipes.

As a once in a while treat when you've got the time, home made stuff is great. For everyday use, you'll find store bought skincare much more practical.

What's good, what's not? Look at the ingredients list. The ingredients are listed from the most to the least. The ones that make up the most of the product are listed in front of those that form a lower percentage of the product. You can expect essential oils to be listed last because they should form no more than 0.5% to 3% of any product as they are extremely concentrated.

One brand that impresses me is Dr. Hauschka. It contains organic plant extracts that goes one step beyond what most commercial natural beauty products offer. What impressed me was that botanicals in Dr. Hauschka's products (the ones I tried anyway) appeared towards the top of the list, meaning the product has a significant amount of plant extracts.

Clarins is another brand that is full of natural goodness. Some of its cleansers, toners and moisturizers contain as much as 30% plant extracts. Compare that to the run of the mill natural skincare types that might contain only 2% plant extracts. Here's more info About Clarins

When my kid had chickenpox, the doctor suggested an oatmeal bath to soothe the itch. Oats soothe the skin when applied externally, which is why you see oats as part of the ingredients in many skincare products. Aveeno is a soothing range of skincare and bath and body products that use oats, but you can do an oat bath yourself using real oats from the kitchen.
Oats Bath

1. Fill a clean muslin cloth or a clean, thin cotton sock with instant oats and tie it shut


2. Fill your bathtub with warm water.


3. Put the sock or cloth filled with oats (oats pack) into the bath water and squeeze it several times to release the oats milk


4. Get into the bath and use the oats pack to scrub yourself.

Oats Facial Scrub

1. Mix oats and a little water in the palm of a clean hand to form a scrub.


2. Gently massage your face to cleanse and exfoliate your skin


3. Rinse with plenty of water

Honey is a humectant. It moisturizes your skin and softens your skin. Soft dewy skin is beautiful. Hence you'll find it in many natural skincare products.

Here's how you can use runny honey as a facial mask.

1. Wash your face with your regular cleanser


2. Dry your face with a towel.


3. Apply honey all over your face, avoiding eyes and nostrils


4. Pat lightly on your facial skin with your finger tips for a facial massage for 2 minutes


5. Rinse off the honey with plenty of water.

With recession looming, how do you maximize your beauty regime on a minimal budget?


Go natural.


You want the best. Yet the best, if prepackaged, can cost a bomb. A solution is to use simple home remedies for your skincare regime. Budget Beauty Tips highlights sensible ways to make your makeup and skincare last longer. It also features 2 recipes you can use to cleanse or wash your face with. Which should function almost as well as cleansers from the top skincare brands.

Here's a simple rinse that makes your hair shiny.

1. Shampoo hair


2. rinse away all the shampoo


3. Add 1 tablespoon of cider vinegar into a small jug of water. Add 3 drops of lavender oil to make it smell more pleasant.


4. Pour the vinegar water over your hair


5. Towel dry