How to Make Your Own Chemical-Free Moisturizer

Essential oils of many types are very good 100% natural moisturizers. However, it is important to note that you need to choose the right kind of oils for your own skin if you want to use them as a moisturizer.

For example, dry skin is best treated with richer, heavier oils such as olive oil or sesame whereas combination or sensitive skin would be better treated with lighter oils such as jojoba, avocado or grapeseed.

As an example of how you would use oils in this situation and assuming that your skin is dry, you could apply a mixture of olive and vitamin E oil directly to your skin. Alternatively, a combination of olive oil, eggs and lemon juice (better known as mayonnaise) is also extremely good for dry facial skin.

All-round natural moisturizer: For an excellent all-round natural moisturizer that will work with almost any skin type, mix together half a tablespoon of cocoa butter, two tablespoons of beeswax, 2 teaspoons of boiled water, three tablespoons of sesame oil and two tablespoons of both coconut and olive oil.

Start by mixing the grated beeswax with the water so that the wax can be melted over a low heat. Mix the cocoa butter with the wax before gradually stirring in the three oils.

Once the ingredients are well mixed together, remove it from the heat so that it can cool and thicken. Before it does so however, make sure that the mixture is transferred into airtight glass containers that can be kept in the refrigerator so that the paste stays usable for a long as possible.

Each of the individual ingredients serves a different purpose. For example, coconut oil is rich in vitamins as well as fat to soften your skin, whereas cocoa butter protects the skin against the worst ravages of the elements, particularly the wind and the rain.

Glycerin for dry skin: If your problem is dry skin, then glycerin is a natural emollient, a substance that moisturizes, softens and limits the harshness of your skin condition.

For this treatment, you are going to drop 5 teaspoons of gelatin into 2 cups of hot water. Once the water has cooled, add three tablespoons of glycerin plus any essential oil that you want to add to give the mixture a lovely fragrance. You could for example use an oil such as rosemary to give a mixture a relaxing aroma before applying it to your skin.

Dry skin moisturizing solution: For this dry facial skin treatment, you need 2 ounces of olive oil, 4 ounces of shea butter, 2 teaspoons of vitamin E oil, six drops of essential lavender oil and 1 teaspoon of active royal jelly which you should find in the refrigerated section in your local health food store.

Once you have all the ingredients, mix them together over a high heat until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Once it has cooled, keep it in airtight container in the fridge to prevent the mixture spoiling. This is a fantastic treatment for dry skin, but unfortunately, it is one that you can only make in small batches because the royal jelly is active.

\
Nevertheless, it's very well worth doing if your problem is dry skin.

Parenting Tips
, , , , , ,

Keeping Your Skin Super Healthy!

Keeping Your Skin Beautiful
If you are a busy mom you want your skin to look beautiful but natural. Here is the four step regimen you should follow to have beautiful skin.

The basic four step skin care program goes like this:

1 – Cleansing. The secret when you are cleansing your skin is to be gentle and to use mild cleaning ingredients. If possible, you should avoid using soap (even herbal versions) as soap dries your skin which is why many beauty experts recommend that you should never use soap on your face.

Instead, use a cleanser that is suited to your skin type. For example, you might use a creamy cleanser if you have dry skin or a drier cleanser if your problem is overly oily skin.

One thing that you should avoid is the temptation to clean your skin too regularly. Doing so may in fact make your skin problems worse rather than better, so it is not something that you should be doing.

You should avoid any cleanser that contains strong astringents or alcohol as these will strip away most of the protective oils that your skin needs as well.
For most people, all that is needed is to wash your face at night before retiring and of course, women should remove all traces of cosmetics too.

Wash with warm water – not too hot or too cold as both can damage the capillaries just beneath the skin – and then splash warm water on your face in the morning.

Just splashing your face before dabbing your skin dry is a great way of removing excess oils (either natural or caused by your nightly moisturizer) and this should be all you need to do in the morning.

2 – Exfoliate. This is a crucial step in any properly effective skincare regime and yet it is the step that most women tend to ignore.

There are many ways of exfoliating your skin ranging from specialist dermatological treatment to completely natural exfoliants, with many very expensive branded products in between. We will of course focus on natural exfoliants when we look at specific natural skin care solutions.

3 – Moisturize. No matter what your skin type, skincare experts and dermatologists recommend that you should moisturize your skin regularly, doing so before going to bed being the most popularly recommended option.

When moisturizing at night, you should focus on making sure that the skin around your eyes is properly moisturized. The lack of fatty tissue in this particular area of your face makes this area of skin prone to wrinkles, hence applying moisturizer helps to ‘plump up' the skin and thereby reduce the tendency to wrinkling.

Lastly don't forget the sunscreen. Most of the damage that your skin suffers over the years will be caused by exposure to the sun. Furthermore, this is something that starts happening at a very young age (even though you don't notice it) and even on cloudy and overcast days.

Parenting Tips
, , , , , , ,