Home Remedy Beauty Regime Honey For The Skin

 

For the ultimate natural all round healing potion, try Honey. Thanks to Cleopatra’s milk and honey baths, Honey has become a favourite with one and all to be used in beauty regime. Beside Cleopatra, there were other beauties from the past, who swear by honey being an indispensable ingredient in beauty treatments.

Pollution, dirt, and other chemical agents in the air make the skin lose its ability to retain water, making it look dry, wrinkled and aging the person bit earlier. The natural hydrating and antioxidant properties of honey trap and seal the moisture, rejuvenate the skin, cleanse the complexion leaving it soft and supple.

Honey in its purest form is suitable for all skin types’ even sensitive skin. Beauticians suggest using honey abundantly for radiant complexion. Skin care products like baths, shower gels, face creams, skin lotions, moisturizers, body scrubs and even newborns products contain pure honey.

Treat your self to some simple natural skin care remedies with honey at your home –
- ¼ cup of honey to your bath keeps your skin soft and supple.

- Dry skin = 1 tsp honey, vegetable oil each and ¼ tsp of lemon juice. Pat it on dry areas of your skin, leave for 10 mins and rinse with water.

- Make a moisturizing mask with 1 tsp of honey, 1 egg yolk, ½ tsp almond oil and 1 tsp yogurt. Apply on your face, neck and other parts of your body. Leave for 15 minutes and rinse off with water. You skin will feel moisturized and polished with tightened pores.

- For the silky-smooth skin, mix ¼ cup of honey and 3 tsp of rosewater. Apply to face, neck avoiding sensitive areas around the eye. Massage well and rinse with lukewarm water and enjoy the sensation of an all different skin.

- Open the pores on your face by place a cloth dipped in warm water. Smear honey on your face for 20-30 minutes. Rinse first with warm water and then cold water to close the pores.

- Indulge your skin with the paste of 1 tsp of honey, 1 egg white, 1 tsp glycerin and flour. Smooth it over your face, throat, leaving it on for 10 minutes and then washing it off with warm water. Your skin will feel refreshed and rejuvenated.

- 4 tbsp of whole milk powder and 2 tbsp of honey make an excellent baby bath.





Photo by Siona Karen

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A Pursuit For The Nose

Take note, when you buy a perfume bottle most of the cost goes to the packaging, advertising, sales profit and tax. Only a small percentage, actually around ten percent, is dedicated to the costs of the scents.

So why buy when you can make your own perfume. Not only will you be able to save some money but you'll get a blast from the pursuit of the perfect perfume.

One of the greatest advantages of making your own perfume is that you don't have to worry about having chemicals and preservatives going onto your skin. Since you're more likely going to work with natural, you don't have to worry about the possible effects of synthetic materials on your body.

However, care should still be taken when using various essential oils. Some people might still have particular allergenic reactions to specific types of oils. It is therefore important to know or be familiar with your own body chemistry first before trying experimenting with blending perfumes.

First, let's differentiate between the various types of perfumes. Basically, a perfume is a mixture of aromatic compounds and diluted in alcohol and water. The amounts of aromatic oils dissolve in a blend determine if it can be called a perfume or a cologne. Arranged from highest concentration of oils to lowest the sequence would be: perfume, eau de parfum, eau de toilette, eau de cologne and body splash.

When we say perfume, the blend of aromatic oils is from 25 to 40%. Eau du parfum, meanwhile, are 15-30% aromatics. Eau du Cologne has even lighter aromatic oil contents. This type of scent usually has around 5-15% aromatic compounds. Toilet water or sometimes referred to as body splash has only 3-5% aromatics. Body splash are ideally used after you take a bath or shower.

When you make your own perfume, you get to choose which solvent you would use to dilute the blend. Available at your disposal are either jojoba or alcohol. Both have distinct differences and benefits. Jojoba is great for perfume blends because it never turns rancid.

When you have created your own perfume blend, it is best that you use the perfume only on your pulse points. Anywhere more and you might overdo the scent. For diluting the blend the traditional way, you use grain alcohol or a high grade proof of vodka. Alcohol makes the blend more volatile.

The problem with alcohol is that you have to let the perfume blend evolve. If you don't the scent will smell more like an alcohol rather than a perfume. Usual proportions of alcohol and perfume blend is about three or four ml of the blend combined with five or 10 drops of alcohol.

Making your own perfume should be fun. Don't delve too much on the technicality of blending perfumes. Explore and try to make combinations that are unheard off. You never know, the resulting blend might be perfect to your body chemistry.

Scents and fragrances react differently when applied to your body. Choosing one that fits you is like choosing the right color of dress or the right pair of shoes to wear. Perfumes cannot just be worn arbitrarily. The resulting scent might be catastrophic. That's why you need to experiment more when making your own perfume. Try various combinations of scents until you find the perfect one for you.

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A Short Cut To Smooth Healthy Skin

It is a daily fight to keep your skin healthy and smooth. But help could come from an unexpected quarter. Welcome to the world of glyconutrients!

You are 25 but look 35. Blame it on your skin! The skin is the largest organ in the body, and the most exposed. Pollution, ultraviolet rays in the Sun's light, stress, lack of essential vitamins, all contribute to wear and tear your skin.

Most people don't take proper care of their skin - either due to hectic work or due to pure ignorance. Lack of proper skin care can result in more skin-related diseases and allergies. Proper skin care is important for avoiding cold sores, spots, and skin cancer. Beauty therapies and skin care lotions are only effective up to a point when it comes to keeping your skin soft and smooth.

Exposure to sunlight causes loss of water in our body which leads to dryness of the skin. This results in the skin losing its elasticity and 'sagging.' This loss of elasticity normally happens with ageing. However, changing climatic conditions and atmospheric conditions such as ozone depletion cause the harmful ultraviolet B rays to cause more damage to our skin. This is where nutrition comes in.

In order to get the right skin, it is important to look at the part played by nutrition in skin care. That translates as getting more nutritional food into your diet. Lack of proper nutrition may result in the loss of natural oils present in your skin. Fresh vegetables, fruits, fresh juice, cereals, etc. contain vitamins essential for a healthy skin.

Vitamin E is said to be a skin-care vitamin. Apart from vitamin E, vitamins such as A and C are also essential for a healthy skin. These vitamins contain antioxidants which help the skin to maintain its natural oils. These antioxidants help to reduce the tendency of the skin to age. Ultimately they help fight the punishing effect that the climatic changes have on our skins.

But where do you get the vitamins and nutrients necessary for your skin's health? Not from your daily diet. For various reasons, people cannot get the right quantity of vitamins and other nutrients into the body through their normal diet. And synthetic vitamins are out.

Enter glyconutrients. Eight essential sugars have been discovered to be the essential building blocks for our body cells recently. There is a lot of research going on about these essential sugars and the larger group of saccharides of which they are a part, called glyconutrients. These eight simple sugars are responsible for cell-to-cell communication necessary for keeping the body's glands and organs, including the skin, healthy.

Skin care ointments and lotions containing glyconutrients are the best alternative to any beauty therapy. The intake glyconutrients is equally important for health care as well as skin care.

Consult your doctor or dietician, exercise, and drink a lot of water. And give your skin its daily dose of glyconutrients!





Photo by Tom Merton

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