Skin Care Home Remedies

Natural homemade recipes for your skin are simple to make and cost-effective. What you put on your skin is just as important as what you eat. Commercial products often contain chemicals that are absorbed by your skin finding their way into the bloodstream which can be harmful to your overall health.

Virgin coconut oil/butter makes for a good moisturizer by providing a protective layer that locks in natural moisture. Coconut oil solidifies at temperatures below 78 degrees Fahrenheit. Place the coconut butter in small lip balm or eye cream jars or any small sterilized jar. For a lip balm, use coconut butter on its own or add peppermint or spearmint oil. As an acne treatment, add a couple of drops of tea tree, lavender, or patchouli oil. For wrinkles, add rose, orange or patchouli oil. To treat eczema, add chamomile, geranium, or orange oil. To treat broken capillaries, add rose, palmarosa, or parsley oil. To treat cellulite, add grapefruit, tangerine, or orange oil. For stretch marks, add palmarosa or neroli oil. To treat burns, add geranium, patchouli or lavender oil.

For sunburned skin, break open a leaf of an Aloe Vera plant and smooth onto the skin. The gel is also good for other types of burns and has soothing, cooling, antibacterial, and antifungal properties. Strawberry juice, cucumbers and avocados are also soothing to sunburned skin.

For tired eyes, place cucumber slices over your eyes. For dark circles around your eyes, place cooled tea bags over your eyes.

For a homemade facial toner, mix green tea, chamomile or ginseng tea (made with mineral water or distilled water) with lavender or lemon oil. Green tea is rich in antioxidants which fight free radicals that damage and age the skin. Green tea is said to diminish fine lines. Lavender oil is a good toner and lemon oil is a good rejuvenator and toner. Add Vitamin C crystals as a preservative and antioxidant. MSM (Methyl Sulfonyl Methane) is a natural source of organic sulfur good for the skin. Add MSM crystals to your toner or eat high sulfur foods such as kale or watercress.

Prick a capsule of Vitamin A, E, or wheat germ oil and smooth directly onto your skin, add to coconut, almond or apricot oil, or to your toner. Vitamin A is a potent antioxidant and Vitamin E is said to slow down the aging process. Almond oil soothes and lubricates the skin. Apricot oil protects and softens the skin. Wheat germ oil promotes skin elasticity.

For a moisturizing and refreshing mask, mix avocado with shredded cucumber. Avocados are rich in protein and Vitamin A. Cucumbers are cooling and cleansing. Use a mashed banana for a skin firming mask.

To lighten age spots, rub lemon directly onto your skin.

For a body powder, mix cornstarch and baking soda with your favorite essential oil. For a foot powder, mix cornstarch, baking soda and tea tree or peppermint oil. Baking soda acts as a deodorizer and soothes the skin. Tea tree oil is a natural antiseptic, germicide, antibacterial, and fungicide. Peppermint oil is soothing to the feet and swollen ankles.

Drinking plenty of water, eating raw fruits and vegetables, and getting plenty of rest are one of the best ways to achieving healthy and radiant skin. What goes into your body is reflective on your skin.

Elizabeth Kiely is the owner of EK Shower Caps http://www.eklbc.com

Natural Hair Get Creative With Homemade Recipes

Do you wear your hair natural? No lye? As many will tell you, once you make a change to go natural your hair regimen must also change. This frequently includes an adjustment to the types of products you use on your coils. A number of your old stand-bys may no longer lend you the same results on your kinks as they did on your straight hair.

Product junkies will agree -- you can spend hundreds of dollars testing out the numerous products available on the market, many of which are supposedly intended for natural hair use. However, breaking the bank is really not necessary for a healthy, strong and shiny natural. You already have key ingredients in your own kitchen and bathroom!

Creating your own hair recipes not only saves money, but allows for a more intimate relationship with your hair -- you can gain a much better insight as to what your hair craves, prefers, or rejects with your at-home experiments.

Get creative! There are a few simple rules to follow to find your perfect concoctions:

* Don't mix too many things at once. Start out with simple recipes, say, mixing one main ingredient and adding a small amount of another. It's much easier to determine what worked and what didn't when your ingredients list is limited.

* Create two-ingredient mixes and try them until you find a mix that works well on your hair. If it's a perfect mix, continue using it! If it's a pretty good mix, retry the recipe with the same main ingredient then alter the secondary ingredient until you reach perfection. You may find you need to reverse the amounts used, making the main ingredient the secondary ingredient.

* If there is one particular ingredient you find most always works well on your hair, make it a staple for your hair recipes, adding it as a standard part of all your recipes.

* Alter the way you apply the mixes to your hair. Try dousing your hair with your Super Yogurt Surprise while your hair is drenching wet in the shower. Does it work well this way? Try another time by making it a bit more liquidy and spritz it on your dried hair with a spray bottle. Perhaps your hair responds better to this application.

* For ingredients, a general rule of thumb is if it's ok to ingest, it's probably ok to apply to your hair as well. Pureed fruit, honey, apple cider vinegar and many more items are great additions to homemade hair recipes.

* Take note of what works for you and how it worked. Some recipes may be better for clarifying while others make for great deep conditioners.

* Search and compare! If you're a little timid about applying egg whites to your hair, make use of resources available to you before doing so. Search the Internet for your particular ingredients. You just may find others who have tried the same type of recipe and enjoyed success or experienced a nightmare.

* Go beyond your kitchen! Many cities have well-stocked health food and natural stores with a huge selection of ingredients to boost your hair recipes. Experiment with essential oils (a few drops go a long way!), xanthum gum (a thickener, also known as xanthan), as well as conditioners and leave-ins you won't likely find at department stores and drug stores.

Remember, a recipe failure is a good thing. It lets you know what your hair simply does not respond to well. The worst likely thing that can happen with the use of your homemade products is the need to wash your hair again, so get creative!

Note: Use of homemade mixes for coloring of hair is not recommended.

Elle Paris is the owner of My Natural which provides no-nonsense user reviews for hundreds of products for natural hair care.

Look Younger with a Healthy Skin

Do you wish you had more energy, less wrinkles, more stamina, cope better with stress? May be even turn the clock to look and feel younger. Yes! A lot of us do.

The truth is, it is possible and there is No Secrets. Feeling good and younger goes from the inside out. You can age gracefully with more energy, looking healthier and younger and have a glowing skin by taking five simple steps:

A Healthy Diet

The quality and quantity of the food you eat will have a direct reflection on your health, the look of your skin and hair as well as overall stamina. Avoid as much as possible commercially prepared meals and packaged foods. Eat natural, local fresh vegetables and fruits. Whole foods with the least processing, simply prepared contains more nutrients, vitamins and enzymes and are more useful for the body. A diet rich in fiber and antioxidant, whole grain, monounsaturated (canola and peanut oil, avocado) and polyunsaturated fats (nuts and seeds in general) will help your heart, lower your cholesterol and increase your overall energy. Free simple and easy healthy gourmet recipes good for your health and tasty to your palate.

Sleeping Well And Enough

While we sleep, we rejuvenate our body and relax our mind. It is a time where we restock our energy. Sleeping well and enough is very important for ultimate health. Comfortable bedroom and bed, enough fresh air, not too cold and not too hot, make sure you relax before you go to bed. Television and other stimulants are not good at bed time. It is recommended that you get between 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night. If you have trouble sleeping, go and see a doctor and find the cause of the insomnia. For women during menopause, imbalance hormones can be the cause of sleep disturbance. Apnea, snoring can also cause sleep interruption

Natural Skin Care Products

Skin care products like the food you eat have to be chosen very carefully. Synthetic chemicals and highly processed ingredients in personal care products can create unwanted skin conditions: premature aging of the skin, acne, dry skin or wrinkles. When you buy skin care products choose naturally made skin, make up, body and hair care. Like the food we eat, creams, moisturizers, cleansers are nutrition for the skin and affect our overall health as they penetrate the skin, the cells and get into the blood stream and various intern organs.

Relaxation And Me Time

In our society we are often under the pressure of things to do, dead lines, family obligation and overtime. We leave very little time for relaxation, time out and time to just pamper and take care of ourselves. It is important to take a break from our busy schedule for relaxation.

Fitness

Fitness and exercise do not have to be excruciating to be efficient. Simply walking 30mn a day, using the stairs instead of the elevator, park your car a little further away in the supermarket parking can make a big different. Those are efficient little tricks when you have a busy life and are not able to find time to exercise time or just getting back into shape.

Catherine Potin invites you to Best Of Natural Skin Care and to join our Healthy and Younger Looking Skin Tips with expert advice delivered in your inbox and resources for natural skin care.