Face off: How to get a spa day at home
At this time of year it doesn’t matter what I do or what I put on my skin, it still feels like someone has put my face in a toaster, and then sat me in from of an air conditioning unit for the rest of the day. No amount of oils, drinking water or anything makes a difference, the wind and rain and those lovely autumn days — well, they just make me all shrivelly.
In my time at organic college I spent a semester making cosmetics from herb infusions. Body scrubs are extremely easy to make and, if you get nice jars you can give them as gifts too. The best part of it is, that they are made with ingredients that you can eat — well, mostly, and it’s just a nice and fun thing to do in the kitchen and lasts longer than making dinner.
These few recipes will give you great results with little effort.
While I’m soaking in a bath I make myself the cheapest and easiest face mask. Get about 2 tablespoons of porridge oats in a cup and drizzle over a tablespoon of honey, bring this up to the bath with you. Add a little warm water and give it a mix, let it sit for a few minutes and then slather it all over your face and chest.
You can also mash a banana into it. The oats act as a moisturiser as they exude their own ‘milk’ and leave your face feeling springy and smooth to the touch. When the mask has been on your face for ten minutes or so, you can then scrub it off gently so you have a built-in exfoliator too.
Once you start hiding your legs away under tights and jeans in winter, they can take on a lovely, snake-like appearance after a short time. Exfoliation is the only way to get rid of this dead skin and a full-body scrub will make you feel invigorated and amazing — plus you won’t need to load up on extra body lotion or oils after your shower — as you will have residual oil from this yummy scrub.
I love coffee and I usually feed my plants left-over coffee grounds from the pot. Coffee is a great thing to help you eliminate excess water and can be absorbed through the skin too, plus it smells great with the orange zest. The orange is really there for the fantastic smell and coconut oil is just a great moisturiser.
You can use a different oil like olive or almond, the advantage/ or disadvantage is that the oil won’t solidify when it goes cold. It’s up to you — use whatever you have handy, that’s the whole point.
Get a nice jar to store the scrub in, a wide mouth one is best as you want to be able to put your hand into it and scoop out the scrub. There’s not much you can do about half of the scrub falling onto the shower base, that’s just one of those first-world problems.
Ingredients
Oil, either coconut, olive or almond — if your jar takes 250ml, then you need about 220ml oil
1 orange, the zest grated off, you can then eat the orange
100g used coffee ground from the pot, cold
Method
If you are using coconut oil then warm it gently on the hob in a pot.
Let it cool a little and add the remaining ingredients
Pour the lot into your jar and let it settle. Use with relish in the shower and take in those delicious smells.
Sea Salt Body Scrub
Himalayan sea salt is all the rage, it’s said to be full of minerals and looks lovely too. The thing I love about it, is that the grains are just the right size for a good body scrub in the shower. You can easily incorporate herbs from the garden into a scrub and lavender is a favourite for a reason, it smells great and it’s such a relaxing scent. If you have some lavender essential oil, all the better. Have a nice big jar for this too
Simply combine everything in your jar and let it settle, et voilá!
Meanwhile, if you’re feeling a tad puffy and want to squeeze into a tiny dress, an epsom salts bath will help you to lose excess water quickly, while also giving you a real injection of essential minerals.
A few epsom salt baths in sequence should help you shed not just pounds, but will also leave your skin feeling amazing. You only need to stay in the bath about 20 minutes but you do need to use about two cups of the salts, so buy a big tub from the pharmacy.
Epsom salts are also full of magnesium and bathing in this will give you a real boost, helping to eliminate toxins and heavy metals and magnesium also helps the body to absorb calcium.
So a bath in Epsom salts is also a must for anybody with osteoporosis or arthritis. If you train hard in the gym or lift weights, an epsom salts bath after a workout will stop you having those awful joint pains the next day.
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