Skin Hair Care, Beauty Enhancement Tips from Skinhaircare.com

Natural skin care products Part 2

1. Cornstarch: Thickening agent for body lotions, face masks and creams.
2. Cucumber : Excellent anti-aging agent.. Reduces wrinkles and black eye patches.
3. Dandelion: Very good at moisturizing dry skin
4. Egg:  Very good conditioner, Adds silkiness and tightens skin. Egg whites are good for normal and oily skin while dry skin find good utility in yellow (i.e egg yolks).
5. Epsom Salt : Acts as a blemish reducer.
6. Fennel: Anti wrinke agent.
7. Fuchsia: Excellent at soothing skin.
8. Gelatin: Acts as as a thickener for face masks
9. Glycerine:  Moisturizer, Emulsifying agent.
10. Grapefruit:  Helps achieve wrinkle free skin and tightens skin pores.
11. Honey: Refines pores; tightens skin; moisturizes; Retards wrinkles; anti-blemish
12. Lime : Acid; astringent
13. Mayonnaise: Acts as a Cleanser and moisturizer.
14. Milk: Extremely effective against sun burns, tightens skin, fights aging.
15. Papaya: Removes dead skin cells effectively and makes the skin tender and soft.
16. Papaya: Reduces puffiness under the eye.
17. Strawberry: Oily skin toner and anti blemish agent.
18. Yoghurt:  Cleansing agent, bleaching agent  for normal and oily skin

This covers our Natural Products for Skin care topic.

Natural Remedies for Skin Care

Which natural products can be used for skin care?

We have tried to collect info about natural products that you could use to take good care of your skin.

1. Arrowroot :

   How does Arrowroot help in skin care? It dries up spots or blemishes, that might be visible on your skin, after regular application

2. Avocado: This can be used as a natural moisturizer.
3. Barley:  This is the wonder drug of nature it helps fight against wrinkles, acts as a mark or blemish remover and also refines skin pores.
4. Beet: Acts as a natural moisturizer.
5. Tincture of benzoin: Skin that is exposed to cold becomes rough or chapped, this can be used for natural smoothness. Is used as a preservative for natural creams.
6. Borax: An excellent bleaching agent, it can be used a natural cleanser and for skin softening as well.
7. Bran: Most effective against dry skin (repels dryness) and helps tighten pores.
8. Carrot: Excellent moisturizer period.
9. Castor Oil: Ever wondered how to tone down those brown spots, castor oil is one of the best solutions to get them out of the way. It also relieves itching (due to dry skin).  Can be used to make your eye lashes thicker (if required) i.e eyelash thickening treatment.
10. Chamomile: An excellent skin toner it tones all types of skin complexions.
11. Cocoa Butter: An excellent cleanser and effective dry skin moisturizer.
12. Corn Syrup: Moisturizing agent, helps skin retain moisture.
13. Cornmeal: Refines pores, makes skin clean and glowy.

We will be covering a few more natural products for skin care in our next post.

Toning/Cleansing your Skin.

Have you ever noticed how your skin starts sagging after you cross the age of 28  (in many cases even earlier than this)?  Did you ever make any attempts to recover the perfect tone of your skin? Well don’t fret, you still can take care of your skin and tone it to perfection. Wrinkles or sagging skin will disappear if you follow the skin toning routine everyday.

Why skin toning/cleansing?

As your age increases the capacity of your skin to produce new cells decreases and the dermis producing collagen also loses elasticity causing wrinkled and sagging skin. To prevent this we apply toners.

Toners are skin toning lotions that help increase blood supply and remove excess oil from the skin surface. As the oil is removed the skin tightens due to the irritation thus produced.

When to use skin toners?

Though its advisable that you do so 2-3 times a week. You can do it as and when you feel your skin to be a bit saggy or you see wrinkles developing anywhere.

What is to be used for skin toning?

Natural Skin toners that can be used

• Potato pieces can be used to rub your skin gently for not more than 15 minutes. This helps moisturize dry skin and is very effective on oily skin for reduction of the oil content.
  
• Mineral water with Rose water dilution can be applied using a piece of medicated cotton. Areas to avoid : eyes & upper cheek area.
• Rose water acts as an excellent skin toning lotion. You can make it domestically. Mix one tablespoon rose oil with 2.5 litres of clean and pure water. Store in a cool place preferably the refrigerator, this can now be used as a skin toning lotion.
• Mix Mint ( Chopped 1 Tb Spn) and 2 Tb Spns of cider vinegar. Shake well and store in a cold place. Add about 250-300 ml of water and gently rub it on your skin using a  cotton ball.

We do not recommend artificial toners for now. But if we do find any good ones we will review them soon.

Winter Face Packs – completely natural face packs:

• Make a hard paste by adding milk and 3 tea spoons of wheat flour. This face pack is the most basic but highly effective dirt/dust remover. Wash with luke warm water for removing the paste after 15 minutes of application. This natural face pack is one of the most economical too.

• Mustard seeds (crushed) mixed with water or oil also acts as a cleanser. This is quite useful domestic  face wasg for oil/dust/dirt removal and acquiring smooth/healthy skin.

• Massaging/Scrubbing your skin with a cotton ball dipped in similar/equal amounts of vinegar and water helps as an excellent natural face wash.  Dry skin type people may use a cold cream.
• Prepare a paste from well kneaded ¼ banana, 1 Tea-spoon of nutritive cream, 1 drop lemon juice and olive oil. Rinse the application clean with warm water  after 20-30 minutes of application of the paste on face  and neck.

• Fruit Face Wash: Any fruit like pear, papaya, apple can be blended together and applied to the skin over an already applied layer of honey (on face and neck). Rinse it away with clean water after 15-20 mins of application.

• Orange face packs can be used generously for obtaining healthy glowing skin in winter. Also Neem face packs can do the same for your along with removal of any skin diseases.

• Getting rid of wrinkles? For removing wrinkles use this mixture : egg yolk (nicely beaten) + oat powder ( take oat powder 3 tsps) + honey. Make a paste and apply on the entire face. Tada!! the results may surprise you.

Dry Skin Type : Tips to take care and maintain a healthy complexion.

• Dry skin requires regular moisturizing, avoid moisturizers that contain petroleum products or mineral oil, try to find a natural hypo allergic skin care product, atleast one that has natural hypo allergic ingredients in it.
• Applying rich sources of Vitamin A, C, D and E like Cocoa butter, Coconut Oil (Virgin) can do wonders for your skin, if used regularly after shower.
• Quarter Tea Spoon (1/4th) Cardamom seeds (crushed) mixed with warm water is a good mix to fight dry skin. This will make your skin glow and prevent quick aging.
• Avoid tap water, instead use Milk and Toners to wash your face, they will open up your pores, refine them. This make your skin breathe in more easily, as it hydrates the surface.
• Apply a combination of  Egg white (1/2 Tea Spoon), Natural Honey (1/4 TS) & Cucumber Juice (1/2 TS) .  Use a piece of cotton to apply the mixture and wash off with cold water after the mixture dries up. This helps in cleansing, softening and hydrating the skin.
• DO NOT SHOWER over a long period of time if your dry skin irritates easily. Use an extremely mild soap for bathing.
• Make a thick paste by mixing ½ spoon honey, 1 spoon curd, 2 spoons potato juice and ½ spoon milk cream. Apply this paste on your face and wash it off when it gets dry.A few more mixtures that you could use as face/body packs:
• Body Pack Mixture: Natural Honey (i/2 TS), Coconut Oil (1/4 TS), 1 Table Spoon Wheat Bran (Chokar). Wash it off with cold water after the mixture dries after application.
• Body Pack Mixture 2:  A paste of  Fullers Earth (1 TS) i.e multani mitti, Natural Honey (1/2 TS) , Milk Cream (1 TS) and a little oil. Follow the steps as before i.e application for 15 minutes then wash it off after drying.

In cold weather you could invest in a humidifier.  The extra external moisturization will help your dry skin gain vitality almost immediately.

Oily Skin Type : Tips to take care and maintain a healthy complexion.

• As the oily skin type has abundance of sebum or oil secreted regularly, making the skin shiny and greasy, more times you wash your face the better. Wash with luke warm water and any mild soap, a good facewash can do wonders.
• With the skin oil factory i.e the sebaceous glands working over time, it helps if you do not add more oil to your body. The tip is to avoid oily and fatty food.
• As your skin is oily it automatically opens up the pores and keeps them lubricated, but the problem is that they get blocked easily if you use makeup or work in dusty conditions. So before you do wash your face or apply makeup, it very advisable that you apply an astringent. This helps draw tissue together. Makes your skin less oily.
• Cucumber (“cucumis sativus”) is rich in Vitamin C, folic acid and potassium, the most important factor is that the hydrogen level of cucumber is on level with our skin thus it acts as an excellent skin mask over problematic areas. The combined cooling and cleansing effect it has, makes your skin supple and soft.
• Use a piece of cloth soaked in ice cold water and place it over your face for a minute or two. This helps freshen up the skin and relax.
• “Black head remover”, Yes, Tomato can act as one for you. So go ahead and rub your black heads with a piece of tomato. You will be surprised on how effective tomato is against blackheads.
• A combination of fresh Rosewater, fresh citrus (lemon) juice and Fullers Earth (multani mitti) can be applied to your face for cleansing and making your skin oil free.
• A mixture of 1 Spoon curd,1 spoon tomato juice, 1 spoon multani mitti, 1 spoon honey and small proportion of camphor acts wonderfully as a domestic oil control skin care product
• A mixture of apple juice, some ice water and a few drops of lemon can act as a wonderful face wash solution. It should be applied and removed afte 15 mintues of application.
• If you would like to get rid of the acne caused due to oily skin, lemon juice application twice a day helps. It burns a bit, but you could use curd to make it more tolerable.

In our last post we dealt with radiant skin. In this chapter we will deal with glowing but healthy skin. The oily skin type can achieve this type of skin quicker than the rest of the skin types.

7 Things to do for achieving a healthy glowing skin:

1) Do not apply too much Talcum Powder. What it does is, it blocks the pores of the sebaceous glands thus preventing the essential sebum from surfacing. This sebum or oil is required in balanced proportions for the skin to glow.

2) Do not overdo makeup using cosmetics. The ill effects of same have already been discussed in the previous post.

3) Moisturize your skin regularly using any good moisturizer that suits your skin type. If you maintain a balanced moisturizing routine, the glow of your skin will be eminent after a week.

4) Have a shower twice a day.  Once in the morning and the second when your return from work.

5) Try to visit a Suana or  Steam bath yourself at home atleast twice a week. There can be no substitute to steam, as it opens up your pores and cleanses them automatically, by softening the dirt in pores. This also helps in black/white head removal.

6) Gently scrub your skin with a milk dipped cotton ball to remove any dirt thats has been deposited on your skin. You’ll be baffled after you see the state of the white cotton ball after this session.

7) Use Tomato pulp to as a face pack and cucumber slices over the eyes to cool them off. Tomato contains ingredients that helps smoothen the skin.

If you have any other tips that help your skin to glow, make sure you let us know. Share and grow.

No, you cannot achieve this result overnight. You will require to follow these habits regularly and until you become habitual to them. Don’t you wish to maintain a healthy skin throughout !

The fact though is that after your wonder years (teenage years) the rate of cell growth starts slowing down gradually. With not enough fresh skin cells to replace the dead ones, taking extra care of our skin becomes all the more important.

Now lets get to our topic – how to get a radian skin?

1. Keep your Skin Clean.
2. Maintain a Healthy Diet.
3. Exercise Regularly
4. Avoiding the UV rays (Use Sun Screen or Sun Glasses)
5. Avoid over use of cosmetics
6. Do not Stress yourself
7. Exfoliate atleast once a week to get rid of your skin of dead cells.
8. If possible develop and maintain a domestic skin care routine.  (Cucumber, Tomatoes are good domestic skin care equipment)

Lets get into the details of some of them now:

Keep your Skin clean.

With the consistent exposure to pollution, the pores get blocked by dirt and dust and need to be cleaned. If possible do wash your face every 3 hours with any mild soap. If its not possible for you to wash your face at your office, make sure that when you get back home, you dip a cotton ball in milk and wipe your face with it. You could also use almond oil as the solution instead of milk.  If you have time at hand, try to use a steam machine to steam your face. Steaming of the face is the best way to thoroughly clean pores,  get rid of Acne, blackheads & whiteheads.

Note for Computer Geeks/Users:

Try not to stare continuously at the monitor and look away, this will help not only your skin but also your eyes

Maintain a Healthy Diet.

Are you heavily into Junk Food? You better rethink your strategy here, as what tastes good might not be best for your health and definitely not for your skin.  The magic word that you should include is “Water”, yep that’s true a few litres (8-9 glasses a day) of water a day should be a minimum requirement. A diet that includes salads and nutrient rich food will boost your skin radiance. That’s what skin care is all about. Fruits and vegetables like Carrots, Cucumber (hydrating, nourishing and astringent properties), Grapes, Watermelon, Tomatoes (pectin), Corn (contains  lecithin and vitamin E) help to brighten up your skin. Regular usage of these vegetables and fruits in your diet helps you maintain a pimple/acne free healthy and radiant skin.

Exercise regularly

There are no short cuts here. But that doesn’t mean that you go running to the nearest gym to register. Regular exercise means body movement, may it be running, jogging, walking a few kilo meters, any out door game that involves body movement. If you do enroll in a gym and do a workout regularly, its a bonus.  You may ask what does exercise help you get a radiant skin? Let me explain, what exercise does is it pumps your blood, gets it moving around your body that in turn creates a healthy body. Have you ever seen the glow on your face after a shower (after your workout) thats the kind of radiance you can expect after each and every regular exercise session you have.

Sun Rays Are More Harmful than they seem.

So sun tans are good, yeah! ? Off course they are good, but over exposure to the sun may lead to wrinkles/folded skin. A hat is your friend against the scorching heat if you cannot avoid harsh sun rays. The UV rays can cause blemishes to your skin, to prevent this use some good sun screen lotion (make sure it suits your skin type ). Radiant skin awaits you if you can shield yourself off these Sun rays.

Avoid Cosmetics Over Usage

Ladies this ones for you!

Cosmetic products that are heavy on chemical ingredients may cause skin allergies or even lead to skin cancer due to excessive usage.  So the mantra is clear for a radiant and healthy skin avoid excess usage of cosmetics.

Avoid Stress

Stress = Cigarettes or Alcohol or Both = Wrinkles, blotches etc. Avoid them, avoid stress. Lead a cheerful life, smile away.

Follow all these and get a radiant skin.

Most of us, I believe in their teens were pretty worried about pimples or the more familiar name “Acne”. Even if you didn’t have them, you would keep on applying various ointments and creams for prevention. What you did unknowingly was take care of your skin. Lets learn about what skin care is all about in detail.

You need to know your skin type before you do skin care.  Have you noticed that every person has a unique skin type.So lets begin with the different types of skins (off course in humans ):

Our skin is lubricated by oil glands i.e sebaceous glands that produce sebum. The proportion in which these glands are active or inactive decides the skin type.

• Dry Skin Type

Low or reduced activity of sebaceous glands lead to this type of skin. Its prominent by its dryness, dull appearance and sometimes slight white patches are noticeable.  Proper and regular hydration internally by drinking fresh water regularly and internally  using mists is required to maintain proper balance. Use of moisturizers (suggested by a proper dermatologist) can also help cope with the dryness.

• Normal skin type The best skin type or should we say, the most sought skin type is the normal skin. This skin type is blessed with a balanced or moderate secretion of oil by the sebum glands, thus producing a healthy, glowing and vibrant skin. But even this skin type has to be maintained by proper skin care and application of proper moisturizers etc.
• Oily or greasy skin typeExactly opposite to the dry skin type, sebaceous glands are highly active n this skin type. They produce oil quantities that are higher than required. This is quite harmful as the higher oil quantity produced attracts a lot of dust particles, causes abundance of black heads (on the nose) and leads to acne as well. This is the skin type that’s most prone to acne. Acne are caused due to sebum being trapped inside the skin,  leading to formation of pus filled comodones.  But this skin type maintains a youthful look over a longer period of time. Proper nurturing of this skin (like face massage and facials/face masks) provides a lot of benefits.
• Sensitive skin typeThis skin type can qualify as a skin condition, but we include it as a skin type to generalize. This type of skin can be any of the above three namely Dry, Oily or Normal. These are an easily recognizable type due to the aggravated sensitivity issue. Highly reactive to changing environmental conditions this skin type requires special care and treatment to maintain healthy condition. Any cosmetic fragrances or any synthetic oil ingredients may cause harm to such type of a skin. Whereas natural skin products are highly beneficial to this skin type.
• Combination skin typeA large number of people display this skin type. At any point in time they display characteristics common to 2 or more skin types. How? Well some of them have oily cheeks, but the forehead, nose  and other parts of their faces might be dry. Or vice versa.

Smooth, healthy, glowing skin! isn’t this what we all crave for. A healthy & balanced diet is the first step to achieving this goal. Healthy & balanced diet is quintessential for skin care. A diet rich in minerals ,vitamins, proteins and carbohydrates and that too in proper balanced proportions leads to a good health and great skin.  Next most important factor is cleanliness, how regularly you keep your skin clear of the bacteria and other germs. Washing your face regularly is recommended. Please do not scrub hard to lighten skin color, scrubbing too hard might lead to skin damage. Wash your face with warm water and mild soap to remove oil, dust & dirt particles, sweat and any other harmful matter.

We will be dealing with Tips for Healthy and Glowing Skin in our next chapter.