When many people think of beauty, they think of the skin. Smooth, porcelain skin is a hallmark of health and beauty. It also reduces the need for other harmful products that are used to mask bad skin, allowing you to enjoy a much more natural and healthy glow.
In this article, we’ll explore some organic strategies for creating healthier skin.
Organic Facials and Face Masks
The whole idea of facial masks is to help nourish the skin, soothe the individual and help to improve skincare while alleviating stress.
It’s a nice idea, so it’s just a shame then that so often these products include harmful, synthetic ingredients that can trigger allergic reactions, damage the skin and potentially even cause other, more serious health problems.
Fortunately, it’s possible to make your own organic mask and to give yourself a natural facial at home. This is the perfect introduction to organic beauty, so it’s a great place for us to start.
Let us start by looking at the benefits of face masks and facials in general. Essentially, the aim of a facial will normally be to open up the pores on the skin and thereby allow them to breathe. At the same time, this helps to unclog the pores that might otherwise be blocked by dirt or bacteria.
This is of course how spots and other blemishes often form, so by using facial products, you can actually reduce the likelihood of that happening.
Meanwhile, many facial products are also designed to help you scrub away the top layer of the skin. This is where dead skin cells and dirt can collect and by removing that layer, you can reveal the much fresher and healthier looking skin underneath. People who use face masks and facials regularly, will often look as though they are glowing!
Another nice benefit is that when you use face masks and scrubs before going out into the sun, it will allow the sun’s rays to penetrate deeper, thereby giving you a healthier boost in vitamin D.
On top of that, face masks are usually left for a short time to be absorbed into the skin. This, combined with the opened up pores and cleared upper skin layer, means that those all-important nutrients are better able to reach the deeper layers of the skin where they can rejuvenate and support your tissue for a healthier look.
As we’ll see in a moment, using the best natural face mask will allow you to enjoy all of these benefits to an even greater extent.
Facials for Relaxation
But let’s not forget the simple pleasure of a facial – especially a natural facial at home. Rubbing in these oils and lotions will essentially feel like a massage right on those tight face and head muscles.
This is ideal for relieving tension headaches and especially when you combine that with the fact that you’re lying back and being indulged, while at the same time probably listening to soothing music.
Most of us spend all our time rushing around feeling very busy while being exposed to toxic and dirty elements in the air. What better to come home and be nourished by a natural organic facial cleanser?
Benefits of Organic Facial Products
As for the benefits of choosing organic facial products, this comes down to the type of ingredients you’re using as well as the experience.
For starters, making your own organic facial products is both a lot cheaper than buying them and a lot more rewarding. These make great gifts that you can give to people and especially if you work hard to keep them looking and smelling beautiful.
And that is where organic products really have the edge. These will be made from essential oils, which creates a very gentle and fully natural-seeming scent that is far more calming and soothing than anything that can be accomplished with harsh chemicals.
What’s more, is that these products will almost always be much healthier for you. That’s because you’re getting the naturally occurring nutrients, vitamins and minerals from the natural products and it’s because you’re able to choose precisely what’s going to go into it.
Moreover, a lot of the unnatural scents, dyes and astringents used in the commercial products will often do more harm than good to the skin. Some of them have been linked with cancer, others with infertility, others still with dementia. The list goes on and it’s not hard to find long lists of ‘ingredients to avoid’. We know this and yet a lot of people carry on using them!
Just some of the harmful agents included in non-organic skin care products include coal tar, DEA, ethoxylated surfactants, formaldehyde, parfum, hydroquinone, lead and mercury.
Common Ingredients and Getting Started
There are a ton of common ingredients you can choose to make your own organic mask or organic facial cleanser.
One of the most popular methods is to make a facial scrub using sugar and coconut oil. Here, the coconut oil will nourish the skin and hold the mixture together in a pleasant lubricant, while the sugar will provide the slight corrosion needed to open up the pores and remove those dead skin cells on the surface.
All you need is:
• ¼ cup of granulated sugar
• ½ cup of coconut oil
• 1 tablespoon of citrus fruit zest (optional)
• ½ teaspoon of citrus essential oil
Of course, this also has the rather pleasing added bonus of saving you a lot of money versus shop-bought options!
Generally though, common ingredients you’ll want to stock up on include avocado, oatmeal, honey, lemon, banana, melon, coconut oil and all of the essential oils. Pretty much any essential oil will act as a great massage oil that also nourishes and protects the skin.
Another option is to go out and buy yourself a ready-made organic face mask.
Organic Sunscreen
It’s a less obvious option for improve your skincare regime, but sunscreen is important if you want your skin to look great for years to come.
Organic sunscreen and after sun care are some of the most important items to add to your organic shopping list…
Spend too long out in the sun and you’re going to get burned! This is one of the most unfortunate facts about spending time outside and it’s one of the only ways in which this isn’t a way to improve your health.
Otherwise, spending more time in the sun means more vitamin D, stronger bones, better sleep and more fresh air.
So with that in mind, it’s just a real shame that the sun’s rays are so damaging. The question then becomes: how can you get all those benefits without the downsides?
One answer is to use the right products – with the right aftersun and the right sunblock, it’s possible to greatly improve your overall health by nourishing your skin and by deflecting the sun’s rays. And with the right organic sunscreen and moisturiser, you can do this in a way that is free from harmful chemicals.
Why Use Organic Sun Products?
This may come as a surprise but 75% of sunscreens are made with toxic chemicals. Specifically, they can actually release freeradicals when they are exposed to sunlight. This is bad news seeing as free radicals and oxidative damage is one of the key things that you would wear sunscreen in order to try and prevent.
Usually, you wear sunblock in order to deflect the sun’s rays and specifically, the harmful UV (ultraviolet) rays that can cause mutations to the cells. These rays can damage the cell walls making your skin look older but more alarming is that they can also penetrate deeper into the nucleus of the cell where they can impact on the actual DNA.
This causes mutations that then spread as the cells proliferate – thereby leading to cancer. Free radicals do the exact same thing and according to the Environmental Working Group, synthetic sunblocks increase free radical exposure.
Others cause allergic reactions and damage the skin. Many can contain synthetic estrogens which can prevent men from producing enough testosterone. And all of them get absorbed into the blood stream.
Think about that next time you’re lathering some on without really knowing what went into it! Oh and those estrogenic compounds (including oxybenzone, methoxycinnamate and PABA) are all also potentially cancer-causing.
What many of these products do do however, is to prevent the positive benefits of the sun such as vitamin D production!
Another issue is that sunscreens aren’t actually regulated in the US – and they haven’t been since 1978. The only information you can glean from the packaging in most cases is the SPF factor but this doesn’t tell you anything about the effectiveness of the product against UVB rays.
In fact, the FDA is quoted as saying:
“The FDA is not aware of data demonstrating that sunscreen use alone helps prevent skin cancer”
And after sun lotions and self-tanning lotions aren’t much better! There’s no doubt about it, the best sun cream is an organic sun cream!
How to Make Your Own Organic Sunblock
The thing to recognize is that you can use any ingredient that is able to reflect the harmful rays of the sun. And guess what? A vast majority of oils you’ll find naturally actually do reflect these harmful rays to some degree – at least to the same extent as regular sunblocks and often moreso!
Here is a list of natural ingredients and the amount of sun production they can each offer:
• Almond oil – SPF 5
• Coconut oil – SPF 4-6
• Zinc oxide – SPF 2-20
• Red raspberry seed oil – SPF 25-50
• Carrot seed oil – SPF 35-40
• Shea butter – SPF 4-6
So any of these ingredients will act as an organic sunblock and do just the trick if you’re trying to protect yourself from sun damage!
Of course you’ll need to add a few other things as well in order to make this into the best sun cream. Otherwise, it won’t have the right smell or viscosity to fulfil this use!
So follow this recipe:
• ½ cup of almong oil
• ¼ cup of coconut oil
• ¼ cup beeswax
• 2 tablespoons zinc oxide
• Essential oils for smell
You can then mix these altogether by heating them over a pan of hot water. Stir well and then add to mason jars!
It might seem like a fair bit of work but what’s key to note is that you’ll be able to create a huge amount of product like this and then store it for repeated use. In the long term, it’s a great time saver and definitely a money saver!
How to Make Your Own Organic After-Sun
As for after-sun, this is something you can easily create using any number of organic products you already have around the home. For example, any essential oil that is moisturising and antiinflammatory will work great as after sun by helping your skin to repair itself and restoring the lost moisture.
Likewise, a lot of people like to use coconut oil, which is again filled with nutrients as well as being naturally cooling. Many essential oils also have an analgesic effect too – such as lavender oil or eucalyptus which is also antispasmodic.
Buying After Skin Care Products
The key thing to look out for here is that the product lists its ingredients. Many “organic products” are not really true to their word and a warning sign is if they don’t include a full list of what’s going into them.
Try to make a habit of always wanting to know what’s going into or onto your body. That’s the key to a successful and healthy organic lifestyle.