Friday 6 June 2014

Facemask Friday

I used to have a favourite Lush fresh face mask, called Oatifix, but as much as I love Lush products, they are pretty pricey and are only an occasional treat. However, a while ago I received this book as a gift, Carla Oates' Feeding Your Skin, a collection of DIY natural chemical-free recipes for every type of  beauty product possible, from masks and scrubs to the more unexpected hair dyes and nail polish, using things in your kitchen cupboards.


Being on a budget at the moment, I decided to forgo the expensive Lush products for my poor dry skin, and instead raided the cupboards to see what I could make myself. As it turned out, I had everything I needed for the Lemon Tea Mask recipe.. 



Whittards finest English Breakfast, some might say, is a bit too fancy for slapping on your face, but as I've worked there for years it seems I have acquired a lot of loose leaf tea in my house that doesn't get used nearly often enough, so a use might as well be found for it. The book actually uses tea in a lot of the recipes - there's a black tea and apple cider vinegar tint for dark hair I'm keen to try out! Oats, as it happens, weren't actually in the mask recipe above, but in the name of experimentation and trying to replicate my Lush favourite, I chucked a handful in anyway. It actually made the rather sloppy mixture much thicker and easier to use as a mask. 


What I effectively ended up with was a sort of tea-and-lemon-flavoured porridge mix. On the face it went, and it wasn't a half bad replica actually - after 20 minutes my dry skin is looking a bit less hopeless. I'd love to share a picture of the mask in action, but unfortunately -  in the style of Mrs Doubtfire - great lumps kept falling off if I dared to move. I think this could be rectified by perhaps more milk powder or oats to thicken it up, but I think the recipe, and others in the book, are a great starting point to adapt and add to. I'll certainly be making up batches of my own products regularly and testing them out! 

Any great facemask recipes I should try out?


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