Instant Glow

So you’ve just reached home after a nerve-wrecking day at the office and have to leave immediately for a dinner party thrown by your husband’s most revered business client. How to get that glow in a flash? You could cheat and layer on the blusher, but a better option would be to try this: simply mix equal amounts of lemon and honey, apply it to your face and wash off after ten minutes.

Banana Rama
For a great homemade face softener, try this: mash a banana and apply it to your face. Leave on for ten minutes and wash off with lukewarm water. Your face feels like satin. Plus, it puts those over ripe gooey bananas to good use!

Skincare Tips and Beauty Advice

We as women, spend a lot of our time putting on makeup, polishing our nails, doing our hair, whatever we can do to help enhance our natural beauty. When it comes to our faces, there are few things more important to take care of than our skin. When the skin on our faces is healthy, there is a beautiful glow that will add to anybodys beauty.

All too many of the available treatments out there come paired with an outrageous price tag. In addition to being pretty expensive, it can be very difficult to tell if the product is all it cracks up to be. Who wants to purchase a pricey product just to find out it doesn’t deliver? Here are a few excellent home skincare remedies you will want to try. They’re inexpensive and easy to create – you probably have the ingredients already in your kitchen! These skincare beauty tips will help you maintain healthy younger-looking skin without spending a fortune.

One thing that is critical for your skins health is to exfoliate your face on a regular basis. This will help get rid of the dead skin cells that can cause a dull look to your skin. When you exfoliate away the dead skin cells, you support the growth of new skin cells. This process will keep your skin looking younger longer. My personal favorite exfoliating scrub is one that you can make yourself. It is a simple recipe of sugar and honey mixed together. I usually use a one to one ratio when mixing the two together. Sugar is a really great exfoliating instrument because it is not too abrasive for the sensitive and delicate skin on your face. Beautifully, honey also has a moisturizing effect on the skin so it is very beneficial to the face in keeping a moisture balance.

Keeping the moisture balance in your skin is extremely important. Applying a face mask about once a week will help rejuvenate your skin by deeply moisturizing it. Keeping your face properly hydrated will always help improve your skin tone. Instead of spending a lot of money on a deep moisturizing treatment, try using yogurt. Plain yogurt with no additives can be purchased from almost any natural foods store. The yogurt can be applied to your face and left on for about five to ten minutes just like you would leave any face mask on. The yogurt will help your face regain its moisture balance. The natural acidophilus in the yogurt will also help kill any unwanted bacteria which may help clear up minor acne.

By trying these homemade beauty tips and skincare remedies, you can keep your skin looking amazing without breaking the bank. Improving your natural beauty can make your daily makeup regimen more simple. It can also allow you to get away with wearing less makeup in the first place. Now that’s refreshing!

If you are trying to save money by scaling back on your beauty products, chances are you’ll find some inexpensive treatments — just like the ones your mother or grandmother swore by — in your own kitchen.

“Many of us get caught up in the excitement of new products,” said Cheryl Kramer Kaye, beauty director for Redbook magazine. “But if you take a look around, you’ll find some ingredients at home that may work just as well.”

Though she admits to being a beauty-product junkie, Kramer Kaye says using natural kitchen ingredients helps reduce your dependency on preservatives that extend a product’s shelf life. (But remember: homemade mixtures can spoil quickly and should be used right away.)

Exfoliate
Create your own spa scrub by combining 1/2 cup of brown or refined sugar with 1/2 cup of olive oil. Apply to wet skin making small circles, then rinse. You can mix sugar with your favorite face or body cleanser. (Sugar is gentler than sea salt, Kramer Kaye said.)

 

 

 

In The Black Book of Hollywood Beauty Secrets by Kym Douglas and Cindy Pearlman (Penguin, $15), Queen Latifah reveals she uses baking soda to exfoliate. The singer and actress says she rubs her wet face with baking soda to slough off dead skin — a trick she learned from her grandmother. (Also try brushing your teeth with baking soda to brighten them.)

Lifeless skin
We all know a cup of java can give you a morning boost, but you can also use coffee grounds to give your skin a little pep. Apply the grounds to wet skin to exfoliate and tighten, especially to the buttocks and thighs. Green tea has the same effect. (The caffeine tones and tightens your skin.)

Dull hair
Winter’s dryness can leave hair dull and lifeless. To add a little shine, combine 1/2 cup of apple-cider vinegar with 1/2 cup of water. Pour it onto your hair as a final rinse; it will help reduce product buildup, which contributes to dullness.

Itchy, dry skin
There’s a common belief hot baths moisturize your skin. Not true, said Kramer Kaye. They actually drain your body of natural oils. She suggests adding a quart of milk (skim or whole) to your bath water, which shouldn’t be too hot. The lactic acid in milk helps soften the skin, and milk proteins help relieve skin irritation. Milk baths go back to Roman times; Cleopatra used them to exfoliate her skin.

Moisturizer
Honey can help hydrate the skin and reduce oil. A natural humectant, it draws water into the skin, and it has antibacterial properties that can help heal acne. Warm 1/2 cup of honey in the microwave and apply it to damp skin. Leave on 10 minutes and rinse thoroughly, then moisturize.

Puffy eyes
The age-old tradition of using cucumbers to reduce puffy eyes still works, Kra-mer Kaye said. Cucumbers are a natural astringent and reduce inflammation. Purée a cucumber in a blender, apply over entire eye area and leave on 15 minutes, then rinse.

Acne
Those who suffer with acne way past the teen years are always looking for a remedy. In The Black Book of Hollywood Beauty Secrets, celebrity skin-care specialist Sonya Dakar recommends mixing dry yeast with water until it’s pastelike. Dot the mixture on pimples and let it dry overnight. The yeast kills bacteria and dries out zits.

 

Makeup remover
National hairstylist Philip B., founder of the Philip B. line of botanical hair and skin products and author of Blended Beauty: Botanical Secrets for Body & Soul (Ten Speed Press, $19.95), offers an easy recipe for a makeup remover. Mix 1 tablespoon each of canola, castor, olive and avocado oils in a small cosmetic bottle. Shake it gently to mix thoroughly, then apply the mixture to the eye area with a cotton ball. Store at room temperature and discard after five days.

Do-it-yourself beauty tips, starring sugar, honey and avocados

 

While copious amounts of shampoos, conditioners, face scrubs and body soaps fill the aisles of CVS, it is quite possible that the incomprehensible ingredients listed on the back of the bottle came from nuclear waste. Behentrimonium chloride? Hydroxyethyl palmitamide? Seriously?

 

Placing blind faith in cosmetics companies seems risky these days, especially after reports of lead-containing lipstick and companies fighting laws that mandate reporting cancer-causing chemicals. Instead of wasting your time wondering what potentially dangerous chemicals you are lathering on your body, try these homemade beauty items, guaranteed to contain natural, non-toxic ingredients that can be found in any kitchen or grocery store.

Soften your skin

 

What you need:

 

    * Natural or raw sugar

    * Olive oil

    * Honey

    * Lemon or orange juice

 

Benefit Boutique proprietor Christian VanBrimmer recommends this sugar scrub for dry face or skin. If you’re using it on the body, mix olive oil with sugar until you achieve a liquid, grainy consistency. For the face, add small amounts of olive oil, honey and lemon juice for a scrub that is “super easy, super fabulous and super simple,” VanBrimmer said.

Diminish your pores

 

What you need:

 

    * Honey

    * Egg whites

 

If your pores resemble tiny donuts, use this mixture to minimize their appearance. Separate the white from the egg, and mix in a spoonful of honey. Apply the mixture evenly to your face. Once it has dried, use cold water to remove it. Repeat every two weeks to reduce pore size and even out skin tone.

Rejuvenate your hair

 

What you need:

 

    * Olive oil

    * Honey

    * Plastic bathing cap

    * Shampoo

 

Mix two tablespoons of olive oil and one tablespoon of honey into a plastic bag. Place the bag into a cup of hot water. Once the mixture is warm, massage it into your hair and cover your head with a plastic cap. After 15 minutes, shampoo your hair as normal. This hot oil treatment will restore your hair and leave your locks light and shiny.

Exfoliate your face

 

What you need:

 

    * Milk

    * Salt

 

In a bowl, thoroughly mix a half cup of milk and a half teaspoon of salt. Use a cotton ball to dab the mixture over the forehead and face. Leave it on for two to three minutes and re-apply. After the mixture is dry, rub your face in circular motions and then rinse. The salt exfoliates dead cells and the milk nourishes the skin, giving it a brighter and fresher sheen.

Deep-condition your hair

 

What you need:

 

    * Avocado

    * Mayonnaise

    * Olive oil

    * Plastic shower cap

 

Place a peeled, cored avocado, a quarter to half cup of mayonnaise (depending on hair length), and two tablespoons of oil in a bowl. Mix until smooth. Apply the mixture to your hair as you would conditioner and place a shower cap over your head. Let it sit in your hair for 20 to 30 minutes, then rinse the mixture off in the shower.

 

This recipe will deep-condition your hair and make it strong and smooth.

Remove your hair’s excess product build-up

 

What you need:

 

    * Water

    * Vinegar

 

After repeated use, debris from hair products can build up at the roots of your hair, weakening it and preventing it from reaching its full potential. Combine one cup of water with a quarter cup of vinegar. After shampooing and conditioning, use this to rinse your hair to eliminate build-up.

 

Exfoliate your elbows and knees

 

What you need:

 

    * Ground coffee

    * Sugar

    * Vanilla extract

    * Olive oil

 

Mix a quarter cup of olive oil and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. In a separate bowl, mix a half cup of coffee grinds with a cup of sugar. Combine the two mixtures and blend them into a paste. Soften skin under warm water for five to ten minutes, and massage the scrub in small circles on dry or rough skin, and follow with a shower gel.

 

Note: Do not use this scrub on your face or any broken skin. Use once a week, unless you have particularly dry skin — then use it twice a week.

Other quick-fix remedies

 

Tea bags: VanBrimmer recommends using chamomile tea bags to de-puff the eye area. After brewing tea, place the used tea bags in the refrigerator and place them over the eyes the next morning.

 

Fresh fruits: Fruits, particularly strawberries, can be mashed and applied to the face to brighten the complexion.

 

Ice cubes: Combine one part milk with three parts water, and freeze; cover the frozen cube in a cloth, and rub that over your face to tighten pores and alleviate sunburns.

 

Cucumbers: They’re a quintessential beauty product, but deservingly so: Place a sliced cucumber over the eye for ten minutes to reduce undereye bags.

All-natural product lines

 

If you still prefer to buy your beauty products at the store, consider buying all-natural, chemical-free beauty products. Stella McCartney’s makeup line is all-natural and vegan, and Bare Escentuals is a mineral makeup line with no preservatives.