Food Facials That Nourish Your Skin
It’s not easy being skin in a world that’s full of toxins. Not only does your skin have to battle toxins, but the sun can cause damage as well. Most people really don’t give the job that their skin does a lot of thought.
It’s just there. They start to notice it whenever there’s an outbreak, an infection, or a rash that pops up. And you might not realize the toll that your eating, sleeping and lifestyle habits can take on your skin.
While genetics do come into play (and so does age) when it comes to how your skin looks, there are some simple facials you can use to rejuvenate your skin and make it shine with that healthy glow.
Why Use Food Facials?
Food facials are natural and don’t contain ingredients that can harm the skin. They’re relatively inexpensive and easy to whip up right in your own home. Plus, food facials are always jam packed with good-for-your-skin ingredients like antioxidants.
These antioxidants don’t just fight off stuff that can damage your skin, but antioxidants are great at restoring skin that’s been damaged. If you’ve suffered damage from toxins, the sun or irritants, a food facial can help repair the cell changes you’ve encountered.
Food facials can offer you a ton of benefits that will help you see the difference when you look in the mirror. For one, they can help tone the skin. When you use a food facial, the ingredients in the mask work to tighten the pores.
As the pores are tightened, your skin feels and looks firmer. Your skin undergoes a lot of stress just during a normal day, much less any days that you’re doing additional things that can impact the health of your skin.
When you go through your day, the things that you do can impact the pH balance of your skin. If this balance is upset, you’ll see it. When the pH balance isn’t right, your skin can become too dry.
It can also become too oily. You might notice red patches or areas of flaky skin. The balance must be kept between a certain pH balance and something as simple as washing the hands can change the pH balance for your hands.
In the shower, the shampoo that you use can leave a residue on your skin that can upset the balance. Though most products are pH balanced, not all of them are.
You can tell if you’re running into a problem with your skin’s balance if you start to notice that after exertion or after being in warmer temperatures, your sweat has a stronger, more distinctive odor.
If you notice that, it’s a sign that the alkaline is off kilter. Some people might not think keeping the skin balanced is a big deal. But one of the things the pH level does is help to prevent bacteria from entering the body through the skin. If the pH balance is off, your skin can become an open door for bacteria.
The Honey Facial
Honey is a natural facial that can work wonders for your skin. It’s loaded with antibacterial ingredients, so if there is bacteria lurking on your skin, honey can fight that for you.
These antibacterial properties can help prevent acne flare-ups as well as other skin infections. It’s also full of antioxidants which can keep cell damage at bay and since your skin is exposed to so much that can cause damage, you definitely want this.
But that’s not all that the antioxidants in honey can do if you use it as a facial. These little gems are some of nature’s best weapons for helping you fight the battle against aging skin.
You end up with younger looking skin, thanks to the anti-aging properties of honey. Plus, honey is great to use for hydrating the skin – so after you use it, you’ll notice that you have that refreshing glow to your face.
Because it can hydrate the face, it works wonders to put an end to dry skin. When you use a honey facial mask, your skin will go through a deep cleansing because honey is known to open up pores.
That means that if you’re struggling with clogged pores, honey can put an end to that. And unlike the chemical facials that you can buy at the store, honey doesn’t upset the natural pH balance of the skin.
So you won’t have to worry that you’re going to end up with dry or oily skin after using it. Some people have struggled for as long as they can remember with problem skin or common skin irritations, so they avoid using facials.
But because honey is all natural and soothing, it can be used even on problem skin. Anyone can use honey as a facial, regardless of the skin type. You want to make sure that you use raw honey and not any kind of processed honey.
The processed types of honey aren’t good for the skin. Because these types have undergone processing, the majority of the health benefits that honey was had is long gone.
So it wouldn’t do you any good to use processed honey. It’s best to make sure that the honey is warmed before you attempt to apply it. You can do this one of two ways.
You can gently warm it a little at a time by putting some in a glass container that you place into a sink full of hot water or you can warm it in a pot. If you do warm it in a pot, you need to make sure that there aren’t any hot zones left in the honey before you use.
So test it first before you apply it to your face. You need to warm the honey until it’s smooth enough for you to be able to easily spread it. Honey that’s a cooler temperature will be thick and not as easy to work with.
If you heat it on the stove, don’t put the pot it’s in directly on the source of heat. Instead, put a pot within a pot to heat it with water in the lower pot. Let that water boil and as soon as it does, remove it from heat and test the temperature of the honey.
If it’s cool enough, then put it on your face in a very thin layer. You want to leave it on anywhere between 10-15 minutes. Rinse your face completely when you’re finished.
Avocado Facials
Not only are avocados tasty, but they’re also fantastic to use as a facial. You’ll find that avocados are packed with skin boosting benefits. They’re known to roll back the years that take a toll on the skin.
So if you’re looking for younger skin, this is the mask that you want to use. If your skin has been having problems with the pH balance, an avocado facial can help to restore that.
It’s known to treat dry skin as well as skin that has lost its luster. This food is packed with antioxidants and minerals that help hydrate the skin. Using an avocado for your facial gives you a surge of skin healing vitamins.
These vitamins contain helpful boosters that get to work fixing what life has damaged on the skin of your face. When you use it, the avocado properties go deep into the skin to make sure that you’re not losing moisture as quickly as you have been.
A lack of moisture is one way that your skin suffers and you end up with red, dry or itchy skin. If you’ve been using expensive creams or lotions in an attempt to moisturize your face and they haven’t worked, it’s because these over the counter treatments don’t make it past the first layer of skin like an avocado facial can.
And one of the biggest bonuses with avocados is that they contain retinol. This is what helps to stimulate your body to produce collagen. When your body produces collagen, your skin ends up looking younger, smoother and the problem areas are effectively treated.
Plus, avocados are known to fight things like free radicals that can cause a lot of damage to the skin. If you’re someone who’s experienced sun damage, using an avocado facial mask can help restore the cells that were damaged.
To make this revitalizing mask is easy and convenient. Choose a ripe avocado, cut it in half and take out the pit. Place the insides of the avocado in a dish and use a whisk to stir it until it’s smooth.
Gently put the mixture onto your face lightly, but don’t rub it in. Place it on the face until all the areas are covered. Set a timer so that you can remove the mixture after about 15 minutes of use. When you’re done, rinse your face with warm water.
Mango Facial
Mangoes are not only delicious, but they contain a wealth of vitamins. They’re loaded with the important B vitamins including B6. The minerals in the mango are part of a healthy diet – not just for you to eat – but for your face as well.
Because the fruit contains Vitamin C, it can help fight skin irritations or the overproduction of oil and other issues that can lead to an acne outbreak. Not only can this fruit help you be able to say goodbye to acne, but it also minimizes the damage left behind by scars.
The Vitamin A in the mango is an antioxidant. Any fruit that contains an antioxidant is known for helping to restore a youthful vitality to the face. Not only that, but the mango helps promote the growing of new cells that can boost your body’s collagen production process.
Plus, it helps restore the firmness of the skin tone, so that any wrinkles look smoother. For this reason, the mango is often referred to as an anti aging food. The fruit is a combination skin healer in that if you have skin that’s too oily, the mango works to help clear the pores.
If you have skin that’s too dry, the mango helps hydrate the skin. So it’s great to use for people of any skin type including those with sensitive skin. If you’re someone who likes to have fun in the sun, using a mango facial can also help keep the damage that the sun’s ultraviolet rays can do to your face at bay.
Making a mango mask is super easy, but you need to be careful that you don’t get any of the peel into the mixture. The peel of the mango has urushiol, and if that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the same chemical that gives poison ivy its itchy, painful reaction when you come in contact with it.
So if you’re someone who has a bad reaction to poison ivy or poison sumac, you’ll need to be extremely careful with this fruit. You can use mango as the only ingredient in the mask or it can be mixed with other natural food items.
If you use it as the only ingredient, just peel the fruit and place the pulp into a bowl. Make sure you mix it so that it’s a creamy consistency so that it spreads easily across the face.
Put the mask onto your face and leave it on for about 10 minutes before rinsing with warm water. If you decide that you want to mix it with another food item, you can mix it with avocado for additional helpful benefits to your skin.
If you’re experiencing a skin flare up, you might try mixing the mango with honey since honey can soothe away irritants because of the anti-inflammatory properties it contains.
It can also be mixed with yogurt. If you want to focus on a strong exfoliating ingredient, then add a couple of teaspoons of plain oatmeal.
Lemon Juice Facial
Like fruits, lemon juice is packed with a ton of helpful minerals and vitamins that are good for your skin. Because it’s very acidic, some people might find that using lemon juice on the face tends to sting the skin.
If this is the case with you, you’ll find it helpful to mix the lemon juice with just a little bit of water so that it’s not as acidic. Your face goes through a lot in life and your skin takes the brunt of living.
The face especially can fall prey to the harshness of things you have to deal with in life. You can end up with scars or areas of the skin where the skin tone is no longer even.
You can develop skin irritations and as you grow older, you might start to notice certain dark areas known as age spots have cropped up. Using lemon juice as a facial can help with all of that.
It alleviates the pigment changes in the skin that make scars more noticeable and it lightens age spots. Because it’s loaded with antibacterial properties, it can be used to treat common skin problems – including minor rashes and acne.
It can be used as part of a regular facial routine to keep acne from developing. The skin on your face can become coated with a build up of oil the skin secretes as well as other things and when you use a lemon juice facial, the ingredients strip away the build up, which leaves you with younger looking skin.
Because lemon juice is an exfoliant, it will promote the growing of new skin cells, which makes your skin look revitalized. It’s also beneficial for those who have oily skin because the lemon juice cleanses and tones oily skin.
If you have dark places on your skin – or an uneven skin tone, you’ll want to use a lemon juice facial because the juice from lemons is widely known to lighten dark areas on the skin.
Even though it’s acidic and you might think the opposite, lemon juice can moisturize skin. Plus, it can tighten wrinkles and lessen the appearance of fine lines.
To make a lemon facial mask, you can use it straight or you can mix it with water. Some people will put the juice into a spray bottle and spray the mixture directly onto the face.
But the lemon juice can also be mixed with honey. If you choose to mix it with honey, add a tablespoon of raw honey for every half of lemon that you use. Put the mixture on the face, taking care that you don’t get it into the eyes.
Leave it on a minimum of 15 minutes, but the mask can be left on as long as a half hour if your skin can tolerate the acidic nature of the lemon juice. You might want to build up your time with this food mask, since it does have the ability to alter the color of your skin, brightening it as it works topically.
There are many foods that you can use in facial masks. For instance, bananas moisturize your face. Vinegar can tighten up sagging skin. Mayonnaise is a wonderful cleanser.
Don’t ignore anything in your fridge or on your shelves. Look to see if it can be used as a facial mask. For example, even yellow mustard acts as a fantastic stimulant, but not everyone can tolerate it, so you have to do a test spot beforehand.
