Are you looking for some seriously indulgent ways to improve the health and appearance of your skin? We thought so! 😊 If you’re anything like us, you’ll want to bring the pampering and extravagance of a spa experience to your own home. Simple products with high quality, natural ingredients aren’t only an excellent choice for the health of our planet, they embody the luxury of the spa experience.
Natural, simple ingredients such as plant extracts, essential oil, and plant butters can also lead to real skincare results.
Natural Facial Exfoliation
Every great work of art needs a prepped canvas. Exfoliation helps skin types that hold onto dry skin, or that tends to be congested, oily, or rough. Exfoliators can be physical (such as scrubs) or chemical (such as AHAs and BHAs). While acid peels have their place in a skincare regimen, we love the simplicity of a customizable scrub made from sugar, base oil (such as olive), and a small amount of the essential oil of your choice.
Packed with deceptively simple—yet powerful—ingredients that lead to real results, sugar scrubs don’t contribute to plastic pollution like some products made with microbeads. (Just a happy bonus, there.) [[[earth emoji]]] Even those whose facial skin doesn’t cry out for exfoliation can scrub away at heels, elbows, or any rough areas. Exfoliation of the body and face can also prevent ingrown hairs and whiskers— especially important for some ethnicities and hair types. (Scrub your legs before shaving for the smoothest legs ever!)
- ½ cup oil (olive is fine for this)
- 1 cup of organic sugar, brown or white
- A few drops of essential oil (optional) like lavender or chamomile
- 1 wide-mouth pint jar with lid
Mix all ingredients and store in a glass air-tight container. Use about a tablespoon as needed in the shower. Scrub skin with the mixture and rinse well. You can substitute an exfoliating soap like this one, which contains seaweed and almond grains.
Cleansing
Whether you choose to exfoliate or not, you’ll still need options for cleansing the skin of the body and face. To get rid of sweat, grime, and makeup (while preventing overdrying), we advocate oil cleansing. Massaging a quality carrier oil (such as almond, olive, jojoba, or grapeseed) into the face in a circular motion will break up residual makeup and cosmetics, all of which then gets whisked away without leaving your epidermis stripped of natural moisture.
Apply a small amount of oil to your fingers and massage the oil into the skin, using light pressure. Spend a minute or two paying special attention to problem areas like dryness, under eye puffiness, or blackheads. Finish your facial massage by closing your eyes and lightly rubbing lashes and brows to remove mascara or any other eye makeup.
After this thoroughly pampering oil cleanse, grab a clean, warm, damp washcloth and gently wipe off the oil and debris. To be extra thorough, you can repeat the oil cleanse and remove using the clean side of your washcloth. We’re aiming for thoroughness!
Balms and Oils for Treatment and Moisturizing
Hydrating oils and rich vegetable butters keep ingredients simple and while not sacrificing the luxurious, pampering qualities we associate with the spa experience. Facial oil acts as a nourishing delivery system for botanical actives. Balms, solid at room temperature, become a lavishly protective layer between our epidermis and the world.
Make your own moisturizing oil by adding a couple drops of skin-aiding essential oils, like helichrysum or rose (for fine lines and age spots), tea tree or lavender (for acneic conditions) or chamomile or calendula (to calm inflammation) to your carrier oil. Tip: use the same oil you use in the oil cleansing process, but add active extracts for extended beneficial effect.
Balms have the added benefit of shelf stability and portability, and take their potent protective qualities as occlusive moisturizers from ingredients like shea butter, beeswax, and cocoa butter. Include nutrient-rich botanicals and essential oils, and you’ve got a product not only fantastic for facial skin (especially lips and eye area), but also great in a pinch for cuticles, tips of hair, rough elbows and heels, etc.
Active balms stimulate cell renewal, fight free radical damage, and support skin elasticity. Check out this one for its brightening and smoothing ingredients.
Above are just a few of the decadent products that you can buy or make, and incorporate into your home spa regimen. Keep in mind that consistent efforts over time will only reward you further, with increased skin health as well as overall wellbeing and stress mitigation.
Shaving
Of course no skin care treatment or spa experience is complete without shaving. The only ingredient you need for a close, smooth, clean, natural shave is—you guessed it—water. Shaving gels and creams contain toxic chemicals that harm your skin and the environment. Use Aqua Jet Razor for your ultimate natural wet shave and say goodbye to that toxicity for good.
Aqua Jet Razor runs on water. Water runs through the unit, out from between the blades, and onto your skin, creating the cleanest, most natural moisturizer you can get for shaving. This design also means the unit is continually cleaned while your using it, purging hair and skin oils from between the blades, preventing the buildup that causes irritation like shaving bumps and ingrown hair. You have to try it.
