Looking your best means that you have not overlooked the details; here are a few beauty and wellness hacks to make you look and feel good.
Green Tea is a powerful skin tonic and adds radiance. Take half a cup of water and bring it to a boil. Put tea leaves in a ceramic bowl. Pour hot water over it and keep for 2 minutes. Strain and cool. Apply on the face with cotton wool to tone the skin. Leave on. Or, apply cold compress of chamomile tea to add a glow to the skin, using chamomile tea bags.
Honey, a powerful natural moisturizer, makes a good scrub ingredient. Coarsely crushed sesame seeds can be mix with honey to make a scrub. Apply on face and hands. After 10 minutes, rub gently on the skin with small circular strokes. Wash off.
A “pick-me-up” face mask can leave your skin clean and glowing. After cleansing, mix honey with egg white and apply on the face. For dry skin, mix honey with egg yolk and a little milk. Leave it on for half an hour and rinse off with water.
Oily skins can also be short of moisture, especially during the dry season. To moisturize oily skin, mix one teaspoon pure glycerin with 100 ml rose water. Keep in an airtight jar in the fridge. Apply a little of the lotion to relieve dryness, without making the skin oily.
Fruit packs add radiance and may be applied daily. Mix grated apples with ripe papaya pulp and mashed banana. Add yogurt to the mixture. Apply on the face. Wash off after 20 minutes. It also removes tan and softens the skin.
The skin around the eyes is thin and delicate. It acquires lines and wrinkles easily. Daily apply pure almond oil sparingly and massage lightly, using only the ring finger, for one minute under each eye.
The skin of the lips is also thin and delicate. After washing the face, when lips are wet, rub them gently with a soft towel to remove dead skin. Then apply cream of milk and leave on for an hour. At night, apply pure almond oil daily on the lips and leave on overnight.
For a body scrub, take one cup olive oil and mix with Epsom salts or sugar. Add a little grated lemon rind. Apply on the body and rub gently before bath. Wash off while bathing.
For dry hair, a simple solution is to mix some water with hair conditioner and put it in a spray bottle. Spray the mixture on the hair and then comb the hair, so that it spreads through the hair. Leave on. It may be used on dry or wet hair. It helps to make the hair appear smooth and even tames frizz.
Sometimes, when we apply nail varnish, it can smear around the nail, on the cuticles or on the skin surrounding the nail. Apply a little lip balm with a cotton bud on the skin where varnish is smeared. The lip balm softens the area and also prevents the skin from catching the colour. Wipe the skin once the nail varnish has dried.
In Ayurveda, ginger is known as “a universal remedy” because it has so many benefits. Boil ginger in water to make ginger tea. It helps digestion and heals cough and cold. In winter, spices can be added to tea. Among these are, cardamom, cinnamon, ginger or lemon grass. You can also add spices to tea itself, like Ginger, Cardamon (elaichi), Cinnamon (dalchini) or pepper to keep the body warm.
Good health and fitness have many benefits where the appearance is concerned. Along with exercise, adopt a healthy eating pattern, with an emphasis on fresh fruits, unrefined cereals, salads, sprouts, lightly cooked vegetables, yogurt, skimmed milk, clear soups and fresh fruit juices. Your diet should be low in fats, sugar and starch, but high in vitamins and minerals. This kind of diet will raise your level of fitness and also enhance beauty. Do not eliminate fats altogether, because some Vitamins are fat soluble.