With the onset of the winter weather, deadlines looming, new friends and your weekly food shop, the last thing students need is the adolescent problem of bad skin creeping its way onto our to do lists. Especially with the unforgiving flash of professional club photos, managing to catch every embarrassing dance move and awkward blemish: it seems only a rare breed of girl can manage to look non-shiny and put together. Is it her make-up? Is she just lucky? Was Maybelline right and is she simply born with it? No. My prediction is that she just has a good skin routine.
Enter the secrets of homemade facemasks. Before getting down to the technical stuff, it is important to remember to only use facemasks on special occasions or as recommended by this blog – once a fortnight. I have a beauty superstition that if used too often, your skin might become immune to their magical powers! Secondly, do not opt out and buy a cheap facemask at your local Superdrug, it would be filled with double the unnecessary ingredients and would only be half the fun! Stay au naturel.
Classic Winter Facemask
I tend to suffer from dry skin in the winter, with the occasionally oily T-zone, and my ultimate skin aim is to always have cheeks as soft as a baby’s bottom; so I go with the timeless avocado, honey and yogurt facemask.
1) Chop, blend or smash half an Avocado into a bowl–:
Avocado is an amazing beauty ingredient for skin, hair and everything in between, and for those of you on a student budget like me; you can get four lovely avocados for just 99p at Morrison’s.
2) Add two tablespoons of Honey –
Honey is often my answer to any beauty problem, if you’re familiar with the heavenly but devastatingly pricey Elizabeth Arden 8 hour cream – honey proves to be a close and gooey second.
3) One tablespoon of Yogurt –
Natural Yogurt contains anti-bacterial and soothing properties, so is good for cleansing spot-prone skin.
Once you’ve made this a couple of times, you can get comfortable with messing about with the quantities and adding extra ingredients. Lemon is good to lighten sun-damaged or oily skin; milk adds extra softness, oats contain anti-inflammatory ingredients and can soothe skin, and bananas are a moisturizing, soothing and brightening blessing on all skin types.
So you can pretty much throw anything (within reason) in there.
Mini facemask – Got Milk?
I use this as a kind of ‘pre-face mask’ particularly in early autumn, when I’m still suffering from sun damaged skin. You simply splash a handful of milk over your face, and then it will usually dry and be ready to wash off within 10 minutes. This cleanses your skin and leaves it feeling very soft. As it has milder effects, use this mask if you’re in a rush or to cleanse your skin before putting on another.
TOP TIP: When face-masking, always wash your face before applying with WARM water, and then rinse with COOL water.
Finally, these facemasks can have different effects on those with exceptional circumstances, so just to reiterate I am by no means an expert – just a girl who likes to put food on her face.
First two pictures from peaceloveshea.com /top-6-homemade-face-masks/slide-1
Last picture from Drjillsmithbeautyblog.com/beauty-productstips/want-great-skin-get-milk/