DIY Skin care recipes and ingredients you SHOULD try!

Hello again everyone! This is going to be my ''DIY recipes to try'' Article. And by recipes I mean, you know, recipes, actual recipes, and ingredients that you may have seen around the internet, on Youtube, on blogs, etc.. Sometimes even magazines have these. The response to my last article, the DIY recipes not to try, was so overwhelmingly positive, I got really excited to make this one, so let's jump right into it.

1. Honey

The first thing I want to talk about is probably the most common thing that everyone asked about in the comments, and that is honey. Honey is awesome for the skin: completely, totally, fabulously awesome in so many ways. Raw honey is always going to be better than processed honey but even processed honey does have its benefits. If you can get ahold of raw honey, definitely go for it. It makes a huge difference.

But let's talk about what honey does for the skin for a sec. Honey is a humectant, which means it draws moisture into the skin. It has antiseptic qualities, which means you can put it over acne, you can put it even over wounds. Like, my sister's boyfriend had an accident with his hand. He had a giant cut on his hand that started to get infected. He put some raw honey on it and the swelling went down, the pain went down. It was kind of amazing. So honey is definitely a miracle product.

Another type of honey that's really wonderful is called Manuka honey (that is spelled m-a-n-u-k-a) and Manuka honey is great for so many reasons. It has the same sorts of qualities that raw honey does, but it's also really great for digestion, for stomach pains, indigestion, ulcer pain, helps with ulcers in general. It's just really a wonderful product. So if you have acne, if you have dry skin, if you have normal skin and you just want to keep it that way: doesn't matter. Honey is a great ingredient. All of you who are asking about honey: it's absolutely wonderful; you should not worry about it at all. Just try to get raw honey or Manuka honey if you can.

2. The Oil Cleansing Method

The next thing I want to talk about is something called the oil cleansing method. This is gaining a lot of popularity around Youtube and around the blogosphere, as it's called. And basically, it's various types of recipes of different oils combined to use as a cleanser. And I'm sure all of you have heard of different types of cleansing oils, premade cleansing oils, like the Mac Cleanse off oil, or the Shu Uemura oil, Laura Mercier has an oil, and they're getting very popular.

But the benefit to making your own cleansing oil is that you have complete control over what goes into it, so you're not going to get any fillers, you're not going to get any essential oils, fragrances that you don't want in there. Because remember, you do not want fragrance in your skincare products. When you make your own cleansing oil, you can choose from a wide variety of different oils that have different beneficial properties for the skin. I'm working on different recipes, like, if you Google oil cleansing method there are lots and lots of recipes out there, but I personally don't have a list in front of me, so we'll get into that another time.

But if oil cleansing is something that appeals to you, that you've been wanting to try, absolutely look it up. There are like I said, a lot of different oils that are good for different skin types, even oily skin can find some oils that are beneficial. With that, you want to be careful that you're using oils that are appropriate for your skin, because like I said in the last article, certain oils like coconut oil and olive oil are not going to be so good for oily skin or skin that is prone to comedogenic breakouts. So just do a little bit of research and make sure that you're choosing your oils wisely.

3. Fruit Masks

The next thing I want to talk about is fruit masks. Now, there are a lot of different fruits, there are a lot of different recipes for fruit masks. It really doesn't matter what specific recipe you're using, all that matters is that you know if the ingredients in the mask are good for you. I can happily say that there are many, many fruits that have wonderful properties and very beneficial actions on the skin. So, fruits like bananas, any kind of berry is going to be good.

With berries you've got to watch your pH, I'm going to talk about that a little bit later. But, like I said with the lemons, you don't want to use anything that's too low or too high of a pH, because you don't want to throw off your skin's natural pH. But berries are great, cucumbers are great (cucumber's also a fruit), tomatoes are good for oily skin, but again you want to watch the pH. Avocados are also a fruit, and they are great for the skin. Basically, you're just going to want to choose non-citrus fruits, so nothing that has too low of a pH.

And also, you want to avoid using straight pineapple on the skin, even though pineapple does have a really wonderful enzyme that has a nice effect on the skin, you don't want to use straight pineapple itself, because that is just a bit too harsh. You can get the enzyme, which is called bromelain, on its own and use that in masks, but I don't really recommend putting straight pineapple on the skin.

Just like fruits, vegetables have some great properties for the skin as well, so you can feel free to throw some vegetables into your homemade face masks, just as long as you're keeping pH in mind. Generally with vegetable's pH isn't as much of a concern as it is with fruit, but you still want to keep it in mind when you're mixing things at home.

4. Oatmeal

Let's talk about oatmeal. Oatmeal is another very popular one that came up in the comments. And yes, oats are really great for the skin. You just want to watch out for one thing, though: if you have any signs of gluten intolerance, you want to be very careful what kind of oats you use because of the possibility of cross contamination.

And I've talked about this at length before, so I'm not going to get into it too much now, but food intolerances and food allergies have a very strong impact on the skin, so you just want to make sure you know very definitively that what you're putting on your skin is not going to cause a systemic reaction or any sort of inflammatory reaction. So, if you're going to use oats just make sure you're not gluten intolerant. If you are, make sure you're using certified gluten free oats.

But otherwise, oats are really great. They have really great properties for the skin. And there are a lot of really, really overpriced oat masks that are like a little bit of oats and a lot of other crap. But, you know, there's really no reason to have to buy these sorts of pre-made masks that are supposed to be like "fresh masks", like the kinds that Lush makes basically, because you can take these ingredients, put them in a blender, and voila, there you go, you have yourself a fresh face mask. So you can take bananas, oat, and glycerin, and a little bit of clay maybe, and some honey, and that's a great mask right there.

5. Glycerin

I mentioned glycerin. Glycerin is a great ingredient, you can buy it at the drugstore, it's going to be I think in the skin care section. It depends on where you go, but if you can't find it ask someone who works there, they can help you find it. It's very cheap, and it's a wonderful humectant, and just a really great thing to have on hand for a lot of reasons. I use it in my nail polish remover, and you'll find that it's an ingredient in a lot of DIY masks.

6. Aspirin

Another ingredient people asked about a lot was aspirin, and aspirin is also something that's a good thing to try. Especially if you have acne, I've heard that people have really wonderful results with aspirin masks. If you're going to be doing aspirin masks, just keep your pH in mind. Like I said, pH is important, and I'm going to talk about that in the future. But don't mix straight apple cider vinegar into it, don't mix lemon juice into it, mix it with a bit of water. If you want to add a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar or something like that, then that's perfectly fine.

I don't really recommend lemon juice like I said in the past article I don't ever really recommend putting lemons or lemon juice on the skin. Same goes for limes and oranges and all that. But there are great benefits to using aspirin as a skin care treatment, so that is perfectly fine.

7. Egg Mask

Another one that is perfectly safe to use most of the time is an egg mask, or using eggs in your masks. Egg whites have a sort of toning, tightening property, and they can be good for oilier complexions. Assuming that you're allergic to eggs, which I am, so I don't use them. But if you tolerate eggs perfectly well, then you can mix them into your face masks. If you do have oilier skin, a quick egg white mask is a good way to tighten the pores temporarily and reduce a bit of oiliness.

8. Almond milk, Coconut Milk, and Soy Milk

If you're looking for a base for your DIY mask almond milk and coconut milk are great bases. They are very rich in oils and they have great properties for the skin. Almond milk is what I personally use, because like I said millions of times, I'm allergic to pretty much everything, which includes coconut. So I don't use coconut oil or coconut milk. But almond milk is a great carrier if you don't want to use regular milk, which is also fine if you tolerate dairy products. Any sort of milk is fine, as long as you don't have any sort of dietary contraindications, you can use whatever kind of milk base you want.

The only caveat is that I'm not a big fan of soy products. I think you really need to be careful when you're getting into soy. On the skin, it's less of an issue but in general, I don't really recommend soy. I don't think it's some miracle ingredient, and it's definitely lowest on my list of milk bases and plant ingredients. I'm not a big fan of soy. It's not necessarily the worst thing you could be putting on your skin; I'd much rather you be putting soymilk on your face than alcohol obviously. But because of what I know about nutrition and soy's effect on the body, it's not something that I would personally want to use all the time. I will leave that for you to decide, though, that's just my little take on it.

9. Coconut Oil and Olive Oil

I did talk about coconut oil and olive oil as makeup removers in my last video, with the caution that if you do have skin that is prone to comedogenic reactions, you probably don't want to be using those on your face. However, if you do not have comedogenic reactions, they are perfectly safe to use on the face as a makeup remover.

I do not recommend that you use them as a primary moisturizer because they are not the best tolerated in the skin. However, if you are just using them to take off your makeup and then using your cleanser over that, I think they're perfectly fine so long as you know you're not prone to comedogenic breakouts.

10. Body scrubs

I'm a big fan of home chemistry in general. I think that, you know, you can make your own lip balms. If you're into body scrubs, you can make your own body scrubs. Making a body scrub is probably the easiest thing in the world. The only thing I don't recommend is using a really coarse grained salt or sugar.

You want to get something that's on the finer side because I talked about crystalline substances in the last article, how they can create tiny lacerations in the skin and that can be irritating. On the body, the body skin is a bit more resilient so it's not as much of a problem as the face, but I definitely would avoid using coarse Epsom salts or coarse rock type salts. Use salts and sugars that are going to be smaller grained and less abrasive.

As for what oils to mix in, you can pretty much use any oil you want. It really does not matter that much. As long as you are not having a reaction to it, there are so many wonderful carrier oils. When I'm talking about oils, I'm talking about carrier oils and emollient oils, not fragrant oils. 

We're not talking about essential oils or any sort of perfumes. Those are never advised, pretty much ever. But anything like your grape seed oils, your olive oils, your coconut oils, your shea butter, your jojoba oils, any of these oils is great for any sort of DIY project.

11. Jojoba Beads

Something else I mentioned in the last article is jojoba beads. And these are just little beads of wax that you can add into cleansers, body wash, anything to make a scrub. If you don't want to use something like a coarse salt scrub or sugar scrub, you can definitely get a bag of jojoba beads, they're pretty cheap. You can buy them in bulk from various online retailers. Pretty much any sort of DIY skincare type site should have them, but just do a google search for it.

But jojoba beads are great because they come in different sizes, they are gentle because they're spherical and they're just a wax. But also they are much, much better for the environment, because they're a natural wax, they are biodegradable and much better than the plastic beads that you're getting in your store bought scrubs, body scrubs, etc..

You may have heard a little bit about it on the news recently, these plastic pellets from scrubs are getting to be a real problem. So if you can avoid using them, I would absolutely encourage you to do so.

So those are all the recipes I can think of right now. If I didn't mention something that you've heard about it, it may have been in my last article, or it's just something that I haven't heard of, or it's something that I've forgotten. So feel free to leave more recipes in the comments below, and I will keep a list of anything that I didn't mention and try to talk about it in a future article. If you like these recipes, if you like what I have to say, if I've helped you in any way, I would really, really appreciate it if you would share my articles with your friends. Thank you guys so much, and I will talk to you again very soon. Bye!