Facial and Skin Care

Daily skin & facial care makes us look more charming and beautiful. By following some easy tips, you can look younger and more beautiful without spending too much of extra time and money. Before beginning you skin care regime, consider your skin type, is it oily, normal, combination, dry, sensitive, or sun-damaged. After knowing your skin type, you can use products available in the market meant for your skin. However, healthy skin is something that is from within; eating healthy food and avoiding stress can help you the most in this. The four basic steps of skin and facial care are:

Cleansing
Start your skin care with cleansing. Get a cleanser that suits your skin type. Steer clear of soaps as they make your skin dry; cleansers on the other hand contain oil, surfactants and water. Cleanser helps to remove oil, dirt and makeup from your skin effectively. However, using cleanser too often can also be harmful; at times just washing your face at night is enough. In the morning, it's great to use a splash of lukewarm water to remove excess oils from your skin caused by nightly moisturizer.

Scrubbing
Scrubs are very useful for removing the top layer of dead skin cells that make your complexion dull. A gentle scrub with tiny grains is the best for all skin types, as big grains in cheap scrubs can tear your skin and can cause rather more harm than good. You can also use a half-teaspoon of sugar for scrubbing your face. Keep rubbing it until it melts away and then wipe off your face with a warm & wet cloth. Thrash of the flour can also be used for scrubbing. You can also find some good scrubs in the market.

Moisturizing
Moisturizer is a must for everyone, no matter which skin type you have. Even oily skin will benefit from moisturizers. Only the skin with acne should avoid it. Your skin will tell you that how much moisturizer is needed. If your skin is tight, it means that it needs moisture, but do not over moisturize your skin as it can cause clogged pores. You can go for any of the good quality moisturizers available in the market, but make sure that you read the information written on it as for which skin type it may be used. Olive oil can also be used to give your face required moisture, but it can only be used in winters.

Use Sun-Screen
The skin care you're doing can go waste if you don't have the habit of using sun-screen lotion. Yes, the UV Rays of the Sun adversely affect our skin, even causing skin cancer. It is important to make a protection shield on your skin while going out. Skin care is not only about doing cleansing, scrubbing and moisturizing, but it's also about maintaining. Apply sun-screen lotion daily on exposed parts of the body on daily basis to avoid tanning and other skin-related problems.

Some Other Skin-Care Tips
Along with your face, other parts of your body also need care. If your eyes look puffy or swollen, wash your face and cover your eyes with sliced potatoes or cucumbers for a few minutes. This is really effective in the morning. Clean you nails with white vinegar before applying nail polish for a smoother finish and make it last longer. Olive oil mixed with melted beeswax can serve as a great lip balm. Try all these tips suggested and get prepared for receiving bunch of compliments for your glowing & youthful skin.

Frugal Beauty

You don't have to spend big bucks to get beauty treatments commercially. A little care at home can help you to attain that glamorous finished look at home, quite frugally. For a hydrating treatment for your hands while doing your dishes in the kitchen, cover your hands with a thick layer of lotion and wear latex cleaning gloves. The warm dishwater helps you to get the deep lotion treatment while gloves provide insulation of heat. Repeat it once or twice per week to get beautiful soft hands. Exfoliation to remove dead skin from your body and face can be done with a lot of things available in our kitchens. Pamper yourself with ground almond or be more economical by using cornmeal or a mix of grapefruit and salt or vinegar with some lemon juice in it.

Milk bath strewn with rose petals worked for Cleopatra so there seems to be no reason that it will not do the same for you. Mix half cup of milk powder with your bath water and see the difference. To keep your face naturally beautiful and free of any common skin problems, splash your face with warm water and massage it with a tablespoon of honey, which is antibacterial in nature, once or twice per week. Rinse your face well with warm water. You can also use plain yogurt instead of honey, which works as an exfoliant and its lactic acid dissolves dead skin cells. Prepare a mixture of ½ cup olive oil, ¼ cup vinegar and ¼ cup water to substitute your night cream. Oliver oil serves as a moisturizer and revitalizes skin while vinegar takes care of bacteria, dead skin cells and skin discolorations.

Olive oil is also an effective cleansing cream for dry skin, softens the skin and gets absorbed better than baby oil. Do not waste any leftover olive oil or that has been dripped over. Use your fingers to wipe it off and rub it on your elbows. Tone your skin using witch hazel that you can buy for pennies. It can work as an effective aftershave for your husband too! The best and most inexpensive way to keep your skin healthy and glowing is to drink several glasses of water a day as it helps your body to flush away any impurities.

Instead of freaking over any freckles or aging signs that you can spot over your face and rushing off to costly beauty clinics, try fading them away with lemon juice instead. For scrubbing, rub olive oil over your body after the bath and then scrub sugar on the body until it melts. Then wash it away with water. It is quite effective for face and hands too. Look younger by preparing a mixture with equal parts of onion juice and vinegar and rubbing it over any aging signs daily. However, it takes few weeks to achieve the desired results.

For filling up dry and cracked calluses on your hand and feet, use olive oil mixed with melted beeswax. Cover them up with cotton gloves or socks respectively. Spices and essential oils added to your bath water can make you fragrant for a long time. Frugal hair care ideas include adding a two spoonfuls of baking soda in your shampoo once a week to remove styling product build-ups and using mayonnaise or raw eggs as a hair conditioner. To bleach your hair, you can use lemon juice while olive oil works as an effective hair conditioner and gets rid of the frizz. A quarter cup of vinegar mixed with three quarters of a cup of warm water is a great rinser and makes your hair soft and shiny. We have even found out that a daily soak in burdock tea will stop hair loss!

Tweezing Brows

Well-plucked eyebrows make you appear more groomed than any thing else. Today it is a trend to get eyebrows tweezed or threaded professionally in eyebrow boutiques, which are very expensive. It is even recommended that you should get your eyebrows done by a professional to set a 'blueprint', which will give you an idea of shape, so that you can yourself pluck where the hair grow. The most common way to give shape to your brows is to pluck them, by threading or tweezing them with a good set of tweezers.

Types of Tweezers
Tweezers serve as the best option because using thread is somewhat difficult while making your own eye brows and moreover, it needs proper training; otherwise it can harm your skin by leaving cuts and marks. There are several kinds of Tweezers available in market, such as, one with thin tips which are great for getting a good hold on small fine ingrown hair to pluck them. Tweezers with slanted tips gives you more control and are good for novices. Tweezers with square tips are quite useful when it comes to pluck off coarse thick hair or more than one hair at a time. You can choose any of them depending on your need and convenience.

Before Tweezing Tips
You need to take care of few tips before you start tweezing your brows. Keep a hot washcloth over your face for some time before tweezing as it loosens up hair follicles, making plucking easier and less painful. Smoothen up brows with a little moisturizer as it helps hair to slide out more easily. Brush up the brows to define the natural arch and draw the desired shape using a soft eye shadow pencil before you start plucking. Comb brows upwards with an eyelash comb and trim hair extending beyond the natural brow bone. Make sure that you are standing near a window or under a bright light with a good mirror to get a clear view of your hair growth.

Tweezing Tips
Avoid over plucking as it takes too much time for brows to grow back in shape. The space between your brows should be equal or a little wider than the space in your eyes. Always pluck hair in the direction they grow and avoid grabbing too many hairs at a time. After the job is complete, apply aloe vera gel, which will help to calm the redness, occurred due to plucking. It is also recommended to soothe the area with cool and wet tea bags. Always try to pluck your eyebrows before bedtime so that the redness disappears overnight.

Herbal Beauty

External impurities and internal toxins are the worst enemies of our body and skin and herbal beauty products and detoxification remedies help us not only to get rid of them but also provide additional nutrients to the body. Some of the popular herbs known for detoxification, elimination and expulsion of toxins from the body, providing nutrition and stimulation to skin and other vital organs such as liver and digestive system, are Burdock Root, Cascara Sagrada, Dandelion Root, Echinacea Purpurea Root, Fenugreek, Ginger Root, Lactobacillus Sporogenes, Marshmallow Root, Milk Thistle Concentrate, Pepsin, Red Clover Flowers, Sarsaparilla Root and Yellow Dock Root among many others.

Natural herbal products are skin-friendly, have almost nil side effects, provide nourishment to skin and contain minerals and vitamins that keep your skin healthy. Skin care products must be fragrance free, should not have artificial colors, should be non-irritating and non-comedogenic and must be cruelty-free. Sometimes beauty problems are born out of dietary imbalance and must be paid attention to from that aspect. Weak fingernails may be symbolic of calcium deficiency while lusterless hair may speak of silicon deficiency. Dull and dry skin needs more vitamin D. Healthy person looks naturally beautiful. Green tea, calendula, linden, chamomile and rosemary are some of the natural herbal products that work quite well as sunscreens and skin revitalizers.

Choose lip balms with Aloe Vera for they soothe cracked and dry lips and get rid of painful cold sores and fever blisters. Other herbal lip balms can include Apricot, Bee Propolis, Beeswax, Camphor, Castor Oil, Golden Seal, Icelandis Moss, Jojoba Oil, Menthol and/or Squalane. Products that use animal testing should be strictly avoided. Use only cruelty-free products. Herbal products are the safest bet in this category. Herbal shampoos and conditioners are gentle, organic, environmental-friendly, safe and are made from herbal extracts.

They have ingredients like Aloe Vera, Burdock, Chamomile, Coconut Oil, Comfrey, Jojoba Oil, Marshmallow, Rose Hips, Rosemary and/or Sage. They are effective in treating dry and damaged hair, cleanse and nourish the scalp and hair and prevent dandruff. Natural botanical moisturizers with vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and humectants have herbal extracts of Aloe Vera, Chamomile and Jojoba Oil and are usually free of color and artificial fragrance.