Wash your face by making your fingertips go in upward circular motion, and when you splash lukewarm water on it, make sure you do that in upward motion too. While wiping your face with a tissue or a towel, make sure you don’t wipe your skin totally dry. It’s always better to leave your face a little wet to make your moisturizer application more even. Moisturizer blends better when the natural moisture of your face eases the application. Doing so keeps wrinkles and sagging skin at bay for a long, long time. To keep your skin tight, remember not to stretch your face in downward motion while washing the nose and cheek or brows area. The rule is to bring your fingertips together and massage it in upward motion to make your features more pointy.
This is a habit my mother made me incorporate quite early in the day.
In other words:
Use lukewarm water for rinsing.
Wash your face with a suitable cleanser in upward motion.
Massage your face in a way that it doesn’t expand the surface or apply too much pressure. Don’t completely wipe your face dry before you apply moisturizer.
After you’re done moisturizing your face, this 60-second facial exercise is the therapy your skin needs. The point between your eyebrows, aka the third eye point, has the power to grant so many gifts to your body and add to the productivity of your day in ways you can’t imagine. Place your thumb in between your brows and gently hold it upwards for a minute. This trick helps you reduce muscle tension and improve brain functions. It’ll also unlock the energy centre that’s present under the surface of your skin, causing it to promote better circulation. The self-massage acupressure technique not only has a rejuvenating effect on your body, but prevents wrinkles, sagging skin and negative metabolism.
That’s a five-minute plan to having a beautiful day right there.
How to End the Day?
Well, when you have a start that is so easy-peasy, you owe yourself a plethora of options to choose how to end your day. Whether to brighten, smoothen, depigment, or clear your face, each day you can pick a concern to fix to eventually get the skin of your dreams. This chapter will make you dive into the sea of natural ways to clear, unclog, de-tan, or whatever it is that you want to do. Although I intend to spoil you with more DIY options for your body, it’s necessary to tell you that you can use all of these masks and scrubs for your body as well.
1. Fruit Juice for Your Face
Madhuca longfolia, also known as mahua, is a small green-coloured oval-shaped fruit. Extracting the juice of this fruit and applying it to your face at night will help you achieve a stunning glow over time. Ages ago, our ancestors used to extract the juice of its seed to use as a soap too!
2. Skin Toning and Tightening
Asian skin doesn’t have to care about wrinkles for a long time. But, as they say, the smart ones start early. Brands bringing in ‘Anti-Ageing before Ageing’ products only hints that the needs of the masses involve starting early.
The ideal age to start anti-ageing and collagen-boosting products for Indian skin would be 25. In this chapter, I will be addressing all possible skin concerns with some mind-blowing organic hacks that’ll not only help you fight your skin issues, but also prepare you for what’s to come.
Starting with skin toning, here are some skin-tightening masks that’ll make-up for your skin’s collagen cravings and also save you from spending a bomb on salon treatments.
MASK 1
¼ cup rose water
¼ cup cucumber juice
½ cup black lentil powder (urad dal)
¼ cup carrot juice
Mix the rose water, cucumber juice, black lentil powder and carrot juice in a bowl. Create a thick paste.
Apply and leave on for 25 minutes.
Rinse and apply moisturizer.
Doing this twice a week will help you prevent sagging skin.
If you have dry skin, I suggest you add malai (cream) to the ingredients for added smoothness.
If you have oily skin, stick to the basic ingredients of this recipe.
MASK 2
¼ cup water
¼ cup ground oatmeal
2 tablespoon chickpea flour (besan)
2 teaspoons honey
2 tablespoons curd
1 egg white
Oatmeal powder and besan are ingredients that bind when mixed with water. Hence they have tightening capabilities. Honey and curd tone the skin and make it smooth.
Boil ¼ cup water and add the oatmeal powder and besan to make a thick paste. Make sure you’re not using instant oatmeal.
Add honey, curd and egg white to the paste and apply to the face for 20–25 minutes and rinse.
Apply your favourite hydrating moisturizer or face serum after using face masks—make it a basic rule.
DIY powder compact recipe
While we’re discussing oatmeal, it reminds me of how oatmeal makes for a great face compact for Indian skin tones.
Grind ½ cup oatmeal and mix with a cup of water to wash the powder.
Pour the mixture on a sheet of paper and filter the impurities. Once filtered, let the damp oatmeal solution dry.
When it’s fully dried, you can use a brush to apply that powder to your face.
If it combines and dries as small blocks of oatmeal, grind the oatmeal once again to make a fine powder out of it.
MASK 3
Little less than ½ cup kaolin clay (chini mitti)
4 teaspoons raw milk
2 teaspoons primrose oil
2 teaspoons rose water (add if the paste is too thick)
Clays play an important part in the world of face masking. Apart from tightening, different clays have several abilities to exfoliate, nourish, cleanse and smoothen. But there’s one standard rule that should be applied before using clay-based masks—apply a thick layer of face moisturizer or cream before the mask.
In this case, primrose is an important ingredient as it tightens the skin. Its omega-6 fatty acids help balance hormonal levels, firm the skin and reduce wrinkles and fine lines.
Add raw milk, primrose oil and rose water to kaolin clay and make a paste.
Apply to face after applying face cream and leave the mask on for 20–25 minutes.
Wash, followed by more moisturizing.
3. Pigmentation Mask
Concealers and under-eye colour correctors are #bae when you have panda eyes. But the burning desire to look amazing effortlessly has led us to find solutions from natural ingredients, which frankly will offer more long-term, healthy fixes.
Pigmentation and dark spots can happen anywhere, but under-eyes, corners of the nose and edges of lips are their favourite locations.
It’s almost impossible to find a person who doesn’t have pigmentation on some part of their body. It’s the easiest to get, considering stress levels, lifestyle choices, insomnia and, biggest of all, pollution! There’s a never-ending list of bank-breaking creams that haven’t worked on us, we can all agree to that. Here are some DIY, natural recipes to help you depigment your skin while you’re on that mission.
MASK 1
½ cup strained chironji (Buchanania lanzan)
¾ cup full cream milk (raw)
2 teaspoons honey
¼ teaspoon saffron
1 nutmeg
The trick is to make the texture of chironji scrub your face, so make sure you don’t crush and strain it too finely. Saffron and nutmeg help fade acne scars and dark spots. Nutmeg powder is also available in the market but I suggest you grind it on your own as it is much more effective.
Soak saffron in raw milk overnight.
Grind nutmeg on a coarse platform and keep adding few drops of water during grinding.
Mix strained chironji, ground nutmeg and honey with raw, full cream milk (that you soaked saffron in) to create a paste.
Apply to face and leave on for 30 minutes.
Doing so twice a week will help reduce pigmentation.
Note: If you have super dry skin, replace chironji with walnut, use full cream mi
lk and follow the same procedure.
MASK 2
1 washed potato raw, peeled, grated
1 cucumber, peeled and grated
Curd (just enough to massage the problem areas)
In case of dark circles, apply potato and cucumber juice (extracted from grated potatoes and cucumbers) on your eyes. Potato juice contains a natural bleaching agent that’ll help even your skin tone.
In case of pigmentation, pair the above-mentioned extracts with curd and massage the areas that need to be treated. Feel free to apply this to your full face if you wish to.
Extract the juice of the grated potato and mix it with cucumber juice and curd and apply to your full face.
Unlike most face masks, this one is good to be applied closer to your eye area—it will help treat dark circles around the eyes, on its way to treating dark spots on your face.
MASK 3
½ cup water
1 black tea bag (or leaves)
A few drops of liquorice extract (easily available online and one of the most effective oils to help fade dark spots)
A few drops of rosehip oil
2 tablespoons of bentonite clay
If web articles are to be believed, rosehip oil is actually a big part of Kate Middleton’s beauty regime. Three kids later, the Duchess of Cambridge sure knows how to look a million bucks each time she steps out.
So, taking a leaf from her book, I’ve decided to include this depigmenting oil and add it with another major pigmentation-fighting ingredient—black tea!
Boil ½ cup water and dip the black tea bag in it.
When the solution cools off, add bentonite clay, liquorice extract and a few drops of rosehip oil.
Mix it well and make a paste.
Apply to moisturized face and rinse after 25 minutes.
Re-apply moisturizer post masking as well.
4. Smoothening Masks (for all skin types)
We love using primers to create that smooth base before applying foundation on our faces every morning, but what if I told you that you can have smooth and supple skin naturally that’ll not only make you subtract applying one chemical-based product from your hectic mornings but also make you feel great about your skin even when you’re wearing no make-up at all! Gear up for this organic mask that compliments all skin types, repairs dull skin and eventually gets your #NoMakeUpSelfie(s) to thank you!
MASK 1
7–8 pieces of peeled, sliced papaya
Juice of 1 lemon
2 teaspoons honey
1 teaspoons sandalwood powder
Grind the papaya pieces to a paste.
Mix lemon juice, honey, sandalwood powder and apply to your face for 25–30 minutes.
The presence of potassium in papaya, when combined with honey and lemon, makes for an ideal combination to take dullness off your face. Sandalwood powder is a cooling agent that’s been added to soothe your skin.
MASK 2
1 banana
2 tablespoons honey
½ sliced avocado
Few drops of grapeseed oil
This is such a fruity mask! All the ingredients in this moisturize and hydrate your face without making it greasy. As cosmetics are majorly dehydrating for the skin, using this hours before putting on make-up can also help your foundation sit well on your face and last longer. The fruits used in this mask are basically internal moisturizers used for external use. Grapeseed oil is like a natural astringent that’ll block excess sebum and is totally suitable for people who have oily skin.
Cut up the banana and avocado and mash them. You can even grind the avocado to make a finer paste.
Mix honey and few drops of grapeseed oil to the mashed fruits and apply to face and neck. You can switch grapeseed oil with any oil you find suitable too.
Rinse after 20–25 minutes and apply serum or moisturizer if you still feel the need for it. This pack is pretty hydrating on its own, anyway.
MASK 3
4–5 blocks of grated pumpkin or ½ cup pumpkin puree
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
2 teaspoon honey
2 teaspoon curd
Pumpkin is packed with anti-ageing properties. With its retinoic acid, antioxidants, beta-carotene and vitamins, this humble fruit, despite being so cheap, has ingredients found in expensive night serums and creams.
Add curd to the pumpkin puree and mix well.
Then add apple cider vinegar and honey to the paste and apply to face and neck.
Keep it on for 20 minutes and wash.
Face Smoothening Oil
1 teaspoon extra virgin coconut oil
A pinch of turmeric
This mask is the Duchess of Sussex’s favourite. Meghan Markle’s facialist Nichola Joss has recommended this inexpensive blemish-clearing face mask that’ll make you radiate after you apply it to your face. Just mix the two ingredients and apply it to your face, 20–25 minutes before your face wash or pre-sleep shower. Do not use more than the recommended quantity of turmeric and in case it made your skin too yellowish, just add a few drop of lemon juice to raw milk and dip a cotton pad in it. Wipe your face gently with the milk-soaked cotton pad.
If you have dull and dry skin, this will work like magic.
Turmeric will even your complexion and coconut oil will moisturize your face to give it a dewy look.
How to make coconut oil at home
Since there are many recipes that involve coconut oil in this as well as the following chapters, here’s the easiest way to make multi-purpose coconut oil at home:
2 coconuts (brown ones that have water in it)
¼ cup water
Two coconuts are enough to make an adequate amount of coconut oil at home.
Smash the coconuts and pour the water in a glass.
Remove the hard shells and blend the coconuts in a mixer. Then add some water and coconut water to it.
Make sure you’ve blended it as fine as you can and then strain all the extract/water out of it and store in a glass jar.
Refrigerate the jar overnight. The next morning, you’ll find a thin layer of coconut cream on top of the surface of frozen coconut water.
Remove that layer of coconut cream and heat the water in medium heat on a saucepan.
Your coconut oil is ready. You can use it for cooking, for your skin, hair—anything!
5. Acne-Fighting Masks
YES, we’re finally here. The basic millennial life problem. Pimples!
Acne, adult acne, cystic acne, pimples, acne scars, zits—there’s so much to this. It is plain annoying how these guys enter our lives quite early, in our teenage days, and take forever to leave. And from trying every rule in the book to epically failing and carrying evidence of #ExperimentsGoneWrong on our faces, we try our best to make the stay of these bad boys as tough as possible.
Bad hygiene, dirty pillowcases, oily scalp, pollution, dust, hormonal imbalance—everything results in acne. It’s like it is impossible not to have one. And you know—it’s okay. If you haven’t popped a pimple, hoping it to vanish overnight (and then waking up with a bigger pimple the next morning), have you even lived life?
On a more serious note, don’t pop that pimple. It only makes it worse. Instead, slowly and steadily win this race. Develop more sincere habits and establish a routine to manage the issue.
Here are some DIY recipes of natural ways to control acne:
MASK 1
1 cup water
10 basil leaves
5 neem leaves
2 tablespoons Fuller’s Earth (Multani Mitti)
A few drops of eucalyptus oil
A few drops of lavender oil
Eucalyptus dries acne, and basil and neem have anti-inflammatory properties. Lavender brings in some more soothing, and Fuller’s earth absorbs excess oil and eliminates impurities from the skin, and even from hair.
Strain and boil the leaves in a cup of water.
When the water cools down, filter out the leaves and add the clay and oils.
Use a water-based serum or non-oily cream post masking.
MASK 2
½ cup aloe vera extract
2 teaspoons lemon juice
A few drops of tea tree oil
Pulp of 2–3 pieces of oranges
This mask is a citrus blast on your face. Since your skin craves Vitamin C when it breaks out, this is an easy and effective mask to apply on regularly.
Mix aloe and orange extracts with lemon juice and tea tree oil and create a natural gel mask.
Apply to face and keep on for half an hour.
Wash and apply best-suited cream.
MASK 3
½ cup water
3 large betel leaves (paan)
petals of 1 rose (desi gulab)
1 tablespoon chickpea flour (besan)
2 cotton seeds
A few drops of moringa oil
Betel is a cooling agent and cotton has absorbing capabilities. Moringa oil is ideal for people with oily skin and chickpea flour binds the whole formula.
Tear up the betel leaves and boil them in half a cup of water and keep it aside to cool.
Crush and mix desi gulab petals with cotton seeds fine enough to add to a paste.
Mix the chickpea flour and the betel water and the paste (above) and add rose petals to it.
Mix well and add few drops of moringa oil and apply to face for about 20–25 minutes.
6. DIY Masks for Dry Skin
Roots to Radiance Page 3