DIY Honey Face Masks

Hello there! Due to some technical problems, I wasn't able to write posts, but now I have bunch of them prepared and I'll try to post more regularly. Today I wanted to write about different ways to indulge yourself: lazy Sundays are made for homemade SPA treatments, drinking tea and reading a good book/watching a nice movie.

To help you survive the working week, I have prepared 2 DIY (Do-It-Yourself) face mask recipes, so you can start looking forward to the next weekend when you can try them out!

Let's start! First, you need to remove your make-up and/or impurities from your skin. I am using Maybelline Make Up Remover to remove waterproof mascara and eye make-up in general. For the rest of my face I am using Bioderma CréalineH2O Micellar Solution even if I don't wear any make up.

If I have enough time, I steam my face with the sage tea infusion. I used to boil the water and start steaming my face immediately, but I've found out that this is not very healthy because very hot water dries your skin, so now I leave the water to cool down a bit. I am not sure if sage has any effect, but in my country sage tea is commonly known to possess calming property, so I assume it won't do any harm. After 10 min, I would exfoliate my face and/or apply a mask.

Now, the first mask I often use already has exfoliating properties, so I would avoid exfoliating beforehand. This is a very simple honey and cinnamon mask. I usually take 1 tea spoon of honey and 1 tea spoon of finely grounded cinnamon and mix them together. 

I apply it all over my face and neck and leave it for at least 15 min (you can leave it for as long as want). Honey is widely known for its healing and antibacterial properties and cinnamon - if finely milled - acts as an exfoliant, so you can rub it with a bit of water once you decide to remove it. You will instantly get a more vibrant and glowy complexion and your spots will heal faster!

The second mask involves milk (any milk will do, because you literally need 2 drops), oats and honey. Mix 2 tea spoons of oats and 1-1.5 tea spoons of honey - you'll see that it is quite thick in consistency, so I add 2-3 drops of milk. Oatmeal contains antioxidant and anti-inflammatory compounds that soothe itchy, dry and irritated skin. Oatmeal is also great for acne-prone skin because it absorbs oil from the skin’s surface. Combined with honey and milk (let's just say Cleopatra bathed in milk, so I will not go into details explaining why milk is good for your skin) it really calms down redness and soothes even the most sensitive skins.

I prepared mine some time ago and now I keep it in the fridge, so I can use it for the next month or so (honey is thought to be a natural preservative, but of course I would check for any kind of color, odor or texture change).

Finally, finish your little SPA treatment with a big cup of tea - mine is herbal mix of homegrown plants from Dalmatia (my mom grows them, so I always have tea in my house). 

A little disclaimer: Please be sure that you are not allergic to any of these ingredients before using them on your skin (even though they are all natural)! Something else to mention - there are many variations of honey masks out there, these are the ones working for me. I will probably use different variations in future, for example lemon juice-honey or olive oil-honey combination, and let you know how it goes. 

Stay tuned and let me know if you tried any of the aforementioned masks! 

~Anelei