Hi everyone!
I love creating things. I have a food blog, Aishwarya Eats. I have made most of my gifts to my husband and my family. I run a tiny homemade chocolates business. Heck I've even made the idol of Ganeshji last year, for the awesome festival of Ganesh Chaturthi. And now I've been bitten by the bug of making, right at home, some skin care and beauty products.
The deal is, I'd rather know what goes on my skin than depending on commercial ingredients. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those people the word "chemical" automatically means bad. But I'd rather depend on certain proven and safe alternatives that have been used since times of our great great grandparents and even before them. And thus was born my Homemade Oats and Lentil Face Wash and Scrub.
The principles behind making a scrub is very simple. It is ultimately a mix of ingredients that suit your skin type the most. You cannot follow a one size fits all approach to skin care. For examplie, we know neem as heaven for the skin right? Well not for me. Neem makes me break out into acne like never before. Sandalwood is the best coolant for your skin, but my mum's face turns tomato red if she uses sandalwood powder. You know your skin best. I have given all my ingredients, but feel free to substitute with what suits your skin better or even remove what you don't have.
The basic ingredients: Oats, red lentil that have been soaked in water for a while, dried lemon peels, a splash of almond oil and chickpea flour and turmeric, or the grandmothers' favourite besan-haldi. Oats is a gentle exfoliant, the almond oil moisturises from deep, the powdered lentil adds a lovely shine to my skin, chickpea flour a gentle way of removing the pollutants from the face and haldi is an antiseptic and brings a healthy glow to the face. I have added to that a capsule of vitamin E, which is very healthy for skin and the pulp of the aloe vera plant. Aloe cools and soothes your skin after a long week. You can leave out the aloe, just keep it in a powder form.
Method of application: Just take a bit in your palm, and apply to a wet face. If you're using the powder, add a bit of water, make a paste and then apply. Massage till it spreads and leave it on for a couple of minutes to let it absorb. Then gently massage it off under the shower. You can absolutely use this daily.
A note of caution: you absolutely must store this in the fridge if you're adding the aloe. Keeping it out makes it ferment and you can't use it anymore. I lost a small batch to that error :(
Homemade Oats and Lentil Face Wash and Scrub
You need
- A handful of oats
- A handful of washed red lentil soaked in a little water for an hour, then drained
- Besan
- A pinch of haldi or turmeric powder. Even better if you have the turmeric root, use a tiny bit of that grated.
- The peel of one lemon or orange, dried. You can dry the peels in the oven, just heat at the lowest temperature setting for 30-40 min on the fan or convection mode.
- A splash of almond oil
- The contents of one vitamin e capsule
- The optionals: one aloe leaf, sandalwood powder, ground tulsi or neem leaves, rose petals, etc
The how:
- First, grind the oats and the peels together to a semi fine powder in a dry blender. Take out and keep aside in a dry bowl.
- Then take the lentils in the blender to a semi fine powder.
- Add the oats, peels, besan, haldi, vitamin e and almond oil into this and blend to combine.
- Whatever optionals that you add to this should be added at this stage.
- Carefully take it out into a sterile glass or plastic jar, and tightly close.
- If you use the aloe, it will become quite watery at this time. Add more besan or oats to this mix to thicken to a batter like consistency.
Again, if you're using the aloe, you MUST refrigerate it.
And that's it!
Try a small batch and let me know how it goes :)
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