Facial at home--have you ever tried one? A facial at a spa can set you back considerably, but there is no denying how relaxing and skin smoothing one of these treatments are.
Your skin is cleansed, exfoliated and treated with an appropriate mask for your skin type.
Lastly, a soothing moisturizers is applied and is sometimes followed by a make up application.
If you want to save money, but still get all the wonderful effects of a spa trip, why not grab a friend and apply facial treatments to each other? Your facial at home experience should begin with cleansing to remove any make up.
Use a mild soap and warm water to cleanse; then rinse well with warm water.
Next, a scrub should be applied to exfoliate dead skin cells from the surface of the skin.
You can make scrubs with a variety of ingredients, such as brown sugar, sea salt and grated citrus rinds plus essential and/or carrier oils such as olive, avocado and jojoba.
If you have acne-prone skin, a great addition to any scrub is a few ground aspirin tablets.
The active ingredient in aspirin is salicylic acid, which helps to unclog blocked pores.
A facial at home would not be complete without steaming.
Steaming opens the pores, and prepares them to receive a face mask.
You can simply hold your face over a pot of steaming water, or add herbs to help detoxify and cleanse the skin further.
Herbal tea bags work well for this purpose, or you can add herbs directly to the steaming water.
For easier clean up, you may tie up your herbs in a cheesecloth bag, or put them into a tea ball.
The next step in your facial at home is the mask.
A mask should be chosen to complement your skin type.
For instance, if you have dry, sensitive skin, you can make a wonderful moisturizing mask out of a little olive oil and an avocado mashed together.
Or if oily skin is your problem, a mask made with cucumber and egg white can help control your oil problem.
The best part is that you can make all different sorts of masks for individual skin types out of all natural ingredients that take only minutes to prepare.
The last step in a facial at home is rinsing off the mask and applying a moisturizing cream.
For the skin care purist, you can even make your own lotions at home that avoid added chemical preservatives and fillers.
Simply adding the contents of a few Vitamin E capsules can help preserve homemade creams and lotions, and high-proof grain alcohols can also be used as natural preservatives for homemade lotions.