These days it’s hard to know what you’re putting on your body with the usual ‘list as long at your arm’ of ingredients in most beauty and body cleaning products.
To get you started, here is a list of the bad guys of the cosmetic and personal hygiene products that you should try and avoid:
1. Parabens;
2. Tetra sodium EDTA;
3. Diazolidinyl urea, Imidazolidinyl urea;
4. Sodium lauryl/laureth sulphate
5. Petrolatum.
There are quite a few products out there now that give you options here, i.e. not having to use products with these in their list of ingredients. Green People, Essential Care and Weleda are amongst those who use natural, organic ingredients. Here is a link to our natural beauty webshop.
However, you might want to take it a step further and prepare you own natural body care products, so here are a few ideas for those all important aspects of your body:
Hair: For a dry itchy scalp, try warming some olive/almond or coconut oil and rub it into the scalp. Leave for 30 minutes and was your hair as normal. For chlorine damage, try a mask of a 1/4cucumber, 3 teaspoons of olive oil and an egg. Or if the chlorine damage has turned the colour, ketchup will help amend.
Face. Cold slices of cucumber always help reduce redness and puffiness. Avocados can help retain moisture in your skin. Try mixing oats or barley with honey and little citrus juice to make a facial exfoliator
Bathing. Oatmeal bags in your bath. Put into the leg of an old pair of tights and add to your bath whilst the hot water is running. It will help cleanse and soothe the skin. Try a little essential oil to soothe or energise you. Lavender is a good all rounder.
Feet. To get your feet really soft, rub a cup of sugar into you usual lotion or olive oil and massage into your feet to exfoliate.