Saturday, November 13, 2010

DIY exfoliating face mask

After a few too many stressful weeks in a row, one of my girlfriends and I felt we desperately needed a night to chill out and relax.  We'd been talking about doing some DIY face masks since summer, and decided this would finally be the perfect time.  We chose a recipe from the wondrous Beauty Bets that simply mixed one tablespoon of baking soda and one tablespoon of orange juice. 


The baking soda is said to fight acne and exfoliate skin, while the acidic enzymes found in orange juice supposedly tighten pores and brighten your complexion.  I've previously written about some expensive exfoliators and why they're worth your money, but I've honestly never tried a homemade mask like this before and wanted to compare results.  I don't expect it to be as fabulous as ExfoliKate, but maybe this is decent enough to cut down my ExfoliKate usage to once a week?

The recipe made enough for the two of us, so we gathered around her bathroom mirror and each applied a thin layer over our faces.  It hardened and started to flake off after about fifteen minutes, so we rinsed it and inspected for results.

Immediate impression? My skin feels ridiculously smooth and clean.  My whole face feels tighter.  My friend is similarly pleased with how smooth her skin feels.  We're both waiting to see any differences in acne.  A word of caution, though: I'd only recommend using this at night before bed.  My cheeks turned a bright shade of pink, which does happen sometimes when I exfoliate too much.  I applied some moisturizer to calm my skin down a bit, and that seemed to work well.

Ultimately, I think the baking soda may have been a bit too harsh for my skin, so this isn't something I'd want to use on a regular basis.  Maybe next time I'd use less baking soda (I seem to recall us pouring in a lot more than a tablespoon to make the mixture less liquid...oops).  But it was fun to try and I was really impressed with how much it smoothed my skin.

What are your best DIY skincare recipes?  I'd love to hear them!  If you try this mask, let me know what you think of it.

No comments:

Post a Comment