When fresh fruits are not in season, you can still make a vitalizing face pack with herbs and spices!
Your seasonal Herbal Face Pack comes straight from ingredients in your kitchen! And it’s great for your skin because of the enzymes, vitamins and minerals in herbs, spices, flours and green tea.
To try this 100% natural and herbal cleanser, make an herbal face pack from the recipe on this post.
How do you clean your skin with herbs?
You’re always careful not to wash your face with soap. But how do you clean your skin with herbs?
To get a deeper clean than your daily cleanse provides, try a face pack. Often face packs are simply mashed fruits or vegetables that hold moisturizing mineral-and-vitamin-laden water to your skin. Also known as a cleanser, an herbal face pack is a way to clean your skin without harshness and the pH-stripping action of soap.
Supplementing your weekly routine with an herbal face pack can wipe away make-up or oil residues and impart a glow to your skin! See also an herbal tea facial steam for unwinding and de-stressing!
An important note: this recipe is for whole, dried foods. It will have a shelf life of about one month if kept completely dry and cool-ish.
Once you’ve created your ubtans, you don’t have to refrigerate the dry mixture, but please don’t leave it in a sunny window sill, or near a heater. Of course, this dry mixture will survive a lot longer than a month, but the benefits of freshly ground ingredients will wane quickly after that. Making a small amount and using it up fast is the way to retain the vitality of the mix.
How to Face Pack
Use a small amount of herbal paste and apply it to your skin with your fingers. Massage the paste in lightly. If you allow it to dry a bit on your skin (no more than 10 minutes!), your herbal face pack will have astringent or exfoliating action.
To get the benefits of a fresh preparation, use the entire amount of paste you’ve made at once. So you can see how little is needed for a face pack, and that this is not an expensive way to care for your skin!
After washing off and a pat dry, you’ll continue with your regular beauty routine of applying moisturizer, etc.
If you have some left-over paste, store it properly in the fridge, as for any food-based recipe. Overnight is long enough to keep a prepared paste. After that, dispose of the paste. Always check stored paste for signs of mold, noting whether the aroma is fresh or not. Discard any paste that has “gone over” or any unused portion by washing down the drain.
With herbs and spices you’re getting both the vitality and the scrubbing action that grinding will give to their texture. You can always sift the mixture and thus refine it for a less abrasive herbal face pack.
Ubtans? What’s that?
Melanie Sachs who wrote Ayurvedic Beauty Care suggests making what are called “ubtans” to care for your skin. A mixture of flour, herbs and clay, ubtans provide vitamins and minerals and soft-scrubbing action in your basic dry mixture. Find more about ubtans in this post.
Making your Ubtans is easy
Choose from 3-5 herbs and spices and add a large handful of oat flakes or a few tablespoons of chickpea flour. Place in your spice grinder and grind to a fine powder.
Test the granular texture of your ubtans by taking a pinch between your thumb and first finger. Is the ground mixture soft? If it’s very gritty you should sift the mixture with a strainer and keep only the softer material. Discard or store in a lidded jar for a future ubtans mix.
To Use: Prepare a paste by mixing ubtans plus liquid to give yourself an herbal face pack. Follow the recipe here. You’ll love the results of cleaner, softer skin!
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