Organic Beauty View

The fifth grader in me, the one who was obsessed with giving makeovers and braiding hair at sleepovers, is fascinated by the idea of do-it-yourself beauty. Sure, I’ve adopted more grownup tastes with the products I use, preferring, say, REN’s Glycolactic Skin Renewal Peel to the 99 cent packets of Freeman mud masks that were a drain on my babysitting earnings. But both then and now, I get excited paging through recipes for cure-all homemade skincare made with papaya or maybe oatmeal or sugar and olive oil. Some things never change. Fortunately there are tons of at-home beauty recipes out there that will give you preservative free, chemical free results (go for organic ingredients when possible). If you’ve got 3 tablespoons of plain yogurt, 2 tablespoons of honey, 4 teaspoons of lemon juice and 1 egg white, you can whip them into a Lemon Cheesecake Whitening Mask (a sweet-smelling recipe from The Green Beauty Guide by Julie Gabriel). Apply to your face and leave on for 15 minutes. The lemon and yogurt are natural exfoliants and will lighten old acne marks, while honey has amazing antibacterial properties and egg white is a source of skin-strengthening protein. Your mask will keep in the fridge for one week, but you know fresh is best. The bonus to all of this? Playing around with natural ingredients puts you one step closer to becoming a walking encyclopedia of natural beauty, not to mention a green beauty goddess. Writer :: Jolene Hart