It was a late Friday evening. I was at home with the kids, and a lovely friend who is always up for anything to do with skin care came over to spend the evening connecting. My even wilder and woollier husband was off gallivanting with his eco wannabe warrior friends who always bring a lot of fascinating facts and, in some cases, a little bit of action. Anyway, back to the story, I had to work the next day, so it was going to be a quiet evening and having left my days of imbibing alcohol behind me, we started to talk all things skin. I came up with a brilliant idea of giving ourselves a lovely home spa treat. In theory, it was an excellent idea, but the practice was much more challenging.
It was still early days with AYA Balm, and I still hadn't come to the full understanding of how powerful our active was, so I promptly suggested we start with a home peel and use AYA raw fermented Papaya. We liberally applied it and waited for the magic to happen. Within a few moments, we started to feel a tingling sensation, which quickly escalated to a full-blown burn. Screeching in horror, we charged to the bathroom to wash it off. The immediate results were not fabulous; my skin was fire engine red, and when my sweet husband came home, in his understated English manner, he suggested maybe I needed to go to a skin specialist as I looked rather scary. Fortunately, it settled down, and I couldn't go into the sunlight for a month as my skin was clear porcelain. However, this was an experience never recommended and never, ever, to be repeated.
Since then, I have learnt much about skin care as a whole, and what I should and shouldn't experiment with. Now, when I suggest a DIY skincare spa with a friend, rest assured, it will be a much more rejuvenating and relaxing event and am now fully capable, and experienced enough, to write a blog post about the ins and outs of a DIY home spa evening applying a homemade mask with whatever you have in your kitchen.
It is always a good time to care for your skin and yourself. I constantly say skincare is self-care. And while we all may have our skin care all sorted out, whether it be the minimum three-step or you are all out there and sorted with your thirty-step skincare routine, I can assure you my driving skin care principle is less is always more, so three steps it is. But sometimes your skin needs more love, attention, moisturiser and energy, and that is the best time to pull out your DIY face mask care ingredients, which are probably in your kitchen already, and give your skin what it needs.
And here is the thing: there are so many benefits to doing it yourself, so let's start by looking at who you will see and what products they will be using. Going to have a professional facial at an esthetician can be a hit or miss. If they are not your regular person, or are not using products you know and are familiar with. My only suggestion is to tread carefully, while I may have firebranded my skin with my home treatment experiment, I can assure you that it can be just as challenging to find the person who knows you and your skin and will give you what your skin truly needs. I remember going to a well-known and highly regarded esthetician a few years ago, renowned for using a brand I liked and was comfortable with. I kid you not, as I lay there envisaging the heavenly experience of all these beautiful products, I suddenly smelled a heavily fragranced product as it was liberally applied to my face. I am known to be dramatic on a calm day, and as calmly as I could, with only a hint of hystericalness, I asked what this product was, as I was unfamiliar with it. Turns out they were trying a new brand, filled with ingredients that I simply never would let near my skin.
When you choose to do a skin care treatment at home, or with the ingredients from your kitchen, you know what the integrity and naturalness of these products are, and you allow yourself to be empowered through these choices. Essentially, you are ensuring that you avoid harsh chemicals and microplastics often found in commercial products. Microplastics are like the scarlet pimpernel, no one sees and only a few know about, and we are only now beginning to learn how ubiquitous they are in the skin care industry. Gone are the days when we just had to worry about the ingredients we knew about; now the fear is about what we can't see with the naked eye. Choosing natural and clean products is becoming increasingly essential, and doing your DIY home facial is just a way of ensuring you use natural ingredients that are gentler, calmer and more in tune with the natural surroundings. Great examples of these natural ingredients are soothing honey, a hydrating avocado, or rejuvenating oatmeal, usually found in your kitchen.
Another reason I absolutely love a good DIY face mask, and an evening at home, or for that matter, a cheeky afternoon, indulging in self-care and skin care, is the immediate and visible results of my skin experiences. Depending on what my skin has been calling for, which I honestly swear I hear in the base of my being at times, gives me the space to provide an instant hydration boost, a soothing, succulent moisturising rich experience, or simply to calm down and take a moment to refresh. Using natural ingredients allows for the nutrients and healing properties to be directly absorbed by the skin, so it is like taking an entire superfood experience and allowing your skin to relish in it. At the end of the day, it is also about the ritual, where you take the time to de-stress, replenish and rejuvenate, and you and your skin benefit immensely from this experience.
How do we go about doing this, in a way far removed from my early red fire engine face moment, which I can assure you in my household is never to be forgotten? First, know that not one size fits all, the most essential part of any skin care regime or process is knowing your skin, what it needs and what brings out the thrive in it. The frequency of how often you create a DIY face mask for your face will depend entirely on what suits your skin best. I generally go according to the weather and how my skin is adapting to the natural rhythm of nature around us. In winter, I need to make sure I am doing a monthly mask if not more and in summer, I can generally go around every six weeks, but it will also depend on how much time I have spent in the ocean, as that can be very drying for my skin.
Then we need to discuss ingredients, and what ingredients we choose to use on our face for a replenishing DIY Face mask experience. For myself, I have a few guidelines regarding ingredients that have worked well for me. Firstly, products need to be as fresh as possible and naturally grown, ideally close to my surroundings. I dont spend a lot of energy on organic as I think this is a whole minefield which makes everyday living challenging for us mere mortals. Secondly, if it is grown elsewhere, then I need to know the combination or chemical process the ingredient went through, for example, Matcha powder, derived from green tea leaves in Japan, that undergoes a steaming process, which is in fact a chemical change to create Matcha. It's just such a really great ingredient for a home face mask as it is rich in antioxidants, anti-inflammatory properties and hugely detoxifying.
Another thing that I learned and now always strongly recommend, after my fire-red face engine night of fun, is patch testing, every time and always. Apply a small amount of your homemade concoction onto your skin, like the inside of your forearm or behind your ear, and let it sit for on your skin preferably for twenty four hours if you have never eaten or used this ingredient before. This vital step helps identify any potential redness, itching, or irritation before applying it to your entire face, ensuring that your self-care treatment and a quiet, relaxing moment do not turn out to be a challenging experience with a regrettable reaction.
Another time, I went “adventuring “out into the big, wide world of natural skin care techniques. I was visiting my newly wedded sister in New York, and there was an Ayurveda healing spot around the corner from where she lived. So off I went to try Netra Tarpana, which literally involves applying oil to the eyes. It wasn't a pleasant experience, and I returned home to a look of absolute horror on my brother-in-law's face, as I could hardly see properly for an entire night, and I looked seriously distressed.
I have said this many times, and I am sure will say it many more times, everything that is natural is not necessarily good for you, nor does everything suit everyone's skin. You can drown in too much water, and water is usually always considered a good natural ingredient. It's always about knowing what your skin wants and needs, keeping it absolutely simple, and patch testing. Based on the above guidelines, there is no good reason not to include a regular, rejuvenating and replenishing home DIY mask into your skin care routine.