Your At Home Beauty Parlour

The humble avocado. The breakfast spread of choice in the West and a delicious dessert in Indonesia. And also the DIY face and hair treatment of beauty fanatics everywhere. High in natural oils, avocados make for an ideal beauty treatment for dry hair and skin. The recipe couldn’t be easier – if you can resist eating it!

This recipe from health blogger Nutrition Stripped takes advantage of the vitamin E, healthy fats and antioxidants found in avocados, while the oatmeal acts as a gentle exfoliant.

• ½ avocado

• ¼ cup uncooked oatmeal

• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

• 2 tablespoons honey

• 1 teaspoon lemon juice

Mash together the ingredients in a small bowl and apply directly to your face, letting it sit for about 20 minutes.

Rinse with warm water and moisturise as normal.

Still have an avocado left over? Mix it in a bowl with two tablespoons of honey and two tablespoons of olive oil. Combined this makes a chemical-free deep conditioning hair mask, according to wellness blogger Whole fully. The key to success here is keeping the mask on for up to an hour and applying heat, whether that is sitting outside in the sun with a good book, or a blast of a hairdryer.

Who hasn’t bought a kilogram of bananas in an effort to snack healthily only to watch them slowly turn brown over the next week? There are better uses for them than the bin. Banana-based hair masks are exceptionally easy to make and will help dry and frizzy hair. Simply mix one to two bananas with 60 millilitres of coconut milk or one tablespoon of olive oil. Both of these combinations can be lathered into the hair and left to sit for up to an hour. A thorough rinse with cold water will leave even the most brittle and lifeless of hair recharged.

The health benefits of bananas are so strong that even simply mashing a banana and applying it alone to your face can make a marked difference. Packed with vitamins and potassium, these nutrients will help brighten the skin and moisturise.

Cucumbers are a classic home remedy. While slices of cucumbers to revive tired and dark eyes is well known, using the hydrating vegetable as a toner is less so. Simply grate a third of a cucumber into a small bowl, dip a cotton pad into the cucumber and wipe over the face. Allow the liquid to dry and work its hydrating magic. Cucumbers can also be blended together with tomatoes and applied directly to the face. Leave the mixture on for around five minutes before rinsing with warm water. The effects of the natural ingredients should be near instant.

The coffee drinkers among us have been throwing into the trash one of the world’s best exfoliants – coffee grinds. For every three tablespoons of grinds, mix two tablespoons of oil (either olive or coconut) and one tablespoon of sugar. This mixture can last for up to two months if stored in a sealed container. Use this all over the body as a cheap and effective exfoliant. Follow up with moisturiser.