DIY natural skincare recipes
How to make naturally soothing skincare products at home
People have made skincare and beautifying products with ingredients from nature for thousands of years. Flowers, leaves, roots, stems, and seeds offer various health benefits or soothing qualities for healing or rejuvenation. For example, the fatty acids in sunflower seed oil have antiinflammatory and antibacterial properties. The gel found in aloe vera leaves helps heal irritated skin and prevents itching and infection on burnt skin and ulcers.
Lemon balm, jasmine, violets, and roses all have beautiful scents.
Even some NZ native plants are used in beauty products. Author Rob Tipa in Treasures of Tāne writes about ‘the grand Māori perfume,' a sweet-smelling concoction made from pork fat, scented with ingredients including:
•
mokimoki (fern)
•
piripiri (fern);
•
kōpuru (moss);
•
kāretu (grass);
•
tarata (lemonwood) resin;
•
pātōtara (dwarf mingimingi) roots;
•
taramea (grass).
You can use herbs from your backyard and basic ingredients available from online natural ingredient stores to make your own beauty products.