Home-made luxury skincare items make a really special gift. For beginners, it’s best to master one or two recipes that suit most skin types and have fun experimenting with different essential oils to personalise them for friends and family.
Nourishing moisturizer
This nourishing and balancing moisturiser is perfect for most skin types!
5 tbsp Extra Virgin Coconut oil
1 ½ tbsp Oil – Avocado/Castor/Almond oil, or for oilier or younger skin choose Jojoba oil
2 drops of Geranium essential oil
2 drops of Lavender essential oil
Gently warm the coconut oil in a heatproof bowl suspended in a saucepan of water over a low heat. Slowly pour in the Almond or other ‘carrier’ oil and mix gently. Remove from the heat and stir in the Geranium and Lavender oils. Pour into glass jars, pre-decorated if wished. Leave to cool before putting lids on. They are ready for use right away.
Variations
There are lots of changes you can make to personalise your gifts. For example:
Coconut oil soothes sensitive and irritated skin. Shea butter will do the same.
Castor oil is cleansing, in fact you can use it on cotton wool as a cleanser, but make sure that the oil is organic.
Lavender or Chamomile oils are soothing and suit all skin types.
Patchouli and Sandalwood oils are traditionally thought of as ‘masculine’ scents.
Peppermint and lemon oils are reviving and refreshing.
Orange and geranium oils are purifying and uplifting.
Feet-treat
Decant some coconut oil into small gift jars from a larger jar of organic coconut oil (you may need to stand the jar in warm water until it becomes liquid), pour into your gift jars and add 10 drops of peppermint essential oil per 30ml of coconut oil.
Bath bombs
To make bath bombs, you’ll need to invest in a bath bomb mould, which is a round mould like a tennis ball that opens in two halves. You’ll find simple recipes on-line from the manufacturers of bath-bombs. If you want to get creative, you can add several drops of natural food colouring, dried lavender or rose petals.
Important note
When using essential oils, make sure you use only good quality ones, as fragrance oils can be full of toxic nasties.
It’s worth remembering that chemicals applied to our skin as creams, lotions or make-up can be absorbed directly into our blood stream. It pays to be just as careful about what we put on our skin as what we eat, so CNM recommends keeping ingredients natural and preferably organic.
By Naturopath Gemma Hurditch, CNM lecturer.
Like this?
If you’d like to learn more about different skin types and how to balance them through diet, lifestyle and using special herbs, enrol on CNM’s next Short Course in Natural Skincare and Nutrition in August 2018.
