{Facial Scrub Gift Idea} Oatmeal & Cinnamon Scrub

I have been very lucky to have such a wonderful teacher for my little Mr. It has made it so easy for him to settle into prep school. So, I made her a little thank you gift. A homemade Oatmeal & Cinnamon facial scrub for a sweet teacher.

Quantities for below depend on the size of jar, but this was the ratio I used.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup of Oatmeal (I pulsed this up in my food processor so it was slightly finer than the raw oats)
1/4 cup rice flour
1 tsp cinnamon ground

Then this is put into a jar with the following instructions:

"When you want to make a facial scrub, just add 2 teaspoons of the mix to a bowl and add enough of a wet ingredient to make a paste.Good examples of wet ingredients are; egg yolk, fruit, honey, yoghurt or milk.You could use one wet ingredient or a combination such as banana and yoghurt.Apply the scrub to a damp face and gently massage into the skin in upward circular motions. Thoroughly rinse off with warm water and a cloth."
I hope you enjoyed this. This is the easiest and quickest to make for yourself or a gift. This is a natural product, but as with every new product, test it on a patch of your skin first ;)

Lauren x

Are you making yourself sick?

Are you making yourself sick and don't even know it? The gross thing about makeup brushes is the 47.5% of women don’t wash them often enough, and a staggering 23.4% of women don’t wash them at all. Ever!
I always make sure I clean my brushes at least every week, but really never knew why. I did this after watching an episode on Oprah years ago where they put some of the audiences brushes under a microscope to see what was 'living' there. It grosed me out and made my skin crawl.
So, I did some research into this I found that the bacteria cannot live on brushes by themselves, its only when we use them, some of our skin cells goes on the brush and the bacteria can grow on skin cells because it is organic material. So basically when we are washing our brushes, we are removing skin cells from the brush.

If that isn't enough to motivate you to clean your brushes, think about the fact that your skin is potentially breaking out because of this. Your skin will be healthier and clearer if you take that first step and make sure you clean them regularly.

How do i wash them you ask? Well I always do it at night so they can air dry overnight. I use a baby shampoo or sensitive shampoo and place some in the palm of my hand. Then I gently work it into a lather with the brush and you will see the shampoo turn the colour of the eye shadow, blush or powder you use. You may need to reapeat this step a few times if really dirty. I then rinse under VERY hot water and then gently squeeze out. Tap it against your hand to shake out the bristles.

Then I lay a handtowel out and make sure one side is elevated and place the brushes facing down on an angle. This step is critical as it allows any extra water to run out onto the towel and prevents it from re-settling into the brush. Also, if the water settles into the brush it can actually wreck it by loosening the glue taht attatches the handle to it.

So, I hope you are grossed out by this enough to want to clean your brushes and keep your skin looking healthy and fresh! Why? In the words of Loreal - because your worth it! hehehehe :)

Olive Oil - not just for the kitchen!

One of my latest tricks has been to swap my make up remover for olive oil. It has saved me so much money first of all - since we always buy the big tins of oil when on special. All i do is decant some into an airtight container and keep it in the bathroom. Tip some onto a cotton pad and remove eye makeup. Then pour some into palm of your hand, rub together to emulsify and then rub into skin. Wash off with normal face wash or warm facewasher.