A generous diet of ‘fruit and veg’ is an obvious plus for healthy insides. Now apply the same to your skin to absorb the healthy benefits of pure vitamins and make your face as taut as a tomato and as soft as a peach.
As a child, I would I dread kissing my mother ‘good morning.’ I knew I would come away with something sticky, mushy, lumpy, and with an unidentifiable smell. Today, despite fighting all clichés, I have become my mother. “Everything you eat can go on your face,” she would tell me, over and over again. It was something her mother had told her. And, her mother’s mother had told her mother. This is not an old wives’ tale, or a folkloric tradition. Beauty blogs, product companies, and magazines go on and on about how fruits and vegetables are good for your skin. This time, they mean going right to the source – sans the bottles.
The Beautician in Your Fridge
I am guessing that we don’t need to read out the small print which says: this only works with your raw veggies and fruit. Papaya, cucumber, oranges, apples, strawberries, lemon, grapefruit, lauki, aloe vera can all find their way to your face. Skin masks are an easy, effective way to cleanse, scrub, reduce pores, balance oil, or hydrate your skin. You don’t need to go running to beauticians. Just open your fridge and try whatever you can lay your hands on. The best bit is instead of wasting the fruit that’s rotting, put it on your face instead.
While the adventurous amongst you might actually take our advice, I am sure there are others more squeamish about what goes on their face, and in what form. Because of certain conditioning – all courtesy 24/7 assaults by the media – many prefer using nice-smelling, pretty things, in pretty bottles. One can only say that it’s their basic mindset that needs a little bit of readjustment. Revisit traditional methods of beauty treatment for skin that will glow from the outside, and result in a new you that will glow from the inside too.
Answer Your Skin’s FAQs
First, figure out what your skin needs. Is it tired? Are your pores bigger than the craters on the moon? Does it feel more dehydrated than the Sahara? The list of woes can go on. However, for almost every problem there is a natural therapy in your kitchen or fridge. It’s common knowledge that fruit is beneficial to your health, as it’s packed with the vitamins needed to strengthen your immune system, and protect your body against infections and illness. What’s less well-known, however, is that fruit can also be beneficial when applied directly to your skin. Certain fruits can hydrate your skin, act as anti-oxidants, help remove dead skin cells, and leave your skin feeling softer and fresher. Alpha Hydroxy Acids (AHAs) are naturally occurring molecules that are found in fruit and milk that soften and exfoliate skin.
Choose potatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, carrots, cabbage and tomatoes, among veggies. And, to make the application easier, add curd, cream or ghee. Aloe vera, when grown at home, is also a great pick-me-up for your skin which, unfortunately, gets the brunt of all kinds of abuse, both voluntary and involuntary. Aloe vera soothes itching, helps restore your skin’s natural beauty, and nourishes your skin and tissues with body-loving nutrients like vitamin E and C.
Fruit Salad
To refresh and purify the skin, try masks made from lemons, bananas, apples, avocados, grapefruit, pineapples, oranges, or melons. In mixed fruit concoctions, add yogurt or oat flour to make your mask denser – making for better application. A facial mask made with the papaya is great because the enzymes in this fruit help remove dead and flaking skin. In other words, it’s a great natural exfoliator. A facial made with bananas can help moisturise the skin. Strawberries are great to combat oily skin. Fruit facials nourish the skin with essential vitamins, and provide antioxidant protection.
Papaya and pineapple are two of the most popular fruits used in natural peels since they are both a rich source of AHAs. Each fruit contains a protein-dissolving enzyme – papain and bromelain respectively – that promotes cell renewal and stimulates collagen production.
My morning routine now consists of eating papayas, bananas, oranges, and aloe. I eat three quarters of the fruit, and put the rest on my face. I can’t say whether I’m the better or worse for it. However, the proof in the pudding (pun intended) has to be my mother’s face – courtesy all the creamy fruit-dessert mashes that still find their way onto her face – often leading to the question, corny as it may be, asking whether she’s my older sister!
Courtesy: Greenlife Magazine
