Kitchen Glamour - The Zingy C Exfoliator.

Kitchen Glamour is my new weekly post where I will be sharing my homemade cosmetics that I have created from items that you probably have in your kitchen cupboards. I will be posting Kitchen Glamour every Friday to give you little sparks of inspiration so you can look fabulous for your weekend of adventuring. Alongside the recipes I will also show you some of the more random ingredients that I make sure that I am never without. The vast majority of Kitchen Glamour will be Vegan friendly too. 

This is The Zingy C Exfoliator and I found it has been my salvation in battling against wintery skin. A ripe kiwi fruit is the main ingredient in this for 2 reasons: the first being that I only like to eat under ripe kiwi fruit so I needed to find a use for the ripe ones, and the second reason being that kiwi fruit are amazingly nourishing for your skin! The kiwi fruit is bursting with Actindin which is an enzyme that dissolves protein, this means that it is a natural chemical exfoliant that powers through the dead skin cells on your face. Kiwi fruit also have super high levels of vitamin C and E, this means that this fruit is an awesome antioxidant and that plays an important role in supporting the production of collagen. Even the little black seeds are useful as they are stuffed full of omega 3 acid and alpha lipoic acid which can help balance out the oil in your skin and give it a slight tightening effect which helps to reduce those pesky large pores! 

So all you need for my Zingy C Exfoliator are sugar and a ripe kiwi fruit. Peel the kiwi fruit and mash it up with a fork (you could use a food processor or a pestle and mortar if you want to crack the goodness out of those little black seeds). Once you have a nicely squished kiwi fruit then this one is really up to you and how much extra exfoliation you want. 

Add between 2-4 tbsp of sugar to the kiwi pulp. I use caster sugar because the grains are small and I find that it is quite gentle, Demerara would be a lot more scratchy for example because the grains are larger! Start with adding 2tbsp then see if you are happy with the consistency, if not add more. Once you have a mix you are happy with apply in circular motions to the face (over a sink is preferable unless you want a fruity bathroom floor). I take off the excess and leave on my face for a few minutes then rinse off with warm water, but if you have the time you could leave it on for 15-20 minutes then wash off. Watch out for the sticky bits under your chin too! Finish off with a flurry of facial moisturiser and you are ready to go out on the town with your glowing skin. 

Hope you have lots of lovelyness planned for the weekend. We are off to take Doris for her MOT retest tomorrow *eeep*.

xkx

Cheap and Easy Face Exfoliator. (Can be made Vegan too)

I did a whole load of work today at the allotment and biked there and back, so when I got home I was ready for a hot bath and a nice relax. When I got out of the bath I decided to whip up my favourite facial exfoliator. This is a really easy and quick little product that you can make with ingredients you probably already have in the cupboard. All you are going to need is honey and sugar. To make it vegan just swap out the honey for maple syrup, it works just as well and smells amazing! Honey and maple syrup are both really nourishing for your skin so which ever one you use will be giving your face a treat. 

Runny honey is preferable (if you are using honey) than the set one, but if set is all you have just warm in it a cup, in a bowl of hot water. I use caster sugar because I find that granulated is slightly more scratchy, but once again granulated is fine just rub more gentle when you apply it. If your skin is really sensitive you could probably even try using Demerara sugar because the grains are smaller so it would make a gentler exfoliator. 

Once you have your ingredients ready just add 1tbsp of honey (or maple syrup) to 1tbsp of sugar and stir it together so it creates a paste like texture. 

It should look something like this when you have finished mixing.

Now all you need to do is apply it to your face with your fingers and gently rub in a circular motion. When you feel that you have exfoliated enough wash it off with some warm water. I finish up by wiping my face with a wet cotton wool pad just to get rid of the last few, pesky sugar grains.

And there you go, super soft, sweet, exfoliated face.