Happy Friday! Here’s the last installment from Virginia’s Beauty Schooled guest series. Don’t miss her earlier musings about what happened to her hair and her poor face at beauty school.
I can’t say I had much of a body beauty routine before Beauty U, but I did use shower gel and body lotion daily, especially in winter when my skin gets pretty dry. Once we got into body treatments, that all changed, as again, we played guinea pig and gave each other salt scrubs, mud wraps, and other get-naked-slather-stuff-on-yourself treatments at least once a week. But, twist! At Beauty U, the body treatments were the cleanest spa services on the menu, chemically speaking. Our salt scrub contained only grapeseed oil and sea salt. Our mud wrap used a vat of Dead Sea Mud, which if the ingredient label — and extremely pungent smell — could be believed, really was basically just that. We also had a shelf of pure essential oils that we would use to make treatments smell nice and add aromatherapy benefits to our facials. Even the Cellulite Detox Wrap — where we slathered you up, wrapped you in heated blankets, and let you sweat until you lost an inch or more around your waist, hips, thighs and arms — was made with just essential oils mixed into a carrier oil.
Now, sweating in heated blankets for half an hour is pretty much my idea of hell. You get uncomfortable and lightheaded and start to see through time. And I have major concerns about the idea of doing that as any kind of weight loss strategy. So. Flawed.
But with all of this stuff, my skin did feel butter soft and smooth after I finished. Of course, you can give yourself a heck of a good salt scrub right at home in your own shower. Which is what I do now.
For more on how my beauty routine changed during beauty school, check out my four-partBeauty Labor Series. Have you ever had to overdose on toxic beauty treatments? Are you recovering from any hair or skin product panic attacks? Tell us all about it in the comments.
Since Alexandra shared her new amazing face wash with us, I thought I’d throw something else in the mix. It’s the easiest body scrub in the entire world, and the best part is you probably already have the ingredients in your kitchen. Let’s call today DIY Wednesday or, um, Scrubby Wednesday, maybe. Though that’s a bit weird because actually, we’re both totally anti-scrub.
Those of you who have read the book may remember we have a pretty strong take on manual and chemical exfoliation on the face. You can check the face chapter for a refresher (we talked about it on NPR too) because as a general rule, we’re not fans, and we found some pretty compelling reasons why you shouldn’t be either—especially if you have rosacea, acne and other issues.
That being said, the honey wash is as gentle as can be, and mine? Well, sometimes you just want a good scrub. Instead of spending 30 bucks on some fancy one, or seven bucks on one loaded with plastic beads (seriously—they’re plastic), try this instead. As for the amounts, just eyeball it. Rocket science, this is not.
—Some oil you like (coconut, jojoba or my favorite, extra virgin organic olive oil)
—Some sea salt (leave this out if you have a sunburn or eczema)
—Some brown sugar (I prefer a coarse sugar to balance out the super-fine salt, but it’s basically up to you)
—Vanilla extract, the most amazing smell in the world (if for some weird reason you don’t like vanilla, use any other oil you like the smell of, or none at all)
—Combine it in measurements that seem right to you, stir and then hop in the tub
Couple things to know though: It makes the shower slippery, and I have a nasty bruise to show for it, so be careful and use a bath mat. I like to make enough it for a single use, but if you have some left over, seal it in an airtight container in the fridge, being sure not to get any water into the mixture (bacteria central). It’ll keep in the fridge for two weeks. Just take it out about 10 minutes before you want to use it, since some oils congeal with they’re cold.
That’s it!
