Simple Recipes: Dry, chapped skin

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Is your skin feeling dry and chapped?  A simple single ingredient recipe can help heal and sooth your skin.  While your skin is damp, massage the skin with a small amount of avocado oil, found in grocery stores or on Amazon.com.  This oil is soothing and will help your skin retain moisture.

Simple Recipes: Odor Busters

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It does not take a long hike to bring out body odor in most folks.  Make an herbal deodorant that works all over the body, including the armpits and your feet!  In a spray bottle, add 1 oz of witch hazel, 1 oz of sage tea (1 tsp sage simmered for 10 minutes in 1 cup of boiling water, and then cooled), and 15 drops of lemon or tea tree essential oil.  Shake to mix together and spray any where you need it.  Allow to dry before putting on clothing.  If you would like a cooling spray, consider adding peppermint essential oil instead of the lemon or tea tree.  It will help cool you down on those hot days!

Simple Recipes: Fade scars and fade age spots with Comfrey

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Fade small scars and age spots by massaging them with comfrey-infused oil.  This easy to make recipe calls for 1 cup dried comfrey leaves and 2 cups olive oil.  Simmer these two ingredients over a double broiler for 1 hour.  Remove from heat and cool completely.  Strain the herbs from the oil and store in a dark, glass container for up to a year.  Massage into skin as needed.

Simple Recipes: Witch Hazel

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Looking for any easy way to zap acne?  Dab witch hazel on your acne-prone areas twice daily.  Witch Hazel will remove extra oil and helps get rid of acne-causing bacteria found on the skin.

Simple Recipes: Bust that Dandruff

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Fight that dandruff and keep your hair and shoulders flake free.  Apply plain yogurt to your hair and massage into the scalp.  Let the yogurt stay on your hair up to an hour and then shampoo your hair as usual.  Yogurt is said to help combat even the tough cases of yogurt, so give this one a try if flakes are one of your foes.

Simple Recipes: Mayonnaise

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Mayonnaise is more than food for your body- use it topically to nourish your skin.  Use a homemade mayonnaise (eggs, vegetable oil, and vinegar) and massage into the skin at night.  Avoid mayonnaise made with salt.

Mayonnaise makes a great conditioner for your hair and conditions your scalp.  Apply this one ingredient to your just-clean and still wet hair and scalp.  Leave your mayonnaise hair mask in place for up to 30 minutes and then rinse out well.

Simple Recipes: Take a Milk Bath

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You likely have heard the slogan, "Milk does a body good!"  Milk was used in early civilizations for beauty purposes.  Even Cleopatra is rumored to have used milk baths as a beauty treatments.  

For an easy milk bath, pour powdered milk in a tub of warm water and soak up to 20 minutes.  Powdered milk can be found in the grocery store baking aisle and is inexpensive.  Best of all, you will get all the same benefits milk gives your skin! 

Simple Recipes: Peaches and Creams

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Looking for soft, creamy complexion?  Blend together one ripe peach with heavy cream to create a cream that can be massaged into the skin every day.  The result?  Soft, moisturized skin where you use it.  Be sure to keep this in the refrigerator between uses.

Simple Recipe Series- Teeth and Mouth Care

Some of the recipes featured here require the use of a variety of ingredients, some easier to obtain than others.  However, do not let those recipes scare you away from using natural products.  Over the next few weeks, I am going to attempt some easy recipes that you can prepare at home without a lot of ingredients or products.

Let me know if you like this series.  If there is enough interest, I will make this a regular feature on the blog.

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Let's start this series off with some simple tooth scrubs and whiteners.  Yes, you can make your own scrub to clean and whiten teeth with items you may already have at home!

Lemons- Rub a lemon rind on your teeth from remove stains.  Make sure you rinse well after using the rind to remove the acids from your teeth.

Blend together 2 parts baking soda with 1 part salt with enough water to make a paste.  Use with your toothbrush to cleanse your teeth and enjoy the freshly polished smoothness.

Concerned about mouth odors?  Rinse your mouth with rose water.  When dining out, do not ignore that sprig of parsley on your plate.  Chew it to help remove unpleasant odors.

Be sure to check back for more simple recipes and do not forget to share with your friends!