Sick of spending a small fortune on beauty products when you’re not even sure what’s in them half the time? Have a go at making your own beauty treatments! You can make some quick and easy beauty treats using ingredients that you’ve already got at home.

What Kind of Things Can I Use?

Here are just a few of the everyday food items that work well in beauty treatments, and their main benefits.

Plain yogurt: This can be used as a quick and easy face mask for all skin types. It can also be used as a hair mask for dry and damaged hair along with egg and mayonnaise.

Honey: As honey has anti-bacterial properties, it’s a popular ingredient in face masks. If you’ve got dry skin, try a honey face mask as the moisturising qualities mean that it won’t make your skin too dry after using.

Banana: When mashed up and used in a face mask, banana can make a great face mask for dry skin. You can maximise the moisturising benefits by mashing it with olive oil.

Avocado: if you’ve got dry skin, this is another good option for using in a face mask. As with banana, it works even better when mashed up with some olive oil.

Strawberries: These are great for mashing up and using in a face mask for oily, spot-prone skin. Strawberries are a natural source of salicylic acid, which is frequently found in spot-fighting products. Products containing salicylic acid can be far too harsh for even oily skin but using strawberries as a natural alternative gives you the opportunity to get the same benefits without aggravating your skin. You can also use strawberries in a hair mask along with mayonnaise to make your hair shinier.

Sugar and salt: Either of these can be used as the basis of a homemade body scrub, depending on how coarse you want the grains to be. Just add some oil of your choice and you’re good to go!

Olive oil: As mentioned earlier on in the post, you can mash olive oil with ingredients like avocado and banana to create a ultra-moisturising face mask for dry skin. You can also use it on your hair alongside ingredients like egg and banana depending on the desired results. Because it’s good for moisturising, you may want to add it to homemade body scrubs as the oil-based part of the scrub, especially if your skin is usually dried out by shop-bought body scrubs.

Apple cider vinegar: This can be added to hair masks for shinier and healthier-looking hair in conjunction with ingredients like egg and olive oil.

Recipes to Try Out

Ready to try out some homemade beauty treatments? Here are some simple ideas to have a go at.

Clarifying Hair Rinse (to use after washing your hair)

You’ll need: A large apple, 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, 2 cups of water

1. Peel the apple and cut into small pieces
2. Mix all of the ingredients together in a blender
3. Strain the mixture so that you get rid of anything that is still solid
4. Once you’ve washed your hair, rinse with the mixture and follow with cool water to rinse it off your scalp

Conditioner for oily hair

You’ll need: 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, half an avocado, 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, 1 tablespoon of mayonnaise

1. Peel the avocado
2. Mix the ingredients together
3. Apply the mixture while your hair is still dry, avoiding the roots.
4. Leave on for around 20 minutes. Massage to the scalp and leave for an extra 5 minutes.
5. Rinse with warm water so that all traces of the mask have been removed.
6. Wash hair with a deep-cleansing shampoo to follow.

Homemade beauty treatments are a great way to save money and as an added bonus, this is also a good opportunity to use up any leftovers that need to be used up imminently. Because you’re using natural ingredients, your skin will most likely thank you for not using harsh ingredients that could aggravate it. If you’re not sure how you’ll react to certain ingredients, do a patch test before you try it out onlarger areas of your face or body.

So have you tried making your own products? How do you like them?