Homemade, natural, food beauty products: citrus, brown sugar body scrub and oat face wash

Where January was all about "health" for me, in February I am focussing on "beauty". I don't mean that I will be staring at myself in the mirror all February or drawing lines in black marker on my face, I just mean that at the age of 35 I may need to rethink some of my beauty regimes. I am so low-maintence that I verge on unkempt. I can completely relate to the comedienne Josie Long who apparently gets ready to go out in 10min and was once asked by an unimpressed boyfriend to brush her hair before a wedding. I'm kind of like that. It's OK, like Josie, I take pride in my "efficiency" and in the Summer you can get away with that attitude because you're fresh and tanned and all "I've-just-been-swimming-in-a-pond" wild. However, at this time of year I get tired of having flaky, chipped nails, spots and dry skin (yes, at the same time) and feeling a bit "meh". So February I am taking Biotin, using both serum and face cream, night and day, giving myself weekly facials and just paying more attention to the beauty side of things. Hopefully, some of these new habits will stick. In this spirit, I would like to share a couple of homemade beauty secrets that I love... they're made from food so they're still relevant to Cheesymash I feel. I'm off to Thailand next week (see how I just slipped that in there?) and as we all know: before tanning, exfoliation is needed. This is my citrus and brown sugar exfoliant, that smells divine and leaves your skins super soft and smooth.

It's just a combination of brown sugar, almond oil, grapefruit essential oil and grated orange peel (organic of course, as you don't want it to have been sprayed with nasty chemicals).

And that up there is a facial washing device that my mum introduced me to. The little satchel (made from a cotton handkerchief) contains organic oats, which have been blended to powder form. You wet the satchel with warm water and wash your face with it every morning. It's ideal for freshening your face after a good night's sleep and will leave it feeling soft and supple. Ideal if you have any redness or sensitive skin too! One of those will last for about 4-5 days. I use it when my skin needs a bit of extra care.