Personal benefits to my skin
Recently I stumbled upon what might possibly be the best method with which to cleanse your face. Believe it or not, this 2 minute regimen entails washing your face with dirt! Okay maybe not the kind from your garden, but clay.
Having personally experimented with the clay washing method, I saw immediate improvement in the quality of my skin. With every passing week of sticking with it, I have reaped ever increasing benefits.
My facial skin looks and feels:
- Firmer, smoother, softer, more evenly toned and radiant.
- When I wash my face it feels very clean without being dry.
- I get a surprisingly gentle exfoliation with each wash that doesn’t irritate my skin and rip it open.
- My formerly combination skin has stopped overproducing oil in its T-zone.
- Fading of acne scars, other blemishes and gradual reduction of blackheads – with no new blackheads appearing!
- I can now get away with washing my face once a day or even every other day and still look as fresh as when I had to wash my face twice daily!
- I have never been happier with any other cleanser that I have used for my face!
Proven benefits of clay
The purported benefits of applying clay to the skin include;
- Improving and or curing acne, and preventing future breakouts with continued use.
- Drawing excess oil and impurities from deeper layers of the skin thus deeply cleansing and over time exposing radiant skin.
- Provides the gentlest exfoliation thus constantly getting rid of old, dead skin and revealing the new.
- Reducing the appearance of lines, wrinkles, age spots, acne, scars and other blemishes
- Improving circulation under the skin, thus making nutrients from the bloodstream more readily available to the newer skin cells.
Best of all, it’s dirt cheap!
There are several types of clay and clay based cleansers on the market. Even the most expensive types of clay are only US $17.00 a pound when bought in bulk, and just a few ounces are enough to wash your face for months! I recommend just sticking to straight clay itself for the sake of purity and not introducing unnecessary toxins from preservatives. If you really want to get jazzy with it, add some powdered herbs, seaweed and essential oils to your clay.
Directions For Use
- Mix about a teaspoon of clay with 2-3 tablespoons of liquid. Use water if you like, but your choice of hydrosol, raw honey, cucumber juice or herb tea would be even more stellar. My personal favorite to add is cold aloe juice and raw honey.
- Mix the clay and liquid with your finger or a wooden spoon – creating a paste that is somewhat runny and applies easily to the skin with the fingers. Be sure to avoid using metal containers or spoons - use only glass, ceramic or wood bowls. If you have some leftover after your treatment, just cover it with a lid or saran wrap for later use so it doesn’t dry out.
- Apply the paste to your face, being sure to cover all the areas that you would normally wash with your cleanser. Using circular motions, gently scrub off the clay right away with a wet face towel. For daily use it is important not to allow the mask to dry. Rinse off the excess with tepid water
- Please note: You can also mix the clay with your favorite gentle facial cleanser if you feel you need extra cleansing once a week or so, or daily if you are not quite ready to let go of washing your face with something more sudsy. You will still receive many of the same benefits. Just be sure you are using a gentle cleanser that does not strip the protective pH mantle of your skin, and I will give some examples of such in future blogs.
- You can also use this same clay paste as a body mask after skin brushing.
Tone and moisturize your skin as usual and you are good to go.
An excellent post-cleanse treatment is a hydrosol mist or herb tea followed by a great facial oil (like baobab, Tamanu or melon seed) or a shea butter cream.
My favorite places to buy clay are:
www.mountainroseherbs.com (they sell all varieties)
www.sheaterraorganics.com (they have a beautiful Moroccan mud that you could use the same way, plus lots of other great natural skin care products)
http://www.livingclayco.com (they even have a pre-mixed paste that is great if you do not have time to mix your own paste.
Have fun with this! I would love to hear how this method worked for you.
