When I was 16 and started clubbing, I went out every Saturday night till Sunday morning 11am. I had to wait for the bus as I lived outside the city where only two buses a day were going.

We waited in a café with my girlfriends till I went back to my country side for a huge breakfast, a homemade hair mask and a long sleep till Monday morning.

My mum who called me at the time ‘ratapignata’ (the bat in Niçois) laughed at me while I prepared my hair mixture : honey, egg yolk and lemon juice that I applied on my hair and went to bed with a wool hat and a towel not to stain my pillow.

Years later (just a few) I don’t look after my hair so much but I do with my skin.

As we grow old the skin doesn’t get better (at least mine) so I organized a spa at home last night.

Natural ingredients for a scrub, mask and turmeric tea (while the mask is posing) as I read that turmeric is fabulously healthy.

We all know that we can put all the cream we want if we don’t scrub regularly and deadly moisturize every day, the skin won’t be better. And the advantage with those natural cares is that you could leek both the scrub and mask without risking being intoxicated with chemicals.

 

Facial scrub (for 1 bowl, enough for you and a few girlfriends for a few applications)

Ingredients :

• 6 tbsp of brown sugar
• ½ bol of pure coconut oil
• 1 tbsp of lemon juice

 

Method :

Liquefy the coconut oil by heating it, add the sugar, lemon juice and mix.

To preserve, put it in a jar with a lid or even in a covered bowl in the fridge. You will just have to take a little bit when needed, heat it in microwave or even in a pan as the coconut oil will be frozen.

 

Last minute making facial mask

Ingredients

• 2 tsp of honey
• A zest of lemon juice

 

Method :

Mix both of them in a bowl and apply after your scrubbing. Honey is a very good moisturizer. Leave it to pause for 10min while you are drinking the famous turmeric tea.

 

Just for our own culture, turmeric is a plant of ginger family. India and Pakistan are the main producers and use it in curries. It was first used as a dye (that’s why I didn’t try when I read that it was great as mask but could leave stains) and then later for its possible medicinal properties.

In India, turmeric has been used traditionally for thousands of years as a remedy for stomach and liver ailments, as well as to heal sores, basically for its supposed antimicrobial property. A fresh juice or a tea is commonly used in many skin conditions, including eczema, chicken pox, shingles, allergy, and scabies. My colleagues from Nepal confirmed that’s used as body cleanser.

Its saffron color is very beautiful but my very first sip was a bit disappointing as it tasted like sand or clay or something from the soil. If you add a bit of lemon and honey and let it to cool down just for a few minutes, it’s magical, the taste of ginger appears and it’s so much nicer.

 

Turmeric tea

Ingredients :

• 4 cups of water
• 2 tsp of turmeric powder
• Lemon and honey

 

Method :

Bring the water to the boil and add the turmeric, stir for a few minutes and drain it in an old clean clothes (be aware that you are going to dye your cloth in a wonderful orange color), add the lemon and honey. It can be kept a few days in the fridge.