Homemade Recipes for Pampering

The best gift you can give to yourself is pampering your own overworked, stressed, and desperate-for-rest self. Every single day you wake up earlier than everyone else does to make sure the kids do not skip breakfast and that they catch the school bus on time. Your day doesn’t even end upon reaching home from work, blame it on dinner preparations, helping your kids with their science projects, and catching up with your better half, which is probably the first and last time you talk to each other during an entire hectic day. To top everything off, you sleep later than everyone as you ensure that nothing is missed as you try your damn best to run a perfect household.

At the end of the day, you too need to be cared for. The idea of pampering may bring you to imagine petals on a tub with warm water, candles, and soothing aromas at spas, and a sky-rocketing credit card bill at month’s end, which is most likely the reason why you’ve been denying yourself of such a need.

Here’s what: pampering doesn’t have to be expensive. Take on some ideas to indulge in spa-like treatments that will invigorate your senses and give you a well-deserved time to feel good in your very own home.

Yogurt and Honey for a Glowing Face

Your face alone can say how much stress you are in, so don’t give anyone that benefit of easily reading about your troubles through your face.

Benefits: Yogurt contains lactic acid that can help in exfoliation to soothe and soften the skin. It also has probiotics that fight acne and antioxidant properties, which act as skin protection and clears away blemishes and dark spots.

Meanwhile, stimulation of both collagen and hydrogen peroxide production, and attraction and retention of moisture are properties all found in honey, which makes it very ideal to fight pimples, clean clogged pores, improve skin elasticity to fight aging marks, and keep the skin well-hydrated.

Application: Mix a teaspoon of yogurt and a teaspoon of honey together then apply to your face. Let it stay for 10-15 minutes then wipe off with a warm washcloth.

Precautions: Not everybody can tolerate yogurt. Make sure you aren’t allergic to it or any related products.

Avocado, Almonds, and Oatmeal for a Polished Body

Feel good all over by treating yourself with a full body scrub packed with healthy ingredients.

Benefits: A combination of avocado, almonds, and oatmeal is perfect for a vitamin-rich, exfoliating, and skin softening scrub.

Application: Mix 1 mashed avocado with 2 tablespoons of ground almonds and a cup of oatmeal. Spread the mixture all over your body, massage in circular motions, then rinse off with warm water. You may finish off with your own scrub and don’t forget to moisturize afterwards.

Precautions: Don’t attempt to perform scrubs more than twice a week to prevent dryness and skin damage.

Seaweed, Sea Salt, and Clay for a Relaxing Wrap

Enjoy the perks of detoxification, visible cellulite reduction, and loss of inches all under one body wrap.

Benefits: Wrapping yourself with mineral and nutrient-rich ingredients stimulates heat and metabolism that allows you to sweat out toxins stored in fat cells and helps you eliminate excess water from your body.

Application: Prepare 8 cups of water, 1 cup of powdered seaweed, such as kelp or dulse, 1 cup of sea salt, and 2 cups of clay (yellow kaolin). Bring the water into a boil, dissolve the sea salt in it, and then add the rest of the ingredients. You may go for a quick warm shower to open up your pores to facilitate the entry of nutrients and exit of toxins from your skin. You can also measure up yourself before starting if shedding of inches is your target.

Once the mixture has cooled, rub it over your skin. You can choose to do a full-body wrap from your torso down to your feet, or you can choose a certain body part depending on the need. Apply thin towels or plastic cling wraps over your preferred areas just like the way you apply a bandage, lay down for 45 minutes, and then rinse off with lukewarm water. Measure yourself again to see how much you’ve trimmed down.

Precautions: Drink water regularly during and after the process to prevent dehydration from sweating. You may also find it hard to apply the wrap by yourself, so be ready to have someone assist you.

Rewarding yourself from time to time isn’t bad and is in fact, important. In order for you to effectively reach out to others, the first thing you have to do is to simply love yourself.

Ella Simpson is a nutritional researcher and an avid herbal body wrap fan. She has spent years experimenting with natural ingredients to formulate spa quality body wrap products for home use which she now sells at her website Wrap Yourself Slim for a fraction of the cost of spa treatment.