4 Unusual Natural Beauty Tips

by Becky Mackay

Keeping up appearances doesn’t have to be expensive and it doesn’t have to come with a hefty environmental impact.There are many ways to enhance your beauty without harsh chemicals and artificial ingredients. Here are a few of my favorite natural, ecological and sometimes strange natural beauty tips to help keep you and the planet looking fine and dandy!

1. Do the Cold Water Rinse

This tip may sound crazy and just a little bit uncomfortable, but believe it or not there are many benefits to adding a one-minute cold rinse to your morning shower. A jet of cold water can:

• Close your pores for toned, refreshed and spot free skin.
• Seal the hair follicles, which promotes strength and glorious shine.
• Encourage healthy blood flow.
• Wake you up and get you ready for the day!

You don’t even need to have your whole shower at this temperature. It only takes one minute of cold rinsing to reap these natural health benefits.

2. Don’t Wash You Hair

This tip may sound contrary to the one above, but again it is all about moderation.

By not washing your hair I mean leaving it for a couple of days between shampooing. This short abstinence from your cleaning routine allows your hair’s sebaceous glands to produce the natural oils your hair needs to moisturize and protect itself. Without sebum your hair would dry out and shed, and when you wash your hair every day with shampoo this sebum is washed away, without the time it needs to strengthen your hair again.

If you feel uncomfortable wearing your hair down unwashed, treat these days as your ‘hair up’ days, which could mean a cute ballerina bun, elegant fishtail platts or a foxy straight ponytail. Leaving your hair to recuperate means it will appear and feel fuller and healthier when you next wash it. You’ll also spend less on shampoo and be washing fewer chemicals down the drain.

3. At-Home Teeth Whitening

In practice at-home whitening kits mean one thing: bleach. Although this does enhance the whiteness of your teeth to, it can also leave your teeth feeling sensitive and with excessive use can even strip the teeth’s enamel layer. This is bad news for your teeth and such products aren’t making the planet smile either. Luckily, there are natural solutions to tooth discolouration problems.

Lemon juice mixed with a little salt is an easy and effective method of whitening teeth. The juice naturally brightens your smile and the salt gently lifts and removes stains on the tooth’s surface. If you want something a little tastier to treat your teeth with, then look no further than strawberries, which also have natural whitening properties. Simply mash up a few strawberries with your toothbrush and brush away.

It would also be silly to ignore the acidic nature of both lemons and strawberries, so for white and healthy teeth rinse your mouth out with warm water after either treatment and continue to use a toothpaste to protect your mouth from decay and disease. Choose an eco-friendly toothpaste containing natural ingredients such as tea tree, Aloe Vera and fennel to protect your teeth without the need for harmful chemicals like triclosan, which can be ecologically damaging when it enters the water system.

4. Use Your Leftovers

Overripe vegetable and fruits aren’t so delicious to eat, but they’re excellent ingredients for natural beauty treatments. My favorites include avocado, papaya, lemons and cucumbers. Mash avocado together with a little honey and olive oil for a moisture rich, anti-bacterial face mask or use lemons and apple cider vinegar for a refreshing hair treatment, guaranteed to make your hair naturally shine.

Using leftover food is a very eco-friendly habit to get into and can also prove to be very cost effective when you begin to replace your store bought products with your own homemade treatments.

Chemical enhanced products can irritate and aggravate your skin, leading to blotchy, red areas. This never looks attractive, but using natural products means you are less likely to have a negative reaction when treating your skin. Natural beauty is cost effective, good for the planet, and gentle to your skin, hair and teeth.

Becky Mackay is an online writer, with a keen interest in health and lifestyle. For more information on homemade beauty, natural toothpaste and overall health visit her Twitter page @FreshHealth11

Image Credit: Natural Beauty photo via Shutterstock