Beauty in your hands

BEAUTY IN YOUR HANDS

INTRODUCTION A beautiful and healthy skin is not an impossible project, just take care of it day after day, since twenty years, the results will be visible over time. The first thing to treat is nutrition, because we are what we eat, so eating well is the basis for healthy skin. The constancy of taking care of it every day is essential, never go to bed wearing makeup, but perform those few gestures to clean the skin of the face well, through natural products, and taking those extra ten minutes for ourselves: removing make-up, toning, using a good day and night serum, and finally a moisturizer. All this can prevent the aging effect, wrinkles and small imperfections, such as pimples, on the face or otherwise. So, what we're going to see here will be just small natural tips to help you in your everyday life to make your face and body look their best.

HOW TO ELIMINATE ADVANCED AGE SPOTS Today we're going to find out what is the mineral whose deficiency can cause those spots on the skin, over fifty years of age. We will also discover the benefits that this mineral has on our body. The mineral in question is: zinc, the chronic lack of which generates those annoying brown spots on the skin. Zinc is present in all organs and tissues, even in fluids, and the body contains 2 to 3 grams, especially in skeletal muscles and bones, to a lesser extent in the: kidneys, prostate, skin, liver and retina. While people

associate zinc with immunity, it is also an important part of it in the body.

The lack of zinc also plays an important role in the formation of spots after the age of fifty, but it is not produced by the body, we must take it every day through mineral supplements. Zinc influences the activation of T lymphocytes, white blood cells, important in the fight against infections; therefore, the impact will be negative on T cells and immunity if zinc will not be present. This mineral holds a number of important roles in our body, it is required for the process of growth and development, reproduction, immune response and neurological function. Zinc is extremely important for collagen production and consequently for healthy skin.

WHAT IS STRONGER THAN BOTOX? THE COFFEE

How can we make a magic anti aging cream, which can brighten skin and remove wrinkles? We will need coffee. Coffee stimulates collagen production and fights wrinkles, let's see how.

Recipe n.1- Coffee scrub We take a saucepan and put a spoonful of coffee, add half a glass of water.

Boil for three minutes, and let it cool. Then with a strainer, with cotton circles inside, we drain the coffee, so that the remaining grounds do not pass through. To the remaining liquid, add a spoonful of cornstarch, and mix until everything is well blended. Put everything back into the saucepan, and turn on low heat, stirring well, without stopping. What will happen is that we will have a nice caramel colored cream. Put it in a small bowl, and add a spoonful of aloe vera gel. Aloe vera gel lightens the skin, and eliminates all pigmentation. We also add two vitamin E capsules, breaking them and letting the liquid fall into the mixture. Vitamin E helps fight skin aging and firms it. If we do not have vitamin E, we can replace it with almond oil. We mix well, and we're going to pour it into a jar, and then keep it in the fridge.

It will last seven days. The use will be to apply it on the skin of the face and neck, all night long, in the morning the parts will be washed, and you will immediately notice the difference. You will get a beautiful and luminous skin, and the application will be done every day. Make sure you massage very well after applying it, until completely absorbed, so the skin will have fed well with all the ingredients.

ANTI-AGING CREAM WITH BANANA PEEL Today we will learn how to make an anti-aging cream, based on banana peel and rice, which will help your skin stay clear, prevent the formation of wrinkles and dark areas. Let's take a banana, wash it, and remove the skin, which we will need for the cream, you can eat the fruit, as it is, or, in various ways, blending it with strawberries, or cutting it into slices, putting lemon and sugar on top, or in a fresh fruit salad. We return to the peel, cut it into small pieces. Banana peel has various properties: it clears the skin and removes pigmentation, it contains a high percentage of collagen, which helps the skin not age. Put the zest into small pieces in a saucepan, add a spoonful of rice, which helps lighten the skin and keep it young, add a cup of water and boil for ten minutes. Once cooked, let them cool and pour

them into a container to be able to blend them, with an immersion blender.

Blend well until obtaining a homogeneous mixture of banana peel and rice.

Now let's filter the compound with a sieve, to eliminate the biggest residues. Once done, we add a spoonful of cornstarch, which has the property of firming the skin, mix it, and then add a spoonful of lemon juice, which lightens the dark spots on the skin, and tones it. You can replace the lemon juice with orange juice. Mix well, and finally add a teaspoon of powdered milk, rich in vitamins that nourish the skin. We have thus obtained our cream, which we will put in a jar for use, keeping it in the refrigerator. The shelf life of this blend is seven days, so, use it all over your body, you will see the magnificent results you get.

MOISTURIZING CREAM AND ROSE BODY OIL

With rose petals, you can create two very effective, but above all natural skin care products. Let's see what the ingredients are, and how they mix together, in order to create a body oil and a face cream. We take a rose of any colour, but with scent, we remove the petals and put them in a mortar, where we crush them, reducing them to small pieces, almost like a paste.

Remove them from the mortar and put them in a glass jar, add one hundred milliliters of extra virgin olive oil and mix. Then take a saucepan, put a cloth in it and place the jar in the center with its lid placed on it, then fill the saucepan halfway with water, cook over low heat for twenty minutes. We remove the jar from the heat, and while it is hot, add a generous teaspoon of shea oil, a teaspoon, always abundant, of coconut oil, stirring, they will melt in the oil. Subsequently we filter everything with a strainer and a gauze fabric on top, the oil we will obtain will be excellent for the face and body, a moisturizing oil that will illuminate your complexion and the skin of your body, which will become smooth and luminous. From this oil, however, by adding other ingredients, you can obtain a fabulous rose cream. In a small bowl we put two always abundant teaspoons of aloe, which, as we know, has beneficial properties for the skin. We will add a teaspoon of rose oil, ten drops of vitamin E, which helps the development of collagen; mix well and our anti-aging, anti-wrinkle and moisturizing cream will be ready. We transfer it to a cream jar, close it and keep it in the fridge for two months.

The oil will be kept in a cupboard in the kitchen, or wherever you prefer, as long as it is in the dark, the shelf life will be six months. When you use the cream in the morning, always remember to cleanse first, then use a sunscreen and finally the rose cream, while in the evening cleanse in the same way, then dry with a tonic, then apply the cream. You can also use the oil for massages, it will be very pleasant to feel it on your skin, which will smell like rose.

THE BEST MOISTURIZER FOR ALL SKINS

Today we talk about how to create a great moisturizer, it contains a lot of collagen and tightens the skin. It can be used for any skin type, even sensitive ones. After the first application of this cream, you will notice its change immediately. But now let's move on to the composition of the cream, with a relaxing, refreshing, hydrating and collagen-rich effect. We take a glass bowl and a wooden kitchen spoon, pour a spoonful of washed white rice. We add fifty milliliters of water, and leave it to soak for ten or twelve hours. Rice is used to remove dead cells, helps produce collagen and, to lighten the skin. Let's continue with our recipe: after the scheduled time, blend the water and the rice, then take another glass bowl and filter everything, with two overlapping gauze fabrics, so we can obtain a

wonderful, very smooth rice water. Now let's take a saucepan, put a spoonful of flax seeds and one hundred milliliters of water, and let it heat over low heat for about five or seven minutes. Flaxseeds are special for the skin and are very good. Then, as we did for the rice, we filter with two gauze cloths, and a linseed jelly will come out, to which we will then add three tablespoons of rice water. Mix well, until the mixture is homogeneous. Then we pour two tablespoons of aloe vera, which can be bought in all personal hygiene shops or herbalists. Aloe vera gel is a great moisturizer. Finally, we add three vitamin E capsules, pierce them with a needle, and extract this vitamin, which is very important for skin oxygenation. Mix the whole mixture well, and then put it in a glass cream jar. We can keep it for two months in the fridge. With the leftover rice water, we'll do a nice face cleansing, dipping a cotton pad in it, before putting our cream in the evening. In the morning, sunscreen first, then our moisturizer. You will see what change the skin will have, from the first applications. All the ingredients used have no contraindications, unless there are intolerances to some of these substances.

EIGHT WAYS TO USE COCONUT OIL Coconut oil is a product that should always be kept at home, because it is practical and simple, it is rich in vitamin E, and is an antioxidant. It is present in many beauty products, especially anti-aging, for its elasticizing properties. But be careful, when you buy coconut oil it must have very specific characteristics: being in a glass pack, cold extracted, pure, and fair trade, an even more ecological and sustainable choice. But now let's see what these eight methods of use are.

Method 1- Coconut oil is an excellent hair restructuring; in fact, it is widely used in tropical countries to repair hair from salt and sun. It is used as a compress, before shampooing, together with flaxseed gel, or aloe gel. A few drops of rosemary essential oil are added, and the compress will be kept for at least an hour, then the shampoo will be proceeded. The hair will be light, silky and soft, you will be admired.

Method 2- Use coconut oil as lip balm. Take a small glass jar, fill it and close it, put it in your bag and use it if necessary, your lips will be very soft. The ingredients to make a cocoa butter are: shea butter, coconut butter and avocado oil, which can also be replaced with olive, almond, or jojoba oil.

We're going to add essential oil to taste, according to your taste such as orange, mint, lemon, lavender, etc. You need a small container for the cocoa butter, a glass jar and a saucepan. Let's see the recipe: put three generous teaspoons of shea butter in the glass jar, add four teaspoons of cocoa butter. We put some water in the saucepan and insert the glass jar in a bainmarie, you heat it until all the ingredients are dissolved. Now, having removed the saucepan from the heat, add five grams of oil, preferably, as seen before, and five drops of essential oil, as described before, to your taste, and mix well. We pour the liquid into the jar, which can be an old eye or face cream jar, or there are empty cocoa butter containers on sale. Let it cool to room temperature, and after a while you will have your solid, natural lip balm that will make your lips very soft. With these ingredients you will get more than one, so prepare more jars or containers. If you want to make your lip balm shinier, you'll need to add a tablespoon of castor oil to the ingredients.

Method 3- Coconut oil used as a face mask is great for removing blackheads and pimples. We will use coconut oil together with: honey and tea tree oil.

We apply it on the face, after moistening it, we keep it for ten minutes and we go to rinse it, all impurities will be gone. Method 4- Coconut oil is useful for relieving skin irritations and redness. It is recommended after depilation, to avoid redness, and it is also healing, in the case of small skin lesions.

Method 5- Coconut oil, like almond oil, can be a make-up remover, very suitable for having skin thoroughly removed and without leaving any residue, keeping it hydrated and soft to the touch. It is used by putting a few drops in the hands, rubbing them and then applying it on the face for makeup removal, then with a disk or a cloth to remove the make-up. If it should be too oily on the skin, apply it on the face with a pad, with a few drops of coconut oil, and then rinse the face.

Method 6- Coconut oil as a moisturizer, for all skin types, but especially for dry skin. When you take a shower, immediately after having dried off, apply

this oil all over the body, it is magnificent how it makes the skin hydrated, soft, perfumed, and how it will be absorbed immediately.

Method 7-Coconut oil used as a scrub, adding sugar, coffee, and to make it fresher, mint salt. Needless to say, it will leave you with beautifully smooth skin.

Method 8- Coconut oil is also used in the kitchen, and is perfect for cooking foods in a pan or in the oven. Its characteristic is to contain lauric acid, a saturated fat, which tolerates high temperatures well. It is suitable for replacing butter and margarine, for the preparation of desserts and flans.

It is a wonderfully natural oil, which cannot harm the skin, but rather, it eliminates dryness, impurities and make-up, used in the various ways described above, you can save money and have perfect skin in the same way. There are sure to be other uses for coconut oil, but these are the most recommended, and your skin will thank you.

CONCLUSION After seeing all these recommendations, using natural products, I can give you a small vademecum to keep your skin even further healthy.

1- Sleep well, at least seven/eight hours a night. Sleep helps relax, therefore, the skin will also be affected.

2- Drink, and on this point I mean at least 1 liter as a minimum, but even more. Hydrate our body which is made up of 70 percent water.

3- Do not smoke, and you know why, smoking reduces cellular oxygenation and vascular supply.

4- Moisturize the skin on the surface with natural cosmetics, or in any case with products that increase what the skin cannot miss.

5- Protect your skin from the sun, with sun protection every day.

6- Use antioxidants, which slow down the aging process. It is important to strengthen the skin's immune system.

7- Pay attention to the increase in skin sensitivity, caused by some substances contained in cosmetics such as: nickel, parabens, petrolatum.

8- Smiling often: an action that allows you to keep your face muscles in training, it's called facial gymnastics, but at the same time it helps you to always be happy.

There you have it, eight important rules, which will help you in the fight against aging, although I have one golden rule to tell you: take care of yourself, but not to always stay young, to grow old in the best possible way.

When you see a lady, even of a certain age, elegant, and with well-kept skin over time, smiling at life, it will perhaps be the thing that makes us think: “What are we doing for ourselves now, so that we can be like you in a few years?” The answer is up to you.

Sommario INTRODUCTION HOW TO ELIMINATE ADVANCED AGE SPOTS WHAT IS STRONGER THAN BOTOX? THE COFFEE ANTI-AGING CREAM WITH BANANA PEEL MOISTURIZING CREAM AND ROSE BODY OIL THE BEST MOISTURIZER FOR ALL SKINS EIGHT WAYS TO USE COCONUT OIL CONCLUSION Front cover image by NOWO. Book design by NOWO. NOWO snc Via Gen. Guisan 4 6833 Vacallo Switzerland