Creating Your Own Natural Skin Care Products

It is a well-known fact that the cosmetic industry is booming and will continue to boom. With the presence of so many different types of skin care products being introduced to the market almost daily, consumers are hard-pressed to choose products which they believe "are good for their skin". Nowadays, the hottest terminology in the cosmetics/skin care arena is "natural skin care". However, contrary to popular beliefs, many of these "natural skin care products" still contain many synthetic or man-made chemicals.

In fact, synthesizing these chemicals is pretty easy and presenting consumers with a jar full of chemical concocts shouldn't be too hard too. Moreover, with less stringent FDA regulation for cosmetic/skin care products as compared to drugs, we as consumers have more reasons to worry about harmful chemicals present in the skin care products.

Even though we are constantly being introduced to the concept of "natural skin care products" by cosmetic manufacturers, as a matter of fact, some "natural skin care products" can be quite unnatural. It is even more crucial for consumers with skin allergies to be well-equipped with knowledge of choosing the right type of skin care products. Learning to read the ingredient labels on skin care products is one of the ways to ensure that we purchase skin care products which are as natural as possible. However, reading ingredient labels is not for everyone. After all, not everyone is a chemist or even likes to read and understand chemical names and formulas.

An alternative method we can ensure our skin get the best natural skin care products would be to handmade our own skin care products. At the turn of the previous century, cosmetics and skin care products were either handmade or were created by licensed pharmacists. With less access to skin care products manufactured by skin care product manufacturers, people in those days used fruit, vegetables and herbs grown in their own gardens to treat skin conditions. It is not uncommon for these people to make use of common cooking ingredients to produce their own natural skin care products too.

I highly recommend such practice and think that we should try to go back to basics. If the natural skin care products work in those days, it should still work for us today. Of course, we must be cautious in choosing fruits and vegetables which are not sprayed with too much pesticides or herbicides as such chemicals can do more harm than good to our skin. The choice of organic produces can ensure that our skin has less contact with these harmful chemicals.

Fortunately for us, there are many resources we can make use of to create our own natural skin care products. If we are allergic to any of the common natural skin care ingredients, we can just avoid this particular fruit or vegetable.

These are the advantages of producing your own natural skin care products:

1) Affordability

Without advertisements coming into the picture, it would really be much more affordable to produce your own natural skin care products than to buy them from the skin care product manufacturers who had spent big bucks on their advertising strategies.

2) Ease of preparation

Since we are not trying to produce concocts of chemicals here, we would not require common lab vessels and containers such as pipettes, burettes, conical flasks and test tubes. We would basically just make use of juicers and other simpler equipments.

3) Knowledge of the actual components of your skin care products

Since we are the producers of our own natural skin care products, we can avoid adding ingredients which we are allergic to.

The three advantages stated above are just many of the advantages that creating out own natural skin care products can bring. I will list some of the common ingredients we can use to produce our very own natural skin care products.

o Salt and Sugar are good for exfoliating dead skin cells and can also have therapeutic qualities.

o Olive oil posses moisturizing benefits.

o Apple can tighten and tone the skin.

o Oats or oatmeal smoothen and refine the skin. They also aids in whitening of the skin. Oats also relieves irritated skin and is good for individuals with a sensitive skin type.

By Chloe Kor (16 November 2007)

Chloe Kor is currently working in the pharmaceutical industry and understands FDA regulations well. However, she noted that cosmetic and skin care products are not as well regulated as drugs and this pose danger to the consumers. She is interested and believes in natural skin care.

Her website is [skincarepolice.com]