Howdy going gray partners (or those parties just plain curious about the adventure of going gray). I’m checking in at 18 weeks into the process. After a week full of meetings, I was feeling a bit more sensitive to my going gray hair look. To top it off, our furnace has been running like crazy because it has been so cold here. All the dry air is making my skin and hair dry out at a crazy fast pace. This week, I feel like shaking things up a bit! Don’t ya know…the cold weather in Wisconsin makes one do weird things! A perfect time to do a little homemade pampering.
Yes, I confess, YouTube sucked me in again! I decided after the oh-so-convincing videos to give a few things to try for a home spa treatment!
What the heck? Yes, she’s (I’ve) gone off the deep end! I ventured into cheap and homemade, or should I say, home remedies, for an at-home spa treatment to pamper myself on this lovely Sunday in January.
What on earth did I end up trying? Skin exfoliate treatments and all natural shampoo and conditioner!
As we age, especially if we’ve been out in the sun a bit too much over the years, we can end up being blessed with age spots or extra freckles and wrinkles. I’m not a fan of wearing too much makeup to cover them up so if there’s a natural way to get rid of said spotting and wrinkles I’m game for giving it a try!
First I’ve been trying this trick more than once over the last few weeks. Mostly because I really liked how soft it makes my skin feel. I’ve been using peeled and sliced potatoes. What? Yep, potatoes. The slices make for fun little pads to rub on your face. The potato juice and potatoes make a nice exfoliate. Your face will feel very smooth when you’re done. I just use each little potato slice and rub it all over my face in a circular motion until the piece feels dry to the touch. Toss after use. Then repeat with the next slice until all gone. Easy, plus you can do it while watching YouTube videos or something productive like reading emails!
Potato slice facial rub procedure:
- Scrub potato clean.
- Slice potato in ½ on the short side (save the 2nd half in a covered bowl for the next day, you only need ½ potato per day).
- Peel potato, toss the skins.
- Slice in about ¼ inch thick slices and put in a small bowl to hold the slices during the procedure.
- Take one slice at a time and rub in a circular motion all over your face for up to 15-20 minutes.
- I even get nice and close to my eyes, and on my eyelids. Other facial products recommend staying away from your eyes. The potato juice won’t hurt your eyes and the cool slice feels nice on your puffy eyes in the morning.
- When you’ve gotten through all the slices, you will have a dry, soft crust covered all over your face. Your fingers feel soft too during this procedure.
- Rinse with warm water until crust is all gone off your face.
- Rinse one more time with cooler water, and pat dry.
But potato rubbing is supposedly only for removal of “spots.” It is a very a slow process to get spots to fade, but they do, ever so slightly. One day I must have rubbed too long! My face was sore afterward, so I took a break from doing that every day and got back into it today while watching videos. And then…
I came across another facial exfoliating idea. Coconut oil and baking soda. Score, I had those two items in the cupboard, so I was on to trying that out as well!
The combination really works well for making your skin feel soft and silky. I even rubbed it on my dry hands after rubbing on my face, neck, and shoulders. You don’t have to rub on neck and shoulders, just the face is fine. But, I found that while your hands are already covered in the stuff from rubbing on your face, you might as well rub your hands. My hands are nice and soft now too! This is supposed to be good for exfoliating, moisturizing and clearing acne. The video recommended leaving it on for up to 5 minutes. I was too impatient and just rinsed after a couple of minutes.
Coconut oil and baking soda facial rub procedure:
- Get a small glass bowl and a spoon.
- Measure out 1 tsp of baking soda (you don’t have to be exact) in the bowl.
- Make sure all the lumps are out.
- Measure 1 tsp or slightly more of coconut oil and drop into the bowl.
- Stir together the baking soda and coconut oil until well mixed, a good 2-3 minutes will do the trick.
- Rub the mixture on your face, neck, and shoulders (and hands) in a circular motion until you can’t see the white of the mixture, it will just look like oil on your skin. It will feel rough and smooth at the same time. Massage it into your skin. Don’t get in your eyes, but you can rub under and on the lids without hurting them. They are the softest part of your face, so you want to be gentle. But the area does benefit from exfoliation too!
- Continue massaging all areas for a minute or up to 5 minutes.
- Leave on for another minute or so before rinsing.
- Rinse with warm water. Or you can rinse off in the shower if you used it on your neck and shoulders.
Before trying the above, I found another video…yes, I spent a bit too much time spoiling myself on this spa day!
This video was about natural shampoo and conditioner. Okay, I know right, I have been talking about other shampoos already and really liked them. But I have to admit, I’ve noticed a bit of fly away and frizz when I use the purple shampoo. So when I ran across a video that talked about how some shampoos can cause dryness and can actually cause your hair to gray early. What, I was all ears!? Hmmm…interesting!?!
The theory goes that our scalp and hair will do better if we don’t use the perfumed shampoos and conditioners. You can just wash it with simple products in the home and your hair will not only be softer but less fly away and not go gray as fast. Now that sounds good to me! The shampoos I’ve been using are fairly expensive and well…we all know the hair is going gray, so let’s see if this trick works! I’m up for giving it a try!
In comes baking soda again! Good thing I have a big box of it!
Baking soda shampoo and apple cider vinegar rinse procedure: (not recommended for everyone).
- Find a container to hold the liquids. I was lucky enough to have two spare water jugs that we aren’t using and that I hadn’t yet donated (sometimes waiting to decide pays off) during my clutter clearing project!
- Mix a 1:3 baking soda to water mixture. I used 3 Tbsps of baking soda and 6 Tbsp of water. Mix well.
- Shampoo your hair and let sit for 1-3 minutes before rinsing. Warning, this will NOT feel like normal shampoo, there will not be suds, but you will still massage and rub in like you normally do with shampoo. It will taste salty if it gets in your mouth and will burn if it gets in your eyes. Just like taking a dip in the ocean…come to think of it, my hair is always soft when I’ve been to Jamaica…ahh…this was like adding a bit of Jamaica to my spa day!
- Rinse out all the baking soda shampoo, there will be a little residual.
- Next rinse with an apple cider vinegar rinse in a 1:4 apple cider vinegar to water mixture. I used 1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar to 4 Tbsp water and then just added a little more water to have enough to rinse well. You can add essential oils lavender or mint, but I didn’t have any of that, just grapefruit juice, see below.
- Rinse hair with the above mixture by tilting your head back (you don’t want to get this in your eyes!!!) and pour the mixture all over your head and hair and massage it in like conditioner and then rinse thoroughly with a little cooler water than your normal shower temperature.
I added a step since I also saw another video! Again…I was taking time to spoil myself at the spa! Anyhow…supposedly lemon juice and coconut oil are good for your hair too. I didn’t have any fresh lemons to squeeze, but I had a grapefruit (citrus right!) for breakfast so I saved the juice and mixed it with warmed up coconut oil for my “conditioner” for the day. Plus grapefruit smells kind of fresh compared to the apple cider vinegar smell.
Grapefruit juice and coconut oil conditioner procedure:
- Eat your refreshing grapefruit sections (I always add honey on top). There’s a little honey left in the juice too after the dining experience.
- Squeeze the juice out of the grapefruit into a bowl.
- Mix in 1 tsp of coconut oil. It doesn’t mix well due to temperature, so warm it slowly in the microwave until the oil melts and mixes with the grapefruit juice.
- I transferred it into two small hotel shampoo containers so that I had an easy way to apply it in the shower.
- Apply to hair and leave in for 1-3 minutes like you normally do with conditioner.
- Rinse well.
Once you’re all done with rinsing your hair and all the other stuff you do in the shower, get out and dry your hair with an old t-shirt instead of a towel. I use the old t-shirt to dry and scrunch the curls. It works really well and you don’t end up with frizz like you do with a towel rubbing against your hair.
Just let your hair air dry! You will be tickled grapefruit pink with the results! My curls are extra soft and NOT frizzy and poofy, just soft curls!! I do smell a bit like a salad, but that’s okay! My skin feels so soft and my hands aren’t dry. Wow, this spa adventure worked! Yippee!!
Side bonus…baking soda and vinegar are great natural household cleaners too! Your shower gets clean at the same time you do! An ounce of soap residue prevention while you get soft and naturally clean in the process too!
Your hair and skin will love you for it!! My cheap spa day was a success and I didn’t wash away the gray hair either!!
Now…time to get back to tax paper prepping, and watching some football!!
