Winter is always dry, but Calgary is a special case. It’s the sort of place where it is regularly thirsty out, in addition to being cold and/or windy. My skin has always been acutely aware of this, sparking a lotion-toting habit bordering on the ridiculous.
A few weeks ago a friend requested an intense facial moisturizer. She’d been using Argan oil with some added kukuinut and tamanu oil, but with the onset of winter, something more intense was in order.
Argan oil was my obvious base oil. I love it for my face, and I’m partially convinced its magical. Vitamin E would also be a major component, to help the skin heal and regenerate. Avocado oil, kukuinut oil, and cupuacu butter (USA / Canada) would add intense moisturizing properties, while essential oils of chamomile, helichrysum, and lavender would add soothing, antibacterial properties. I also added some sea buckthorn seed oil for its anti eczema and anti acne properties.
Once my ingredients were assembled, it was just a matter of combining everything and heating it a little to melt the cupuacu butter (USA / Canada). I wanted the final product to be liquid, so there’s not too much in the way of solids here. I poured the final product into little 15mL bottles topped with eyedroppers for easy dispensing.
If you have truly dry skin I’d really recommend making something that includes some water, like this facial lotion. My skin has improved immensely since incorporating more water into my skin care routine!
Intense Facial Moisturizer
12g argan oil (USA / Canada)
5g Vitamin E MT-50 (USA / Canada)
3g avocado oil
3g kukuinut oil
3g sea buckthorn seed oil
4g cupuacu butter (USA / Canada)10 drops chamomile essential oil
4 drops helichyrisium oil (30%)
3 drops lavender essential oil
1 drop geranium essential oilCombine everything in a glass measuring cup with a pouring spout. Place the glass in a shallow dish of just-boiled water and stir to melt and combine.
I was looking for a recipe for really dry skin, thanks
I’d also recommend my Luxurious Silk Lotion and Healing Winter Lotions. The silk powder is hygroscopic, meaning it attracts moisture to it, so the lotion works beautifully for dry skin, and for longer than other lotions. The essential oils in the Healing Winter Lotion are great for soothing and healing dry, irritated skin. You could also add some silk powder to the Healing Winter Lotion recipe for one awesome recipe (I just made a batch like that and I’m loving it!).
Do you have any suggestions for a morning moisturizer. I’ve been doing an oil cleansing routine at night and would love to add this argan oil to it, but the mornings i’ve been “washing” with a baking soda scrub because just rinsing with warm water doesn’t feel like enough for me. But there are days where my skin feels a little dryer and I’d love a morning moisturizer. I have combination skin…any ideas?
Argan oil! Always argan oil! It’s all I use on my face (I keep trying other things and coming back to it). I wouldn’t recommend adding it to your OCM mixture, though—it’s a relatively expensive oil and it won’t really do you any good in your OCM as is doesn’t get to sink into your skin, it is just used to dissolve grime and then steamed off. Save it for straight application, I promise you’ll love it 🙂
Also, just out of curiosity—why do you wash your face so often? It sounds like you’re washing morning and night, and that just sounds like an awful lot to me. Do you live somewhere really warm/humid/sweaty? Have you found it’s required to keep acne at bay? I’m just curious because I rarely wash my face, generally just doing a weekly facial mask and swabbing down with some toner. That said, it is quite dry and cool here, and I have fairly cooperative skin.
And! Have you ever tried black soap? I LOVE it for my face!
How can I convert the grams to tablespoons, ounces… Whatever?? I’d love to try some Of these
Trying to easily convert measurements of weight into measurements in volume is like trying to figure out how many gallons you as a human being are, knowing just your weight. Varying densities and shapes make it really tricky! Some things will convert fairly easily (5g of water = 5mL of water, 1L of water = 4 cups of water, etc.), but weight to volume conversions are not generally very accurate. Try looking online for conversion charts. Just remember that all ingredients have different densities (that old “pound of feathers vs. pound of lead” thing), making weight the more accurate way to measure most ingredients. I’d really recommend getting a scale (~$15) and going by weight, it’s awesome! Less dishes, too 🙂
This may be super late, but there is a website called “Diana’s Desserts” that has a section on measurement conversions. The direct link is:
http://www.dianasdesserts.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/tools.measures/Measures.cfm
Or you can go to: http://www.dianansdesserts.com Click “Tips & Tools” and next click “Conversion Calculator”
This looks like a great resource for cooking, but it doesn’t have any volume/density conversions for anything other than baking ingredients, so it wouldn’t be overly useful here.
Since cupuacu butter is used in this moisturizer, wouldn’t it solidify in the bottle? Wouldn’t it be easy to put the finished product in a small container for dispensing instead of the bottle?
It doesn’t solidify unless it’s pretty darn chilly wherever you’re storing—below 16°C or so. You definitely could put it in a pump top bottle if you wanted (part of the reason I didn’t is that the oils in here are fairly expensive and most pump top bottles I’ve seen are at least 120mL), but I would avoid a wide-mouthed container as it is usually a somewhat viscous liquid at room temperature.