I whipped up this moringa face mask the day after returning from Philadelphia, where I met with my publisher and we took some pretty photos for my upcoming book (!). After many hours spent on airplanes and in airports, jumping from dry to humid to dry again, and days of wearing a whole lotta makeup, I was craving some serious clay cleansing. This is what I came up with.
The ingredients are simple enough. I started with a simple mix of gentle white white kaolin clay (USA / Canada) and water, and to that I added some raw honey and some moringa leaf powder. These four ingredients came together to make a lovely light green paste that left my complexion refreshed and brighter. Bye bye, plane scum!
I chose a raw honey I brought back from Costa Rica. It’s a ruddy dark brown colour and quite thin for honey. I purchased it at a wee farmers market and the lady who sold it to me explained in a combination of English and Spanish that the bees harvested the pollen from a special plant in the rain forest to make this dark, medicinal honey. She told me it was the sort of thing kids would be given when they were sick as a sort of cough syrup, so I thought it would be fantastic to add a healing boost to my mask. I’m assuming most of you don’t have this rather odd honey at home, but any raw honey will work as well.
Up next, moringa powder. Moringa is something else I first heard about in Costa Rica, from a Canadian ex-pat who spoke of it with infomercial like excitement. My interest was piqued, so when I saw a bag of moringa leaf powder at Marshall’s a couple weeks ago I took a closer look at the nutritional profile and was pretty impressed. A single tablespoon of the stuff contains a whopping 60% of your daily recommended iron intake! It’s also rich in antioxidants and vitamins A, B2, B6, C. It’s being investigated as a way to help end malnutrition in subtropical areas, which is super cool. Further research taught me that moringa has been used in Ayurvedic medicine for thousands of years for healing. Cool! Definitely a good addition to both face masks and smoothies. It’s got a pretty distinct “green” flavour, similar to that of spirulina or alfalfa, which isn’t relevant for the mask (hopefully!), but good to know if you’re buying a bag to use as a dietary supplement as well.
I got my moringa powder from Marshall’s for about $8, but I realize that’s not a very reliable shopping option. I also found it all over Amazon, with loads of different purchasing options. You might want to check out the bulk section at your local health food shop, too, so you don’t have to commit to a big bag of the stuff straight away. The plant you’re looking for is Moringa oleifera, and you want powder made from the leaf.
Moringa Face Mask
5mL |1 tsp warm water
1/4 tsp raw honey
1/4 tsp moringa leaf powder
5 1/2 tsp white white kaolin clay (USA / Canada)Measure the water out into a wee dish and whisk in the honey and moringa leaf powder until you’ve got a uniform green mixture. Add the clay one teaspoon at a time, until you have a thick, creamy paste. The amount of clay you’ll need might vary, so don’t worry if you need a bit more or a bit less.
Spread the mask over your face and let it dry for about twenty minutes before rinsing off. Follow up with your favourite oil serum and enjoy!
If you don’t have white white kaolin clay (USA / Canada) you can use other light, smooth clays instead. Any of the French clays would be a good choice, as would zeolite, any other colour of white kaolin clay (USA / Canada), and the paler Australian clays. I do not recommend bentonite or rhassoul for this mask.
This makes enough for one face mask.
I just wanted to thank Marie for keeping me going with all these wonderful recipes. I love your work and am looking forward for the new book. All the best. From way ‘down under’ in Brazil, Thank you!
Thanks, Fausto!
I opened my email this morning to see this morniga mask and let out a little squeal. I too just got it from TJ Max (I believe it is part of the same company as Marshalls) because mt rose herbs was out of stock. It was on my buy list because I had read it is great for breastfeeding and planned to use it in a smoothie. Just last night I was reading about all the other great benefits and ran into something about using it on skin. I was playing with the idea of adding this to your coconut and pineapple mask.
I only found you a couple weeks ago and I’m still going through your website figuring out what (many!!) ingredients I need to make a whole bunch of cool new things* but I can make this mask tonight! (*I only want to try my hand at liquid, whipped and bar soaps, mineral make-up, lotions, and tweak some of my own saves and serums with new ingredients I have read about on here. lol.)
Great minds obviously think alike 😉 Enjoy your new mask/moringa goodies, and welcome to the wonderful world of DIYing allllll the things 🙂 It’s fun over here, I promise! Thanks for reading 🙂
As usual, your masking habits put me to shame. I love skin care but don’t like having a cold, gooey mess on my face! But I know it’s worth it to keep the pore clear and the skin toned. So now I’m thinking about doing a face mask when I get home from work.
I heard about Moringa a few years ago and had a great experience taking it in capsule form. I started taking it around the time I joined a gym and started watching my diet, and during my first week at the gym, for the first time in MY LIFE, I ran a mile without stopping, and it was easy! I ran that mile without any practice or conditioning. And I was 70 lbs overweight. It really should not have been that easy or doable for me to run that mile, so to this day I attribute the miracle to Moringa. I don’t know why I ever stopped taking it, but I’m going to place an order tonight!
If you hate cold masks, try setting the dish with your mask in it in a hot water bath for a while before using it—it helps immensely!
Also, I think I should try putting some of my moringa powder in capsules—what a cool story!
wow! First I thought you will use Moringa oil – that’s what I have and LOVE! Never heard about powder – just ordered it 😉 Thank you for the awesome idea!
Where did you get your moringa oil? I haven’t been able to find it in Canada for less than a small fortune.
I bought some moringa oil from Botantic Planet. Yes, a small fortune, but it was worth trying. Also just ordered some more powder from them. Well.ca was out of stock, no doubt due to your post.
Ooooh, I’d love to try the oil one day. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it once you’ve been using it for a while 🙂
Added it to argan oil and evening primrose oil (equal quantities) with some lavender EO to mask the smell of the argan oil. Great as a facial oil (so says my wife).
Oooh, sounds divine 🙂
I have just learned a whole lot about Moringa. Thank you for this wonderful treasure info.
Thanks for reading! 🙂
I too am a big fan of Moringa and tried this recipe last night. I added less than a 1/4 tsp of Moringa Oil to the mixture to give it a little extra boost. In Canada, Sunrise Botanics has both the Moringa Oil and the powder. Thanks for the quick and simple recipe!
Thanks, Jackie!
That’s a cool recipe. I take moringa powder (its native to India) almost everyday as a power boost shake. It gives instant energy! Now I am gonna try this for my face too. Thank you.
Thanks, Atiya! I’m considering looking for some of those little self-fill capsules to make my own supplements for it 🙂
I have just recently found your blog! Thanks for all the fantastic ideas! We are starting to help Women’s Groups here in Tanzania make beeswax products and start businesses to support themselves and their children. We have long been teaching the benefits of the moringa tree as we do health teaching and also tree planting … and now the leaves will be crushed in our garden for the beeswax products! http://themongers.blogspot.com/2016/02/mama-bees-beeswax.html
Thanks, Rachel! How amazing to have your own, fresh moringa 🙂
What if you want to make this mask to sell all ready to go? What preservative would you recommend? I keep hearing about this Lactobacillus ferment and Leuconostoc/Radish Root Ferment Filtrate.
Honestly, I don’t know, and if you are asking me, you shouldn’t be selling it. That might seem a bit harsh, but you should not sell anything that you don’t fully understand, especially at the risk of giving a customer an infection (hopefully you are incorporated to protect you from personal liability and have good insurance in any event?).
I love moringa! But good golly the taste is horrible! And the oil is brilliant in lotions! i love adding in a few drop so moringa to all my face lotions. Love it even more than tamanu oil!
Ooh, I’ll have to keep that in mind if I ever work up the nerve to add some of the powdered stuff to a smoothie haha 😛
Honest to goodness work up the nerve! I make my own spirulina and moringa capsules so I don’t have to worry about the green tongue and tastes. I do strongly suggest giving it a go! I’ve noticed that with the spirulina my acne was easier to deal with (excluding hormonal) but my skin just got pretty with moringa powder.
My new happy mask is some royal jelly, kaolin, moringa, honey and sea buckthorn oil. Give it a go!
Hmm… Amazon prime and your purchasing suggestions are going to be the death of me LOL.
Pssst….. you started it.
… ’tis true.
I was ready to whip up the mask when I saw that you would not recommend using Bentonite clay (the Aztec one I was going to use), why is that?
Did you read the linked article? That explains how it’s SUUUUUUPER different from the recommended clays very thoroughly!
Do I need the Clay to make the mask ? I live in Costa Rica on the Caribbean .. can’t buy Clay anywhere.
Clay is the key ingredient in a clay face mask, so yes, you need it.