Today we’re embracing the crunchy side of DIY skin care with a beautiful four ingredient clay face mask. It’s smooth and creamy, smells of honey and summer days, and leaves your skin feeling rejuvenated and refreshed. It’s perfect for a bit of solo pampering, or you can easily scale it up for a bit of a spa day with friends!
Want to watch this project instead of read it?
Our liquidy bit is a simple blend of raw honey—a moisturizing great-for-skin powerhouse ingredient—and ultra fragrant sweetgrass hydrosol. I find the sweetgrass hydrosol smells a lot like honey, so I couldn’t resist blending the two for an utterly divine smelling face mask. Sweetgrass hydrosol is also mildly astringent.
The clay blend is a simple, gentle combination of silky-smooth white kaolin and French green clays. I find my skin loves this blend of clays, and with the hefty dose of honey in this mask it isn’t as drying as some clay masks can be.
Post-masking it occurred to me that clay masks really are the “turn it off and back on again” of skincare. I did this mask twice in a one-week period and noticed some stubborn blemishes started healing much faster while some pre-existing pigmentation from older blemishes faded noticeably. Score!
While this mask is so simple that any changes will be pretty substantial, I have still provided some substitution suggestions at the end of the post to try to make this DIY as accessible as possible. Happy masking!
Want to watch this project instead of read it?
Sweetgrass & Honey Face Mask
2.4g | 30% raw honey
2.4g | 30% sweetgrass hydrosol1.6g | 20% white kaolin clay (USA / Canada)
1.6g | 20% French green clayWeigh the honey and sweetgrass hydrosol into a small bowl and whisk to combine. Slowly add the clays, whisking between additions, until you have a thick, creamy mixture. You may wish to adjust the amount of clay to get your desired end consistency; more clay will make for a thicker, stiffer mask. Less clay will make for a thinner, runnier mask.
To use, spread the mixture across your face (I highly recommend tying your hair back!) and leave to dry/work its magic for about fifteen minutes before washing the mask off. The shower is the easiest places to wash it off; otherwise I like to soak a washcloth in warm water and hold that to my face for a minute or so to give the mask a chance to soften up before I begin gently wiping.
Follow up with your favourite facial lotion or oil serum!
Shelf Life & Storage
Because this mask is absolutely loaded with delicious bug food it must be made in single use batches and used immediately. No amount of preservatives will make it safe to store!
Substitutions
As always, be aware that making substitutions will change the final product. While these swaps won’t break the recipe, you will get a different final product than I did.
- As I’ve provided this recipe in percentages as well as grams you can easily calculate it to any size using a simple spreadsheet as I’ve explained in this post. As written in grams this recipe will make 8g, which is enough for a single application.
- To learn more about the ingredients used in this recipe, including why they’re included and what you can substitute them with, please visit the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia. It doesn’t have everything in it yet, but there’s lots of good information there! If I have not given a specific substitution suggestion in this list please look up the ingredient in the encyclopedia before asking.
- You could try glycerin instead of honey.
- You can use a different hydrosol or simply distilled water instead of the sweetgrass hydrosol.
- You can use all of either clay if you only have one.
- If you want to use a different clay stick to lighter clays like the French clays, kaolin, and zeolite. If you use something heavier like bentonite or rhassoul you will be fundamentally changing the experience of this mask.
Gifting Disclosure
The sweetgrass hydrosol was gifted by Plant’s Power.
So lovely to see a new crunchy recipe! Thank you
You’re welcome! I love playing with the whole spectrum of crunchy-ness 😀
How do you store your hydro soles? How long is the shelf life? Do you add any preservative to the bottle for better storage?
thanks mary
I keep mine in the fridge. If the hydrosol is unpreserved I add a preservative on arrival; your supplier should tell you if their product is unpreserved or not 🙂
What a beautiful face mask! Smells so nice too! I used chamomile hydrosol. I applied thicker layer so that it doesn’t dry too quickly: again one great trick from you! After trying it once it felt gentle and soothig for blemished areas.
I’m so thrilled you enjoyed it! ❤️
I mixed up a 4oz jar of clay, honey powder (from Wholesale Supplies Plus), and 100x aloe powder and it’s in my bathroom with a small bottle of hydrosol (the big bottle is in the fridge). Now I have a just-add-water mask ready to use any time. I’m awfully lazy, I know.
That sounds fabulous!
Could a person mix the honey and clays as a base and just add water to a small amount each time you use it? We produce honey and it requires no preservative , neither do infused or creamed honey as long as you don’t add liquid ingredients, so I believe the addition of Clays should not require anything.
We use straight crystallized honey as face treatment and it does wonderful things 🙂