My Mama Says I Look Like an Angel

It's no coincidence that my name is "Angela" and I have the face of an angel.

Just look at those pores

I'm of course being mildly facetious, because what you see above is only partially the result of thousands of years of selective Mediterranean breeding. The rest is hard work, experimentation, and practice (like that eyeliner, which was a total fluke that day oh my goodness).

I have skin that hilariously requires anti-aging and acne products at the same time. I have never, ever found a single cream or treatment that actually helps my skin, and everything either does nothing (and costs over $50), or makes me break out horrendously (and still costs over $50). Since I like my money going toward better things, I started to do a little research into home remedies.

My amazing friend Shannon told me about Aztec Secret Indian Healing Clay Deep Pore Cleansing Mask which I love on its own. But my weird zits persisted.

I started to read up on different scrubs and ingredients that would address my bumps. I found this article talking about how awesome it is to use sugar topically in your beauty routine. I've made my own sugar body scrubs before (of course I have, right?) and loved them so much more than salt scrubs, so I thought this could work.

I had already been using Skin Therapy Oil to moisturize my face, because it was cheap, it smelled great, and actually made my skin pretty soft, without adding to the bump zone.

The last piece of my solution was the discovery of the medicinal and antibacterial properties of honey. Once that fell into place, I got to work on my inventing the perfect face goo.

Here is what you'll need:

1) 3 tsp of Aztec Secret
2) About four pumps of Palmer's Skin Therapy Oil (can be varied to achieve a viscosity you love)
3) 3 tbsp of brown sugar
4) Sugar In The Raw - vary the amount based on how aggressive a scrub you'd like. I use around ten packets (that I bought off Amazon; I did not bum these from Starbucks, I do not recommending bumming these from any reputable business please)
5) 4 tbsp honey
6) 4 ounce jars

In a small mixing bowl, add the brown sugar, raw sugar, and Aztec Secret, and mix until thoroughly combined. I use a fork for this because it's all the perks of a whisk without the annoyance of having things get stuck in the little loops. Once your dry ingredients have reached a uniform consistency, add your honey, and mix as you go. It's going to be thick, and it's going to take a minute for the dry ingredients to integrate with the honey. Just stick with it. Ha! Stick. Anyway.

You can add more honey if you feel like your scrub is still too thick. Once the honey is mostly integrated with your dry ingredients, add your pumps of Skin Therapy Oil, and keep mixing. You want to be very careful here that you don't add too much oil because then your scrub will end up like Play Doh (which is awesome by itself, but gross to try and apply to your face). Your final consistency should be of a non-Newtonian fluid. You can test the scrubiness of your mix by smearing the fork across your hand and scrubbing away, then rinsing off. If it's too light a scrub, add more raw sugar. If it's too aggressive, add more brown sugar and honey.

Once you get a consistency you love, get a rubber spatula and carefully transfer your mix into one of your little jars. You should have this:

To use, wash your hands, smear it across your face like a mask, and work it into your problem areas. I leave mine on while I brush my teeth, and then give it a good scrub when I wash it off. Then I blot-dry my face with a bamboo washcloth. Done.

I try to do this in the morning and in the evening, but the evening scrub usually goes by the wayside because I generally keep myself awake reading until I'm way too exhausted to do anything except rack out. But even doing this once a day, or a few times a week, my skin texture improves significantly. My makeup goes on flawlessly, my pores look smaller, and my nasolabial lines aren't as prominent.

I could keep this recipe a secret and like, try to market it, but I love you all too much to keep it to myself.

Let me know if you try it and love it!