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They say that even during the deepest darkest days of World War II women still managed to scrape together money to buy lipstick. The moral of the story is that women will always care about their looks and their skin - no matter what.

Although commercial beauty and skin care products have advanced substantially in the last few decades and can now almost promise eternal youth, many women still prefer natural beauty products. And if you have the time and the ingredients, making your own products is a wonderfully therapeutic and beneficial hobby.

Here are a few time-tested ideas for making herbal beauty and body care products.

Facial cleansing
Rose-water has been used for centuries as an alternative to water and soap. Boil 6 cups red rose petals in 4 cups of water (collect rain water if you can) for 15 minutes, Cool, strain and keep in a glass bottle in the refrigerator.

To remove heavy make up make a cleansing cream by melting one measure of anhydrous lanolin and half a measure of aqueous cream in a double boiler, stirring continuously, adding 3 measures of almond oil and one measure of rose-water, then removing from heat and pouring into an opaque jar or bottle.

Astringent lotion
Simply mash some strawberries and apply to the face for a bracing toner.

Moisturiser
Melt 1 T beeswax over low heat and in another container melt 1 T lanolin and 1 T cocoa butter. Gradually stir the lanolin mix into the beeswax. Now warm 11/2 T calendula oil and 1 teaspoon glycerine together and then stir it slowly into the beeswax mixture. Dissolve t of borax in 2 T warm comfrey infusion (steep one cup comfrey in 2 cups boiling water, cool, discard comfrey leaves) and mix well into beeswax mixture. Continue stirring until them mix is thick and cool, then stir in 6 drops of petitgrain essential oil. Bottle or spoon into jars. This cream is especially good for dry skin.

Hand and body cream
Whisk the following ingredients together and store in a screw-top jar:
2 Tablespoons lanolin, one T liquid paraffin, 3 T aqueous cream and 2 T herbal infusion. Make the infusion by steeping one cup of a scented herb such as geranium flowers, lavender, or basil in 2 cups boiling water until cooled, then strain and discard the leaves.

Herbal bath
Make herbal bath bags of gauze or muslin (10x8 cm, or 4x4 inches is a good size) and fill them with up to four herbs of your choice. You can use fresh or dry but obviously the fresh ones have to be used immediately. Close the bag and hang three or four bags over the hot water tap so that the water flows through the bag into the bath. For relaxation choose chamomile, jasmine, of lime flowers. For stimulation, choose basil, bay, ivy, lavender, mint, rosemary, sage or thyme. To combat fatigue, use fresh grape leaves.

There are numerous recipes for all kinds of beauty and body products and some become quite complicated, but once you have the basic non-herbal ingredients, you can have a lot of fun especially with creating bath products. Do remember that just because it's natural it does not mean that you can not have an allergic or sensitive reaction to some herbs. Be particularly careful with agrimony, cowslips, cucumber, henna, ivy, lime blossom, lovage, nettles, pennyroyal, primrose and violets.

Some ideas sourced from Bremness, L "The complete book of herbs" and Roberts, M "Treasury of herbs".

Learn more about this author, Santi Meintjes.
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