household staples that double as beauty products
One of the coping strategies for such a situation is careful planning and monitoring home-inventory, but sometimes low levels sneak up on you. Luckily, there are many beauty products you can make at home (and a few that stand in for others) if you’ve forgotten to pick up a crucial grooming product during your last big shop. Here are a few of the multi-taskers lurking in your kitchen and bathroom.
The first time I encountered an oil-based cleanser (Shu Uemura’s cult bestseller), I was skeptical. The idea is that oil dissolves the gunky oil deposits in your pores, extracting them with an efficiency suds and abrasive cleansers can’t match. Rubbing oil on breakout-prone skin is still scary the first time you do it, but it actually does work. Brilliantly.
Oil cleansers are fantastic, but plain old olive oil works well in a pinch- so much so, many first-timers become instant converts. A few drops rubbed into skin for a minute to ninety seconds and followed with a hot compress to steam pores really does clear your skin out, and it generally leaves a protective barrier sufficient for normal to combination or oily skin. Dry skinned folk can rub a few bonus drops on cleansed skin, and olive oil is a great stand-in moisturizer when you’ve unexpectedly run out.