9 DIY Skin care recipes you should NEVER try!

Hello again everyone, today we are going to talk about homemade DIY skin care recipes that you should absolutely never try. And these recipes are everywhere. They are all over youtube; they're all over the internet, all over blogs and for some reason they just won't die. So, I'm going to make this article today, to tell you which ones you should never try and why.

1. Lemon and Sugar

And to start lets talk about lemons. One of the most popular recipes I see involves taking a lemon, cutting it in half, coating it in sugar, and then scrubbing it all over your face. Now, I kind of understand why people might think this is a good idea. You think "oh, lemons have vitamin C and sugar is exfoliating. Exfoliation is good." But, no. The pH of lemon juice is way too low to be just rubbing it all over your face it's highly irritating. 

And then adding a crystalline substance to it -- crystalline meaning it has sharp edges. Scrubbing that all over your face you're going to create a lot of tiny lacerations through which the lemon juice can enter and further irritate the skin. So absolutely not, do not ever do this. The best way to exfoliate your skin is gradually over time and leave on treatments like AHAs, BHAs, retinols, etc., are by far the best way to go about it. I've said before that scrubs are really not that effective at exfoliating especially over the long term. So not only is this not providing the benefit you think it is but it's going to damage your skin in the long term if you do this repeatedly. 

2. Tomato variation

Another variation of that that I've seen is to do the same thing but with a tomato. Tomato is slightly safer to use on the skin, and tomatoes do have some beneficial properties for oilier skin because they are naturally astringent. But same thing applies, you do not want to be rubbing sugar all over your face and homemade scrubs in general, homemade facial scrubs, are generally a bad idea. 

3. Baking Soda

And on that note, let's talk about baking soda. Baking soda is something that does not belong on your face literally ever. You should never ever ever put baking soda on your face. Your skin naturally has an acidic ph and that's a good thing. It helps to keep the lipid layer intact helps to keep the skin health and performing its job keeping things out of the body. But when you introduce something that is highly alkaline to it you are compromising the quality of that lipid layer and the integrity of your skin.

Now, a lot of recipes say "well you can mix this in with your cleanser and it makes for a nice mild exfoliation" and that's true it's an extremely mild exfoliation because this, this is just a powder there's very little grit to it and that's all well and good but you're introducing a highly alkaline substance into your skin care routine and that is never advisable. 

There are also a lot of sort of like, logical leaps that people take with baking soda. Like, baking soda is good for cleaning your teeth so it also must be good for cleaning your face, but that's just not true absolutely not true. It may help you to clean your face but it's not going to help your skin be healthy. The only time we as estheticians really purposefully introduce an alkaline substance is during a process called disincrustation which we use before extracting blackheads and that is a whole other thing and done in a very controlled way. 

But I do not recommend that you ever add baking soda to any of your skin care products in fact the only thing I ever recommend adding is a mechanical exfoliant, if you did want to add something to your face wash to make it into a mild scrub, would be jojoba beads. And you can get these in bulk from various ingredient suppliers -- like Coastal Scents I believe has some -- but just do a google search for jojoba beads, that is J-O-J-O-B-A, and you should be able to find some, they are not expensive. And because they are just a wax they are biodegradable and therefore much better for the environment than a lot of the plastic beads that you are getting in your facial scrubs.

4. Toothpaste

Alright, another thing you should never put on your face is toothpaste. I don't know where this one came from. I don't know who had the brilliant idea to take a tube of Crest and slather it on their face. I've heard this before from many people that they'd heard to use toothpaste as like a spot treatment for acne. That's not a good idea. Toothpaste often has baking soda in it, so right there you are getting a high alkaline product. Even if it doesn't have baking soda, toothpaste is basically sodium lauryl sulfate, which is soap, which is also alkaline, mint, which is an irritant, and silica which is an abrasive. It's got some other stuff in it for flavorings sweetener etc.. 

But those are the three main things, and you may experience a drying effect and that's from the sodium lauryl sulfate and the silica on your face but that's not a good thing. If you want to have an effective spot treatment, get a clay mask--that's what they're for. Clay masks are great at drying out oils and helping reduce inflammation, so you can either make one yourself: get some kaolin, and mix in a little toner, that works great, or you can buy many many different wonderful clay masks. My personal favorite is the Skinceuticals Clarifying Clay Mask. It's a really really great one and makes great spot treatment. 

5. Lavender Oil

Alright the next thing you never want to put on your face is lavender oil and this is very controversial because people love lavender. And I love lavender too as a fragrance. I love it in the home, I put a little bit of it in my nail polish remover but I don't put it on my face. There's a lot of new research coming out about lavender and it's still not quite definitive but there are a few things that we know. Lavender is an irritant first and foremost, which we already knew, but lavender is also very highly phototoxic, which means that it reacts strongly in sunlight. It can cause hyperpigmentation and inflammation in the skin. It can also be cytotoxic, which means it can be toxic to the cells of your skin. 

So if you want to enjoy lavender use it as a fragrance in your home; you can mix in a little bit of it with your body lotion and rub it on areas where you won't get any sunlight. I don't really recommend leaving it on the skin because of it's possible cytotoxic properties, but if you really love lavender just keep it in your environment, not on your face and not on anywhere that you are going to be getting any sunlight. 

6. Alcohol

This next one is a particularly strange one that I encountered in some youtube comments--I forget where. But someone left a comment saying that you can "wash your face with alcohol to remove blackheads". And you guys know how I feel about alcohol, you should just never ever ever put it on your face. But this person said that there was a dermatologist who made a video saying that you can put alcohol on the skin and it helps to extract blackheads, therefore it's ok. Because a dermatologist said it and that means that this person obviously knows better than I do. But of course this is absolutely a terrible advice you never want to put alcohol on your skin for any reason. It is just not something you want to do. 

7. Apple Cider Vinegar

The next one is apple cider vinegar, and this is another controversial one because conventional training--conventional aesthetic training says you would never want to put vinegar on your skin because of its ph. However it's kind of a cult favorite. My sister really swears by it. She used to have acne and she started using apple cider vinegar as a toner and it cleared up. However, she has very very dehydrated skin that doesn't really ever take to a moisturizer. My take on it is that using this highly acidic substance, this irritating substance, on her face on a regular basis has damaged her lipid layer, and she has combo/oily skin so she can't really use heavy moisturizer--and she shouldn't really need one. But her lipid layer is compromised and her skin can't retain moisture. 

So she ends up in this place where, yes, she doesn't have acne anymore but now she has severely and chronically dehydrated skin that doesn't tolerate moisturizers well. So I don't really recommend it. If you are going to use apple cider vinegar as a toner, I would mix it with water, definitely dilute it don't put it straight on your face. Apple cider vinegar does have some really great properties for the body in general but I never recommend putting straight vinegar on the face. 

8. Olive Oil or Coconut Oil

If you have oily skin or skin prone to comedogenic breakouts, which means if you put something like an emollient product on your skin and you have breakouts the next day, you don't want to be using olive oil or coconut oil on your face. These are two very popular "recipes" if you can call them that. A lot of people recommend using olive oil or coconut oil to take off your make up, and that's not as bad as leaving it on your face. 

I never really recommend using either one of them as a moisturizer just because they're not the best tolerated in the skin despite a lot of hype around them. They're not really the best oils to be using on the face. For the body, yeah you can get away with it, but the face is a little sketchier. However if you're going to use it as a makeup remover and wash it off immediately after its not as big of a deal. 

I just don't recommend it if you do have oily skin or combo skin or skin that is just prone to comedogenic breakouts, which could include dry skin. Some dry skin types do get comedogenic breakouts very easily. 

9. Essential Oils

And lastly let's just talk about essential oils in general for a minute. A lot of online blogger and youtube recipes call for essential oils for various reasons. I saw one the other day that was a post sun body spray that tea and aloe and mint in it. And the tea and the aloe are fine, but the mint... I suppose it was there for it's tingly "cooling" sensation. But the problem is that mint is a very very strong irritant, like most of these essential oils are. So putting something on your skin that tingles and feels cool doesn't mean that it's actually helping and I'm going to talk about that in the future. 

So if you see a recipe that calls for the use of essential oils I would be very skeptical about it because there really isn't a good reason to be putting essential oils on your face, in particular, they can be quite harmful, so be very careful. 

Just remember always that just because something is natural doesn't mean it belongs on your skin. And if you ever doubt that wisdom just think about poison ivy, because poison ivy is 100% natural but that doesn't mean it belongs on your face and neither do lemons and baking soda. 

So I hope that was helpful, those are all the recipes I can think of right at this minute. But if more come up I can make another one of these articles in the future. If I didn't mention a recipe that you've heard it's either because I haven't heard of it, I forgot it, or it's in my DIY recipes to try articles which will be coming up soon. So if you have any recipes that I didn't mention please leave them in the comments below if you're curious about them, if you want to know about my opinion, or if you maybe just want to get a sneak peek of what's coming up. Either way I hope that was helpful to you guys. Let me know if you have any other questions and if you like this article please share it. 

If you find that I have some good things to say just share them, facebook, twitter, just put them out there you know and help your friends to not put baking soda on their faces and toothpaste and crap. Anyway, I hope you all have a wonderful day and I will talk to you again soon. Bye!