We have lots of DIY beauty tips at YouBeauty to hack your kitchen pantry and make yourself look even more fab. Some of them are pretty intuitive — of course coffee grounds would make a wonderful exfoliating scrub. Less intuitive, though, are all the ways to prettify yourself with a treat you may have sitting in your fruit basket: bananas. The queen of potassium, the banana is also chock full of carbs, vitamins and natural oils that can help soften skin and hair, as well as much-needed nutrients that enrich and nourish your body. They’re so good for you — inside and out — it’s bananas.
Banana Recipes For Your Face:
The banana is a wonderful ingredient to mash up and add to a homemade mask, plus it’s packed with antibacterial agents to help attack blemishes and hydrate.
- Acne Mask: Take one banana, a tsp of milk, a pinch of nutmeg, a tsp of oatmeal powder, and eat breakfast. No, just kidding — actually, mash it all up (or put in a blender) and apply to clean skin and let dry before rinsing thoroughly.
- Moisturizing Mask: Blend one banana and one Tbsp of honey (itself a fabulous beauty ingredient!), apply to skin. Leave on for about 20 minutes, then rinse off. Your skin will be soft and smooth. If you find yourself out of honey, you can simply apply a mashed banana for similar results.
- Oily Skin Treatment: Combat oil and shine with one banana and two tsps lemon juice, mixed together and left on the skin for 15 minutes. Bonus: the vitamin C from the lemons will also help to brighten your complexion.
- Hydrating Antioxidant Mask: Bananas and avocados contain vitamin A and E, known fine line fighters. Take an avocado and banana, mash them up into a paste, apply to skin for 25 minutes, then rinse.
- Gentle Exfoliating Scrub: Mix 1 banana with a small handful of dry oatmeal, and 1 Tbsp (give or take) coconut milk. The oats slough off dead skin, while the banana and coconut milk treat your skin to a healthy serving of nutrients and moisture.
- Banana/Sugar Scrub: Take a mashed banana and 1 Tbsp. of sugar and mix them well. Simply apply to skin by using circular motions, then rinse thoroughly. It also works wonders on hands!
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Banana Recipes For Your Skin:
There are a ton of benefits to eating a banana that you’re probably aware of (after a workout, during a hangover, etc.), but there are a couple beauty tricks that can be attributed to eating a banana too.
- Puffiness Relief/Pick-Me-Up: Eating a banana debuffs your skin naturally, especially in the delicate eye area. The potassium helps balance your body’s sodium, counteracting fluid retention. Eating bananas also reduces fatigue (which is reflected on your face) and increases stamina (so you look lively and glow-y). The best part, though, is it helps with beauty sleep, too! Bananas contain hormones and carbs that help the brain get to sleep naturally, so you wake up well-rested and beauteous.
- First Aid: Banana peels (note: not the banana itself) are surprisingly very helpful to your skin, as they are super soothing. They can speed up the healing process of a bruise or bug bite if used as a compress. Supposedly, continuous application of a banana peel to a wart will help chase it away (although verdict is still out on that one).
- Itchy Skin/Eczema Treatment: For swollen, itchy and red skin, you can rub a banana peel on the affected area. The inflammation will subside.
- Cracked Heel Salve: Mash up two ripe bananas and apply on the heels of clean, dry feet. You can then put on old socks or keep your feet up for 10 minutes before rinsing thoroughly. The banana penetrates deep into dry, cracked skin to create soft, smooth feet.
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Banana Recipes For Your Hair:
For hair masks, all these remedies call for a completely blended banana. Also, don’t let the mixture dry, otherwise bananas tend to stick and are pretty hard to get out. Rinse thoroughly.
- Dandruff Treatment: Mash two bananas with three Tbsp honey and apply to damp hair. Wearing a shower cap, allow to sit on the hair for 15 minutes. Rinse with warm to hot water (within reason!), as it helps to melt the honey.
- Moisturizing Hair Mask: Mix one banana with one avocado and two Tbsps coconut milk. Apply this mixture on the hair. Leave it on for 10 minutes for soft, silky hair. For extra dry hair, replace the coconut milk with plain yogurt (this also helps to treat hair loss).
- Anti-Aging Treatment: Take one banana and add 1/4 cup of olive oil and one egg white, put in the blender and mix it up. Apply to damp hair and let sit for 15 minutes. Rinse thoroughly, then wash with shampoo as usual.
- Shine Treatment: Take one banana and mix with a few drops of almond oil for a Vitamin A, C and E power pack. Apply to damp hair and leave on for 15 minutes. The results are strong, shiny hair.
