Looking great doesn’t have to cost a fortune.  By using natural ingredients, you can create your own beauty treatments for far less money than the department stores charge.  You can create a product at home for nearly any bottled beauty treatment, from perfume to wrinkle cream to hairspray.

Homemade beauty treatments are an excellent option for people with sensitive skin, as they don’t contain the chemicals found in added scents or dyes. In creating your own products, you’ll first want to understand the properties of the ingredients.  You can find resources online to tell you the properties of various fruits, flowers and herbs.  As a few samples, acidic ingredients such as lemons and oranges work well as astringents.  Lemon juice also has bleaching properties, and can be used to lighten hair or to fade freckles and age spots.  Oils work well in moisturizers.  Olive oil can be used on dry skin or dry hair, or as makeup remover.  Granular ingredients like sugar and salt are perfect for scrubs.

Homemade beauty products also make great gifts. You can buy small toiletry containers at a beauty supply store and fill them with your creation.  Just don’t forget to label the bottles so that a user with allergies won’t unknowingly expose herself to allergens.

Homemade beauty recipes range from the simple to the complex.  Many contain only one single ingredient.

The following list of home beauty treatments are as easy and inexpensive to make as possible:

• Face Mask. Plain yogurt makes a great face mask, because it contains lactic acid bacteria which will remove dead skin cells.  Rinse your face with warm water to open your pores, rub a tablespoon of yogurt on your face and leave it in place for a few minutes.  Then wash it off with warm water.  Honey also works as an excellent face mask.  Use similarly to yogurt, but leave on for 15-30 minutes before  rinsing.
• Pimple Cream. Dabbing a small amount of plain white toothpaste onto a pimple and leaving it on overnight will help clear your skin.
• Under-eye Circles. Do you have dark circles under your eyes?  Try wrapping raw, grated potato in cheesecloth and placing it under your eyes for 15-20 minutes.
• Hair Conditioner. Mayonnaise works as a great conditioner for dry hair.  Put some on your hair and cover with saran wrap for 15 minutes.  Rinse thoroughly and then wash as normal.
• Dandruff treatment. To get rid of dandruff, massage vinegar into the scalp and allow to dry for a few minutes before washing hair.  Do this every day for a few days and dandruff will disappear.
• Anti-wrinkle cream. Banana is wonderful as an anti-wrinkle treatment.  Just mash until creamy and spread onto your face, and then leave for 15-20 minutes before rinsing with water.

So look no further than your kitchen refrigerator or kitchen cabinet for the greatest beauty treatments nature has to offer.  Your skin will glow, your hair will shine, and your wallet will breathe a sigh of relief.