How I Use Fruits (and a Vegetable) in My Skincare Products
The ingredients I use in my skincare products are all natural, and come from a variety of plant sources: bark, distilled hydrosols from flowers and plants, oils pressed from nuts and seeds, and extracts or oils from fruit itself. Nearly all of my products also include fruit in one way or another, so I wanted to highlight the skin-loving properties of the many fruits you can find in my products.
Citrus
Scent is one of our most powerful senses, and I want you to enjoy the experience of treating your skin. That’s one of the reasons you’ll find citrus in many of my products; the refreshing scent of orange, lime, or bright lemon is invigorating and uplifting. When I use a warm cloth to remove my cleanser in the evening, the heat amplifies the scent, creating a steamy, spa-like feel.
Beyond the good feelings that citrus brings, it’s a powerhouse when it comes to skincare. Lemon is well known for its skin-lightening properties, which is notoriously difficult to do with natural products. Unfortunately, applying lemon essential oil directly to the skin can create an extreme reaction when it’s exposed to the sun (phototoxicity). As we’re trying to heal and support the skin, this would be a disaster! Thus, I use only steam-distilled organic lemon essentialoil in my products. This eliminates the nasty compound (bergapten) that can create phototoxicity, while still helping with hyper-pigmentation.
You can find my favourite citrus fruits in these products:
- Red Western Cedar & Lemon Oil Cleanser
- Neroli & Lemon Balancing Moisturizer
- Pomegranate & Lemon Nourishing Facial Oil
Other Skin Benefits of Citrus
Lemon and the other citrus fruits in my products, like mandarin, lime, and blood orange, have a lot more up their sleeve (under their peel?) than smelling good and improving skin tone. The citrus oils and hydrosols that I use contain antibacterial properties (which is why they are in my cleansers), help to tighten and shrink pores, and bring radiance to dull complexions. Brighten up your skincare routine at each step with lively citrus:
- Chamomile & Mandarin Nourishing Cleanser
- Lavender & Lime Balancing Cleanser
- Nourishing Rose & Frankincense Hydrating Mist (with Blood Orange)
- Nourishing Rose & Frankincense Hyaluronic Serum (with Blood Orange)
- Neroli & Lemon Balancing Moisturizer
- Pomegranate & Lemon Nourishing Facial Oil
Fruit Powder
As you know, I formulate my masks as powders. This helps the masks last longer, gives you flexibility in how you use them, and also eliminates water in the formulation – which means you get a lot more product in the jar. The best part? The powders are made from whole, dried ingredients, so they maintain the active compounds to treat your skin.
Out of all my products, my Tropical Fruit & Coconut Rejuvenating Maskcontains the most fruit. It has powdered mango, apple, and pineapple. I chose these fruits for their exfoliating acids that help rejuvenate the skin, but they each have their own special properties:
- Mango supports our skin structure by boosting collagen and elastin, and contains valuable skin loving antioxidants and vitamins, C, A and beta-carotene.
- Apple contains the unique malic acid, specific for reversing and preventing hyperpigmentation.
- Pineapple contains bromelain, effective for sloughing off surface dead skin cells to reveal glowing radiant skin.
This mask will exfoliate deep into the skin’s layers, for healthier functioning and better looking skin. Plus, it smells amazing and is moisturizing, thanks to the soothing oils in coconut powder.
If you want to try a fruitful mask but have overly sensitive skin, I suggest you start with something a bit more gentle, like my White Willow & Clay Exfoliant and Mask. It contains stimulating orange powder to help with oil balance and dull skin. It’s an incredibly gentle yet is a deep cleansing, anti-inflammatory and healing mask for all skin types, including sensitive or acne-prone.
Fruit Oils & Butters
Some of the oils and butters I use are cold-pressed from the seeds of fruit, like avocado, mango, and pomegranate. Since these emollient ingredients are so different from fruit extracts, they deserve their own category. I’ll be writing about the different oils in skincare in a later post, but for now, you can read about the fruit oils and butters I use here:
Avocado Oil| Pomegranate Oil | Mango Butter
And That One Vegetable…
The one vegetable that has made it into my skincare products so far is the radish. To be specific, radish root ferment filtrate. You can find it in my Hyaluronic (HA) Serums, as HA can attract bacteria. The radish root ferment filtrate is the simplest, kindest, organic preservative we found. It’s produced by the same gut-friendly bacteria that we use to make kimchi, but while fermenting radish root instead. It has no adverse effects on the skin, and keeps your HA serum fresh and bacteria-free.
I’m no longer surprised by the healing, supportive, and beneficial compounds found in plants. After all, our ancestors turned to the natural world for solutions with great success. Still, I’m endlessly curious about what secrets plants hold for our skin and health, and keep learning new things every day. You can trust that if an ingredient finds its way into my products, that it deserves the coveted spot; I want you to get the maximum benefit with the least amount of ingredients, and fruit is one of the stars.
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