Green & Clean

Everyone wants gorgeous skin, but our skin isn’t always so keen to cooperate. We use cleaners, moisturizers, and facial scrubs to try to give our skin what it needs to be radiant, often forgetting that many products contain chemicals that aren’t good for the skin. Thankfully, nature provides us with a great alternative: Almonds.

Almonds, though often called nuts, are the seed of the almond tree. They’re great for lowering cholesterol and keeping your cardiovascular system in tip-top shape, but they can also do wonders for your skin.

Almonds are packed with vitamin E, an antioxidant that is great for skin. Long used in facial moisturizers, vitamin E is thought to have skin-healing properties, and studies have found it plays a role in protecting the skin from sun damage.

Almonds are also high in monounsaturated fats, which means there is lots of oil to moisturize your skin. If you’re worried the oils won’t be good for oily or combination skin, some dermatologists believe oily areas are actually caused by very dry skin, which overstimulates the oil glands, so a moisturizing, mildly-abrasive treatment could be the key to balancing your skin.

Almond Scrub

Using a coffee grinder, grind a small handful of almonds until you have fine grains, about the size of sand or coarsely ground coffee–basically you want it to have some abrasive power. If you don’t have a coffee grinder, you can just crush the almonds with a rolling pin–it will just take longer (and a wee bit of effort).

Mix about a tablespoon of ground almonds with a bit of water and massage into your skin in a circular motion for about a minute. Rinse your face well to remove the bits of almond.

Since almonds are fairly soft, you can use this almond scrub in the morning and evening as your daily cleanser. If you have sensitive skin, use the scrub in the morning and clean your skin in the evening with olive oil. Just apply the olive oil to your skin with a cotton ball, and cover your face with a hot washcloth for a few minutes. Wipe away any excess oil with the cloth and you’re done.

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