Homemade Beauty Tips, Debunked

Published on Friday, April 22, 2011, by Joyce Slaton / Edit Post

Using foodstuffs as beautifiers became a fad in the late '60s. In an era that permitted such weirdness as raspberry and champagne douches and the shampoo-cum-psychedelic-experience (judging from its ads) that was Clairol's Herbal Essence Shampoo, it's hardly surprising that people were enthusiastic about putting avocado and oatmeal on their faces. Food is fun, cheap, and interesting to play with. But does it work to smooth skin, soften hair, and lighten up your unsightly dark places? We dug up a few of the most common Internet recipes for natural face and body treatments and put them to the test.

HONEY AS BIORE STRIP—NOT
According to some loon on Squidoo, honey is like a primitive form of the Biore strip. I put about a quarter cup of honey in my microwave-safe Pyrex measuring cup and zapped it for 15 seconds. I then spread the lukewarm honey on my nose, forehead, and chin and waited 10 minutes. After that, I was supposed to be able to peel it off, like a mask, and the blackheads would peel off too. Um, no. After getting several washcloths all sticky from washing off honey, my blackheads looked exactly the same. The only change was that some of my hair got into the honey and I had to go take a shower.

COMPOST ELBOWS
Women's magazines have been claiming you can lighten up your elephant-skin elbows by plopping them in two halves of a lemon. I tried it out after dinner. "Um, do you want me to put those in the compost for you?" my husband asked. "No. I'm lightening my dark elbows," I informed him. He looked puzzled and walked away. It is difficult to do the dishes, read, or do much of anything with one's elbows in lemon halves. After a good half-hour lemon lean, I washed off my elbows and took a look. No change. But I had a fresh lemony scent!

ANTI-AGING MASK FAIL
Most people over 30 would love their skin to look fresh and dewy like a teenager's again. Good luck with that. Face mask recipes abound online; most mix some type of emollient ingredient (yogurt, mayonnaise, oil) with some creamy fruit matter (banana, avocado) and something scrubby (oatmeal, salt, sugar). But I thought this face mask for aging skin on eHow sounded particularly exacting, so I mixed it up: 2 tablespoons of kelp powder (I crumbled up some kelp sprinkles I'd gotten for sushi rice), an egg white, 1 tablespoon of honey, and a teaspoon of fresh orange juice. It looked disgusting. I applied it to my face, let it sit for 15 minutes, then rinsed. Brothers and sisters, after about an hour of work, I'm here to tell you, the mask made my face clean. Clean. Not less wrinkly. Not soothed. Not any more elastic. Clean. Sigh.

AVOCADO ZOMBIE HAIR PASTE
Cosmopolitan magazine would have you believe that avocado will give you shiny hair. As directed, I blended 1 ripe avocado, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 banana, and an egg in my blender, which choked. After stirring, and stirring, and stirring by hand, the blender finally spat out a greasy, gray-green, chunky paste. I dutifully worked a quarter of it through my dry hair and let it sit for 10 minutes. Afterward, I washed and conditioned my hair as usual.

The result: meh. My hair was maybe a bit softer than usual, not really any shinier than when I use my normal conditioner. Plus, I now had a large Tupperware full of zombie makeup, and weird chunks caught in the shower drain cover that I had to pick out, along with a kind of gross quantity of soapy hair belonging to all the members of my family.

TURMERIC-INDUCED JAUNDICE ARM
Many sources online (including this Livestrong article) claim that you can cure acne and fade dark spots on the skin with turmeric. You know, the yellow stuff that makes curry that bright color. Eschewing more complicated recipes that asked for chickpea flour and other esoteric ingredients, I went for a simple paste of turmeric and straight lime juice. Since I'd done a little research before trying this, I was savvy enough not to apply this mixture to my face. Good thing, because after the prescribed half-hour of sitting with the paste on my arm, I was dyed as yellow as an Easter chick. Were my freckles/age spots faded? Who can tell against the bright yellow background? Two days later, I am still faintly jaundiced on one arm, despite plenty of scrubbing.

Mask image source: Flickr member Ben Fredericson (xjrlokix) under Creative Commons

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POST A COMMENT |20 Comments

COMMENT

  • Hysterical article!

  • Turmeric stains everything!!!!

  • Food is for eating, not for smearing on our faces. We are not infants. :-)

  • I couldn't stop laughing reading this...the turmeric story was priceless

  • After years of spending a small fortune on age spot creams which never worked, I recently had some laser treatment on my face and guess what, my spots are gone! I have to admit that I never tried the tumeric treatment (thank God) but it does have a special place in my kitchen anyhow.

  • Thank you oyefunke!

  • Wow I can't believe how much lack of education and common-sense I see. There are TONS of food/herb remedies that work, even for the results desired above. But those were just plain stupid. 'Ooo tumeric turned me yellow!!!' Ya think?!? And the other thing is the constant desire for instant results. It's the same thing as with losing weight or exercise, there's stuff you have to make part of your...+READ

    Wow I can't believe how much lack of education and common-sense I see. There are TONS of food/herb remedies that work, even for the results desired above. But those were just plain stupid. 'Ooo tumeric turned me yellow!!!' Ya think?!? And the other thing is the constant desire for instant results. It's the same thing as with losing weight or exercise, there's stuff you have to make part of your life-style for it to work. Like the lemons. They lighten, but ten minutes a day will do a lot more for you than 3 HOURS for one day! Etc, etc. Zeesh people.-COLLAPSE

  • EATING turmeric (and other curcumins) is good for you; we now know that WEARING them is not! This also reinforces the knowledge that NATURAL is NOT always BETTER. THANK YOU for sharing this amusing first-hand account that is filled with wisdom and good advice.

  • A silly article yes and full of some misinformation. You can't walk around for 30 minutes with lemon halves on your elbows and expect a miracle. However, I have used lemon halves consistently to fade darkened elbows. I rub the lemon juice over my elbow for about 60 seconds or let the halves stay on for about 30 minutes. Now, heres the important part - you must do this over the course of a couple...+READ

    A silly article yes and full of some misinformation. You can't walk around for 30 minutes with lemon halves on your elbows and expect a miracle. However, I have used lemon halves consistently to fade darkened elbows. I rub the lemon juice over my elbow for about 60 seconds or let the halves stay on for about 30 minutes. Now, heres the important part - you must do this over the course of a couple of weeks to see the difference. It is easy, cheap and works if you just do it even whenever you have lemons. I have them everyday.

    AVOCADO is great for your hair! I have curly hair and I mix avocado in with whatever conditioner I am using and I get softness and shine, immediately. Just because her hair did not respond does not mean yours won't!

    Lastly, egg white facial works! I just use eggwhites and pumpkin pulp together or egg white and honey. Whip it together - a bit messy but whenever I do this I get compliments on the sheen and texture of my skin. Egg white will tighten your skin and for me it lasts all day and sometimes a couple of days.

    Do your own research! Just becuase this person had no luck doesn't mean you wont because I did!!!-COLLAPSE

  • www.bellalucce.com is all you need.
    Any skin care specialist would tell you some of these so called natural remedies can do more harm than good and scrubing your delicate face skin with ground seeds can scar you. A good milk or yogurt brushed on clean skin can tighten or moisturize but beyond that, leave it to the pros.

  • This is a great photograph. I do like mayonnaise as a drastic moisturizer, and it does double duty as a remedy for loosening the nits of lice from grade school hair. Plus, for a while the person being treated smells like a delicious sandwich.

  • A rather silly article, not worth any debate;-) Here you go!

  • I agree Calico. The title is called Homemade Beauty Tips, Debunked. So fine, they are calling out things they feel don't work. But what ELSE did they try out? Did they just try out only the things listed and then bash them? Or did they try a bunch of things and these are the ones they were able to "debunk"?

    Also, this is FAR from good research. Fine, I get that it's just an article on the...+READ

    I agree Calico. The title is called Homemade Beauty Tips, Debunked. So fine, they are calling out things they feel don't work. But what ELSE did they try out? Did they just try out only the things listed and then bash them? Or did they try a bunch of things and these are the ones they were able to "debunk"?

    Also, this is FAR from good research. Fine, I get that it's just an article on the internet...but would it hurt to have gotten a couple of your friends to try along with you? That would have bumped up your credibility considerably.-COLLAPSE

  • These remedies are all graded "YMMV". Just like not all manufactured remedies work for everybody, not all traditional remedies work for everybody. You have to see what works for your chemistry. Some of these might actually work for you. Some are just silly. But the cavalier and condescending attitude of the author is a bit offputting. Enough to make me write this comment.

  • I don't think these natural remedies are supposed to work instantly. Not saying they are effective, but I don't think you can expect results in an hour or a day. Try them over a few months (if you have the patience!) and then say if they work.

  • Honey can be used as a cleanser in place of soap. It's antibacterial and antifungal and can be used for all skin types. I put a small amount in a little bowl and use it like I would a cleansing gel, wipe with a wash cloth then rinse. Once it's wet it's not sticky. It doesn't take off mascara or really thick makeup/foundation though.

  • Also.. that picture really freaks me out.

  • Mayo did save my brother's hair though. He in a fit of teenage rebellion had been dying his hair and bleach it to ridiculous levels. He realized it was starting to break and my mother didn't know what to do. Well of course with my knowledge from Seventeen etc.. I knew just what to say, "Mayo! Use Mayo!" It worked thankfully.

  • I'm trying to figure out why, after conditioning your hair, you're supposed to wash your hair and "condition as usual"! Totally nonsensical! But of course, Cosmo can't actually encourage you to not use commercial products. That would be bad! Which is why they then tout a commercial product at the end of the piece -- gotta placate the advertisers!

    My skin gets very dry in the winter, and I...+READ

    I'm trying to figure out why, after conditioning your hair, you're supposed to wash your hair and "condition as usual"! Totally nonsensical! But of course, Cosmo can't actually encourage you to not use commercial products. That would be bad! Which is why they then tout a commercial product at the end of the piece -- gotta placate the advertisers!

    My skin gets very dry in the winter, and I swear by this skin scrub (adapted from a recipe in Stephanie Tourles "Herbal Body Book"): 1/2 cup finely ground oatmeal, 1/3 cup finely ground raw sunflower seeds, 1/4 cup almond meal/very finely ground almonds, 2 TBSP powdered milk, 1/2 teaspoon finely ground dried mint or rosemary. Mix together. To use: pour a small amount into a dish and add enough water to make a thin paste (let it sit for a minute and it will thicken). I just use it in the shower: scrub on, rinse off. For tough areas like dry heels, make a thicker paste, apply and let it sit for a few minutes before rinsing.

    Not food, but a thin layer of Elmer's glue is much better than honey for use as pore strip (at a tiny fraction of the cost of Biore). It really will dry to a film you can peel off.-COLLAPSE

  • this is cute! i find myself yearning for pictures of this poor, hapless woman with jaundice-arm, elbows in lemon halves, avocado in hair and honey on nose. i suppose i should let her have some dignity after she tried all these less than stellar recipes. fwiw the avocado hair paste not only sounds messy, but actually pretty expensive to make. a good follow-up would be beauty recipes that actually...+READ

    this is cute! i find myself yearning for pictures of this poor, hapless woman with jaundice-arm, elbows in lemon halves, avocado in hair and honey on nose. i suppose i should let her have some dignity after she tried all these less than stellar recipes. fwiw the avocado hair paste not only sounds messy, but actually pretty expensive to make. a good follow-up would be beauty recipes that actually work. enjoyable! thanks!-COLLAPSE