Do's And Don'ts Of DIY Beauty Treatments

By Ellie Drabnis on September 14, 2016

Surfing Pinterest and even Youtube for ideas to pamper yourself and your friends is not a bad idea. But, what is a bad idea is jumping into just any D.I.Y. Project (Do It Yourself Project) without thinking it through first.

Here are some do’s and don’ts of DIY Beauty Treatments.

DO: Check the safety of the products being used.

I am a big fan of making my own facial scrubs and facial masks. Now, the scrub and mask I swear by is a combination of baking soda, honey and salt. It really has helped to clear up my acne. It becomes ‘mask’ when it dries before I wash it off.

However, while I found the recipe rather quickly, I took it upon myself to look further into what the ingredients could do for my skin. Once I found out the skin benefits of honey, baking soda and salt, only then did I go through with making the scrub mixture.

My personal sugar scrub. I store it in a cool, dry place and inside of an easy to open container.

In an episode of RuPaul’s Drag-U, it was said that the acids in Pepto Bismol “will pucker and tighten [one’s skin].” As tempting as it might be to emulate something you’ve seen someone do, be it on television or even in a tutorial, no treatment is flawless.

In fact, in an Elle Magazine article, a doctor offered comment that Pepto “could be too drying” which goes, “for any but the most oily skin.”

At that point, it might be best to consult with your doctor about how to treat your skin and, if you do make a mistake and dry your skin out using a DIY beauty treatment, you may need to see the doctor anyway. So, take the extra precaution and consult a medical professional in person even if there is info floating around on the internet about it.

DO NOT: Ignore your allergies in favor of a beauty treatment.

No beauty treatment is worth risking your well-being.
(https://pixabay.com)

This should go without saying, but men, women and anyone really will sometimes put their looks before their health.

I’m guilty of it and I know that I have friends and family who are guilty of it, but putting your well-being on the line in the sense of having an allergy or asthma trigger around is by no means worth it.

You’ll end up creating much more of a hassle by out-right ignoring something that makes you sick and/or might cause you to break out your EpiPen.

The best thing to do here is to either look for an alternative beauty hack, or even go and get yourself some pre-made hypoallergenic formula at the store while you continue on in your search for a health-friendly DIY.

DO: Take precaution.

This might go without saying, but sometimes our impatience can get the better of us. What I mean here is, if your DIY beauty treatment involves heat or anything that could possibly be harmful, do not throw caution to the wind.

A friend recently shared a Buzzfeed video about Sugar Wax with me and the video cautions to wait 10-20 minutes for the wax to cool before using it on your body. So, the thing to do there is to actually time out the 10-20 minutes. Now, it might be wise to to time it to closer to 20 minutes because a hot wax burn could take you to the ER and no one wants that.

Even if you’re not applying something hot directly to your skin but perhaps mixing it into some other ingredients, do be sure to pour slowly as not to splash the hot water everywhere and cause yourself unneeded pain.

Being cautious and mindful of your actions with any DIY is a must.

DO NOT: Tweak the ingredients of the DIY.

This could lead to issues in the sense that, more than the recommended amount being mixed could create issues.

For example, I once found a wonderful sugar scrub recipe through Pinterest. Now, I decided that I wanted to go off script and change the color of the scrub.

I wanted a nice pigmented sugar scrub and decided to add an excessive amount of food coloring to my mixture. The tutorial only recommended adding about half a drop of red food coloring.  I added blue food coloring, an entirely different color than the one that was recommended. While I found the scrub to work wonderfully anyhow, I ended up with ‘Smurf hands and cheeks’ because I was so determined to have blue sugar scrub even if the blue unintentionally ended up staying on my face.

While my case with the food coloring was mild, tweaking ingredient amounts might have the power to potentially make the final product less effective.

Sticking to the script of a beauty treatment recipe is also a much safer route to go if you’re using something that could potentially dry out skin, such as baking soda.

Happy Do It Yourself-ing but, please remember to take these do’s and don’ts of beauty treatments into consideration.

https://pixabay.com 

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