Homemade Beauty: Green Tea Mask

Whenever I get a chance to add a little extra pampering to my beauty routine, I like to see if there's a DIY version of the procedure.

As mentioned before, Meggie and I used to spend a lot of our weekend nights growing up having "Spa Parties", and much of that time, we were slathering some version of a mask on our skin. 

Never homemade, though.

Making your own green tea mask can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. There are endless articles or YouTube videos that will show you how. As usual, I took bits from everything and came up with something that worked for me. 

For the Courtney version of a DIY green tea mask, you'll need to gather: 

• 6-8 green tea bags, opened & emptied into a bowl
• 1 tbsp sugar (raw or granulated)
• Strainer
• 1/2 orange (or lemon)
• 1 banana
• 4-6 fresh mint leaves

[If you're not using loose leaf tea, tearing open existing packets will work]

[While you're at it, go ahead and brew a pot of tea for yourself to 

enjoy while the mask does its work. 

Drinking green tea offers many benefits to the body]

[Yummy]

[Push down on the leaves even after you've strained it, to ensure all excess water is removed]

[Raw or granulated sugar adds an exfoliant to the mask]

[The recipe called for lemon juice, but I always stock oranges, 

so this time I made it work.  In the summer when additional cleansing is necessary, I may opt for the more powerful citrus.]

[My herb garden is a bit out of control right now, so I plucked a few mint leaves to give the mask a fresh scent]

This final ingredient should be interesting. It was not mentioned in all of the posts I read about, but we'll see if it truly offers the creamy, moisturizing bonus that some articles promised.

[If you have an extra make-up brush, use that to spread the mask on evenly]

[Or as evenly as possible. 

Let's not start to list all the things that appear to be all over my face...]

[Nourishing myself inside and out!]

Once the mixture was made (which yielded way more than I needed for one use) the process was very easy. If all goes well, I should be keeping my youthful glow and avoiding wrinkles like those on my baby girl.

She can totally pull them off...