DIY Warming Face Mask & Polish with Bumi Naturals

Bumi Naturals creates beauty products with certified organic, 100% natural, unrefined ingredients. Our range is handmade in tiny batches from our kitchen in East London.

Our obsession with natural ingredients began by researching and mixing ingredients from around the house to create powerful remedies that tackled our skin issues and made us feel safe in the knowledge that what we were putting on our skin was not damaging it. We want to share with you one of our first ever recipes: a warming face mask and polish, made with ingredients that hopefully you already have in the kitchen.

This recipe will take you 5 minutes to prepare, and you should leave it on for no more than 10 minutes. As with all beauty remedies, please pay attention and listen to your skin. If it doesn’t like it, for any reason, rinse it off immediately.

We recommend using certified organic ingredients wherever possible, as they have been farmed responsibly and without nasty pesticides, so you’ll be getting more of the benefits that mother nature intended for them. We also always recommend using ingredients that are unrefined for the same reason.

We’ve listed the ingredients below, with their associated benefits and some alternatives for different skin types.

You’ll need the following equipment:

• Bowl for combining the ingredients
• A couple of spoons (one for each ingredient to avoid cross contamination)

I’ve used the following ingredients (see below for alternatives):

• 1 teaspoon Cacao powder
• ¼ teaspoon Cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon Coconut palm sugar
• 1 teaspoon Oatmeal powder / crushed oatmeal
• A plash of Oat milk (measure by eye)

Does this also sound like a recipe for overnight oats? Maybe. Is it good for your skin? Definitely!

Method:

Step 1: Mix all the ingredients in a bowl except the oat milk

Step 2: Slowly add the oak milk, splash by splash, mixing until you create a spreadable paste

Step 3: Spread evenly over your face, avoiding the eye area

Step 4: Leave for 10-15minutes, then wash off with warm water

Here are some of the benefits of these wonderful, natural ingredients*

Cacao powder (not to be confused with Cocoa)

This delicious, sweet smelling powder is made by crushing raw cacao beans, which means that it retains all of its natural nutrients (as opposed to Cocoa powder, where the beans have been heated).

It wakes your skin up by increasing blood flow, which in turn carries nutrients and oxygen around the skin, giving you that youthful glow we all know and love. It also helps to soften, clear and detoxify your skin. By keeping the skin fresh, cacao powder can also increase the skin’s elasticity, reducing the appearance of scars and wrinkles.

Cinnamon

Warming Cinnamon is high in antioxidants, which can protect from and restore damage caused by free radicals. It’s also great for tackling blemishes.

If you have very sensitive skin, you may wish to add less cinnamon into your mask/polish, or miss it out all-together. If you are unsure, we advise doing a patch test first.

You can replace Cinnamon with (used or unused) Coffee grounds if you wish to miss it out. Coffee grounds are fantastic for waking the skin up by increasing circulation, brightening up your complexion, and removing dead skin. Again, you can adjust the abrasiveness by crushing it down to a finer consistency.

Coconut palm sugar

This ingredient has a wonderful, caramel like aroma, and is great for exfoliating dead skin cells. If the word ‘palm’ is a red flag for you, it’s useful to know that coconut palm Ssgar is naturally produced in a sustainable, eco-friendly way, as trees are maintained for their sap instead of ruthlessly being cut down.

If you don’t have coconut palm sugar in the cupboard, unrefined brown sugar is a great alternative. You can crush it down to a consistency that is right for your skin type (finer for more sensitive skin) and reflects how abrasive you want the scrub to be.

Oatmeal powder / ground oats

This provides gentle exfoliation to remove dead skin cells. You can blend oats right down to a consistency that is right for you.

As well a polishing your skin, oat powder has healing and soothing properties that can help to tackle acne and skin conditions such as eczema.

Oat milk

Oat milk hydrates by creating a protective layer over the skin that seals in moisture without clogging pores. It’s incredibly gentle and soothing, which can help to calm irritated skin. It’s a perfect accompaniment to the cacao powder and the cinnamon, as it makes the warming more gentle.

If you don’t have oat milk, then almond milk, natural Yogurt, and raw, unpasteurised honey are great alternatives. We often alternate with honey as it’s one of our favorite ingredients ever – but this is not suitable for vegans. All of these are soothing and suitable for sensitive skin.

We really hope you have enjoyed this face mask and polish, and have learnt some interesting facts in the process. Let us know how you get on, and remember to tag @bumi.naturals with your selfies, opinions and any fun alternatives you decided to try along the way.

*Please note that these benefits are opinions, and have been compiled using 3^rd party research.