The Guest List: At Home Beauty Tips with Fay Halkitis

Are you feeling a little grey and drab after being stuck inside for a few weeks? Looking for ways to get that *dewy* glow back in your complexion? For this week’s mini epsidoe we’ve got the skin whisperer, Fay Halkitis from Luna Beauty & Apothecary to share all her at home beauty tips with us! We’ve got the intel on what pantry items can be re-purposed into beauty products, and what herbs you can throw into your bathtub to soothe and refresh your bod. Prepare to glow listeners.

Fay’s Tips for keeping up an at-home skincare routine:

• Treat your skin care routine as a ritual where you take care of yourself, and remember you have skin all over your body (not just on your face!)

• At a minimum keep cleansing your face!

  Morning routine:
  Tongue scraping with one of these, to revive your mouth and keep your digestion on track.

  Drink hydrating fluids as soon as you wake up, and before you start mainlining caffeine (looking at you SoRo).

  Evening routine:
  Get into dry brushing. Before your shower, gliiiiiiide the brush over your skin, upwards from your feet in long smooth strokes. This will get the blood flowing and improve your circulation as well as exfoliating!
  
  If you don’t have a dry brush or you don’t like the sensation, you can make an at home exfoliant with coconut oil and coconut sugar (you can swap this out for other coarse sugars, or sea salt if you don’t have coconut sugar). Scrub your body down and then jump in the shower to rinse off!

How to do a mini at-home facial:

If ever there was a time to treat yourself, it’s now!

Start off your at home facial with a gentle steam. The technique is simple - bowl, boiling water, a few aromatics and a towel - but you can have fun with what you put in the water! (Make sure you keep your face 30cm from the water so you don’t burn your skin.)
Consider a few drops of essential oils like geranium, ylang ylang, or sandlewood. Or make it a herbal steam with looseleaf chamomile tea.

After you’ve steamed your skin will be soft, and ready for more active treatments. Now is when you mask and/or exfoliate! If you’ve got a mask at home that you like pop it on now, but if you’re looking through your pantry for ideas you can look at things like manuka honey, mashed papaya (it has exfoliating enzymes) and organic yoghurt (for the lactic acid!).

Once you’ve let the mask do it’s magic, and washed it off, it’s time for the final step - facial massage. If you’ve got a face roller or a gua sha tool then grab them, otherwise you can just your fingers. Britta Plug on instagram has some great, easy tutorials for different massage techniques. Make sure you’ve got an oil applied to your skin before you get going - if you’re out of your favourite, Jojoba oil or Rosehip oil (both usually easy to find at a chemist or pharmacy) should do the trick.

At home ingredients to use in skin-care

• Use distilled rose water or Apple Cider Vinegar as toner.

• Turn your bath into…bath tea? By throwing in rosemary (good for circulation!), lavendar or loose leaf chamomile tea.

• If you’ve got dry or irritaed skin, you can wrap oats and chamomile or rose in a muslin clot, tie it up and add it to your bath. 

• Muslin can also be used to make a face compress of organic milk, lavender & cucumber. Soak the muslin in the mixture and then lay it on your face and lay back for it to do it’s work.

• Yoghurt, manuka honey and papaya for those face masks!

And because you guys are signed up for this newsletter, you get the intel on Fay’s current shop faves:

• Activist Manuka Honey - for all your face mask needs (also it’s delicious to eat as well)

• Odacite Crystal Contour Gua Sha Tool - Gua Sha! We all need new hobbies now right?

• Bodha Aromatherapy Eye Pillow - To help soothe your isolation anxiety when you’re trying to sleep

• Living Libations Best Skin Ever Sandalwood - A beautiful, multi-purpose oil you can use for cleansing and moisturising your skin.

• Body Brush - Get that lymphatic system pumping!

Go massage your face! (Not a euphamism)

Love ya,
S&S