Budget Moisturiser to Heal and Hydrate

Did you know that the skin is the body’s largest organ? In fact, it makes up around 16% of your overall body mass!

It is both the barrier and frontier between yourself and the rest of the physical world – the point of interface between what is you and what is not you - what is everything else.

But why write about beauty products on a blog that is all about poverty…?

Well, my product recommendations all have a genuine therapeutic aspect to them – it’s not just about vanity. When you have very limited funds, you don’t want to waste those meagre funds on products that don’t work or give subpar performance. From my personal experience, the following products all work and work well and are also all relatively low cost compared to other alternatives available on the market.

So go get some products for your face!

For Face & Body Hydration & Healing

Unfortunately, my long-time, go-to, cost effective moisturiser product that I used for both moisturising and healing skin on my face and body has been discontinued by the manufacturer. I was devastated when this happened! Fortunately, I have since found some new solutions.

Vitamin E Cream

My new favourite moisture cream is Macro Intensive Moisture Cream which is a vitamin E cream that also contains vitamin A and avocado oil.

I found it right on the bottom shelf of the vitamin E cream section at Chemist Warehouse. Now “bottom shelf” is usually cheaper in price, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that the quality is worse.

Whilst this cream does leave a very slight greasy residue on the skin, it’s healing properties are nothing short of amazing. It can be used on the face and body and is excellent at healing and hydrating dry skin, broken skin, skin that has been affected by allergic reactions and auto immune conditions, lesions or bacterial infections.

Definitely a good product for “mature skin”. Although this product only comes in 100g jars, a little does go a long way. It’s also something that you may not wish to use every day, but rather on an as-needs basis to assist with healing and when your skin gets extra dry (such as in the winter).

Macro Intensive Moisture Cream is available from your local Chemist Warehouse or from their online store here.

Tip: Chemist Warehouse’s shipping fees vary according to what’s in the order, however if your order contains at least one prescription item, the whole order will be eligible for free regular post via Australia Post. You may want to keep this in mind when planning your purchases.

Coconut Oil

However, by far the cheapest and simplest way of hydrating and healing your skin is just to use coconut oil. Yep – it’s not just for cooking! You can make your own moisturizer either by just using coconut oil straight or using it as a carrier oil for other additives.

• I use lavender and clove essential oils to mix up something with pain killing properties.

• I add black seed oil for additional anti-cancer, anti-viral and anti-bacterial properties (coconut oil itself has some anti-microbial properties in addition to it’s healing properties).

• I add frankincense and myrrh to reduce inflammation and promote healing.

• I’ve even used citronella essential oil in coconut oil as a moisturising, home-made Aeroguard substitute.

There are no rules with this – experiment and make your own!

And you don’t need to use expensive fractionated coconut oil either – just the stuff you buy at the supermarket is fine.

PREPARATION :

• Keep in mind that if you mix in any other ingredients, the coconut oil will need to be in a semi-liquid state to do this effectively.

• At room temperature, coconut oil can be either solid, semi-liquid or liquid, depending on the actual room temperature.
  

• Solid coconut oil will liquify when you pick it up in your hands, as the heat from your body will do this. So you don’t need to heat the oil a lot to get it liquid – maybe just sitting the container in some hot water will be enough.
  

• I make sure that my coconut and essential oil mixture is well blended using a teaspoon.

USAGE:

• Note that this product does leave a bit of a greasy residue on the skin, so you may need to wipe the excess off on a towel - especially from the palms of your hands, so you don’t put greasy marks on everything you touch.
  

• Coconut oil is also ok to use on broken skin and lesions.

• Store your coconut oil moisturizer in a small glass or plastic jar with a secure, airtight lid. Taking an old moisturizer tub, cleaning it out and re-using it is ideal for this purpose.

The coconut oil that I usually use is Aldi’s Oh So Natural Organic Extra Virgin Coconut Oil, which comes in a 300g jar and is available all the time in their stores near the other oils and vinegars. An added bonus is that the jar it comes in can be re-used for preserving and storage after the coconut oil is finished. Here is the link to this product on Aldi’s website (noting that this item is only available in store).

Clove and lavender essential oils are found in most supermarkets, chemists and some department stores, but the more exotic ones you may need to get from a supplier such as Oil Garden.

Bosisto’s and Thursday Plantation both make Lavendar essential oils, which are available both online and in store at a number of retail outlets.

I always get black seed oil from The Black Seed Co, as they make the best products and many of the other oils marketed as “black seed oil” by other suppliers are not actually Nigella Sativa.

Oil Garden, The Black Seed Co, Bosisto’s and Thursday Plantation are all Australian businesses.

For Making Hands & Feet Extra Neat

For cracked and dry feet and hands, you can’t go past Neutrogena’s Norweigian Formula Hand Cream and also their foot cream varieties.

These also tend to leave a bit of a greasy residue on the skin, however their healing and hydrating properties are top notch and your skin will feel very soft after using it.

Tip: the hand cream is less expensive that some of the foot cream varieties and is pretty much interchangeable with it, but not quite as strong.

Coconut oil is also great on the hands and feet. You can add essential oils such as peppermint for a foot moisturizer, or just use the coconut oil straight without any additives.