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Probiotics and Your Skin
Skin Care
Hi everyone! My name is Maci Dierking, formerly Maci Schwenk. I am Donna's eldest daughter and I love cultured food too!
I wanted to share with you some wonderful new skin care uses for cultured foods and extra benefits and how you can make your own!
So, let's get started:
Face Care Products Made with Kefir and Kombucha
If you have been following Cultured Food Life for a while, you know by now that cultured foods are good for your gut. But what about your skin??
Your skin is your body's largest organ and it absorbs whatever you put on it. So why not arm it with the best possible care? Your skin is a reflection of your health. In most cases, people with clear, beautiful, glowing skin are healthy and vibrant inside as well!
If you've ever gone through a true detox, you have seen that the body often uses the skin to cleanse itself of toxins, an abundance of bad bacteria, yeasts, and more.
Fifteen years ago, I started my healing journey from chronic fatigue, adrenal stress, Candida, and IBS. We started with cultured foods, and being an all-or-nothing type of girl I WENT for it! Instead of easing myself in slowly to these new and extremely powerful probiotic foods, I went all out and armed my body with as much good bacteria as it could handle. This resulted in a massive detox and purging of the nasty stuff that had been dragging my body down in those prior years. I developed acne, I got an impetigo rash on my face, my body odor increased, and other detox reactions occurred before it got better. This is called a healing crisis. "Sometimes it's darkest before the light," and this had never been more true than for me! I say all this not to scare you, but to let you know that your skin is powerful! Your skin can help you see what is truly going on inside your body.
Flash forward 15 years and I have found some even more wonderful ways to help my skin. Along with consuming these beautifully healing foods, you can also use them externally!
Kombucha Clay Healing Mud Mask
I make Kombucha Clay Healing Mud Mask (see recipe below). It is amazing for acne-prone or overly oily skin. The Natural Calcium Bentonite Clay is an Indian healing clay and is said to be the world's most powerful facial ingredient. Cleopatra was said to have used this to maintain her youthful and vibrant skin. The clay itself can help to directly pull out toxins, blackheads, and impurities from the skin in a non-abrasive and healing way. You can also use this mask as a body wrap and for helping with insect bites!
Activated charcoal also assists in pulling toxins from the body and is often used as an emergency toxin removal when taken orally. It has also been known to help with healing poison ivy.
Coconut oil is amazing for clearing up acne as it contains caprylic acid. Caprylic acid kills the bad yeasts and bacteria but leaves your good ones intact.
Aloe vera gel is soothing to the skin and creates a wonderfully cooling and calming effect. It can help heal burns and is antioxidant and a prebiotic!
Vitamin E oil is also an antioxidant and prevents free radicals from entering the body. It helps prevent and heal scarring on the face.
Kombucha is an alive active probiotic drink that helps balance the good bacteria in your body as well as on your skin. It can be used much like apple cider vinegar. Its organic acids help to balance the skin's pH and can be used as an antiseptic.
Combining these amazing ingredients creates a mud mask you will never stray from!!
You can use this mask once a week or 2-3 times a week for exceptionally oily or acne-prone skin. You can apply it to the whole face or use it as a spot treatment. Apply to your face and let dry completely. Then rinse off (paper towels work best) to remove.
Kombucha as a Toner
To make my skin even softer, I have been using kombucha as a toner. I mix a few drops of tea tree oil (to knock out that vinegary smell mostly) with some aged kombucha or kombucha that has over fermented. (This is a great way to save your "gone to vinegar" brew.) Then apply with a cotton ball daily and nightly like you would a normal toner. It saves you so much money and it works even better!
Kefir Oatmeal Mask
For less oily skin, you can make this amazing kefir mask! This is becoming quite popular in Asian countries, as well as other countries, and there are even small companies that are selling live kefir masks overseas!
- Kefir will help to reduce redness and swelling, soothe the skin, give amazing hydration, add amino acids, and balance your skin's pH as well.
- Oatmeal helps to soothe the skin and gently exfoliate.
- Bananas help heal UV damage and scars, moisturize the skin, and provide vitamin C which boosts your natural production of collagen.
- To make this simple mask, blend 1/3 cup of kefir with 1/4 cup of oatmeal and half a banana. Apply directly to your face for 10-15 minutes.
Let's Talk About Fermented Garlic
Before we close, let's talk about fermented garlic . . . so if you haven't made a big batch of fermented garlic to keep in your fridge, you really need to! It is easy and will last months and months! But the best reason is that you will have this powerful prebiotic AND probiotic food on hand for any emergencies. It is such a powerhouse food as garlic alone can help heal many ailments. But fermented garlic is even stronger. You can use the juice of fermented garlic on extremely stubborn or cyst-like pimples as well. Just dab a little juice on it before bed and let it dry. (It will smell STRONG so you've been warned!)
One other amazing thing I have done with fermented garlic is to use it for staph. Years ago, before I met my husband, he got a really bad staph infection. So bad that he almost had to have surgery. He had three feet of gauze stuffed into his leg where the staph was trying to heal. He managed to finally get rid of it eventually, but it was quite scary and he had been using antibacterial body wash ever since.
When he met me, it wasn't too long before that body wash went out the window. I explained to him why he had a staph infection, to begin with. Staph is naturally in the body. But like other bacteria and yeasts, it can get out of balance and that is what you want to avoid. It wasn't too long before he dove into my cultured food world and was surrounded by fermented foods. Much like I suspected, a week or so after adding all of these powerful foods into his life and cutting down on his HUGE sugar intake, he got a small spot of staph on his leg. I knew it was from detoxing and his body trying to purge. So we didn't panic. We put a little fermented garlic on it and covered it with a bandaid. I did this twice a day for two to three days, and POOF it was gone and hasn't returned since!
I hope I have inspired you to not only consume these cultured foods but to use them in your everyday skincare and wellness routine as well! Have fun experimenting on your own, too, and let us know what else you come up with!
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