Mānuka honey is not only incredibly delicious, it’s also a skincare powerhouse.
It’s no mystery that honey is a well-loved ingredient in high-quality beauty skincare and medicated skincare products…often costing a pretty penny.
But instead of buying expensive products, why not just go straight to the source which is sitting in your pantry?
You can achieve the same result but without added chemicals or filler ingredients.
Mānuka honey has antibacterial and antimicrobial properties while still remaining gentle and non-irritating to most skin types. What’s more, it’s a humectant which means it draws and locks moisture into dry skin.
Clean, moisturized skin…what could be better?
But enough chat, let’s get into 5 amazing ways to utilize the incredible power of Mānuka honey for great skin on the face and body…
1. Lip Scrub
For many people, lips are very prone to cracking, drying and peeling.
Winter time can really wreak on the lips, especially if you like to wear matte or liquid lip products.
One way to protect your lips and keep them soft and smooth is to give yourself a regular lip scrub treatment.
Also note that protecting your lips from the sun is also paramount to proper lip care. But back to the scrub!
Mānuka honey is a perfect ingredient for treating the lips, why?
Why Mānuka honey For DIY Lip Scrub?
Your lips lose moisture far more easily than the rest of your skin which is why they’re so delicate during dry, cold months.
Mānuka honey is a humectant which means it draws moisture to the skin and holds it there. It’s also got a sticky, emollient texture which helps lift dry skin away when removed from the affected area.
This magic bee elixir also has amazing healing properties which is fantastic news for chapped, raw lips.
By rubbing Mānuka honey into lips which have lost their moisture barrier you’re helping the lips to repair, heal and renew.
How to:
Mix together 1 teaspoon of Mānuka honey with 1 teaspoon of sugar.
Rub the mixture onto your lips in circular motions.
You can also add a few drops of oil such as rosehip and leave a thin layer of the mixture on your lips for a few minutes like a mini lip mask. This will allow the oil and honey to soak into the lips, leaving them soft and nourished.
2. Gentle in-shower Body Exfoliator
Keeping the skin on your body soft, moisturized and protected against dryness is important for overall comfort and a healthy luster. However, we don’t always have time to slather a body cream over the whole body on a regular basis.
One easy way to maintain soft, fresh skin is to exfoliate and hydrate in the shower…i.e killing two birds with one stone!
Next time you’re in need of a whole-body exfoliating and moisturizing treatment, make it at home.
Use Mānuka honey and a few other select kitchen ingredients to create an in-shower moisture scrub.
Slough dead skin off the body and add a high dose of moisture and healing nourishment to the skin without using a single skincare product.
Why Mānuka honey?
As we already know, Mānuka honey is a humectant, it loves to draw moisture to the skin. When you combine it with gentle abrasive ingredients, the honey acts as a transporter for the exfoliants to be distributed around the body.
The antimicrobial, antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties of Mānuka honey also makes it a great ingredient for whole body cleansing.
You can gently soothe inflamed skin while cleansing, healing and softening at the same time.
How to:
Combine 2 teaspoons of Mānuka honey with 2 teaspoons of olive oil, 2 tablespoons of rolled oats and 2 teaspoons of coarse sugar in a little bowl or container.
- Wet your skin in the shower then turn the water off.
- Rub the honey mixture over your skin in circular motions, concentrating on dry patches.
- If you have time, leave the mixture to soak into the skin for 5 minutes (perhaps as you put a treatment into your hair).
Turn the water back on, wash the mixture off and continue with your shower!
3. Blemish Shrinker
Blemishes…we all get them.
Before giving into temptation to give them a squeeze and layer on strong chemical treatments, get the honey out of the cupboard once again.
One of the best ways to reduce the damage left by pimples is to apply a treatment, then simply leave them to fade on their own.
If you poke and prod at them, you risk spreading the bacteria and creating a scar.
Why Mānuka honey?
Mānuka honey has antimicrobial and antibacterial properties.
By killing the bacteria on the skin, you greatly reduce the risk of your pores becoming further infected and existing pimples persisting.
It may seem counterintuitive to soften the skin in order to heal pimples, but it does help!
Moisture, not dryness, helps acne to heal and pores to remain clear and unclogged.
Mānuka honey moisturizes the skin and helps the affected skin to heal faster and with little or no scarring. You get the double action of cleansing and moisturising when you apply a high-quality Mānuka honey to your breakouts.
Mānuka honey is also known to soothe inflamed skin, which is very helpful in the blemish department, as things do tend to get red and angry during breakout flare ups.
How to:
Combine 1 teaspoon of Mānuka honey with a couple of drops of tea tree oil.
We use tea tree oil because it provides a gentle drying action to the pimples without over drying the skin.
It also adds further backup in the bug-killing department too.
Don’t use too much tea tree oil as too much will over-dry the skin and negate the moisturizing properties of the honey.
Dot the mixture over your blemishes individually or apply as a mask over the whole face.
Be careful to keep the mixture away from your eyes as tea tree oil is too harsh for the delicate skin around that area.
4. Intensive Eye Treatment
Eye creams are expensive and often super over-hyped.
They are designed to lure us into spending our cash with the promise of young, taught and elastic skin around the eyes.
Pretty tempting, right?
Well, you can still achieve those youthful results by using less expensive, less chemical-laden treatments such as Mānuka honey.
Why Mānuka honey?
As if Mānuka honey wasn’t impressive enough already, there’s another incredible property to behold.
Mānuka honey is a great antioxidant, thanks to the phenolic extracts it contains.
Antioxidants fight the free radicals which break down our cells, causing lines, wrinkles and slack skin.
The coveted moisturising property of Mānuka honey also makes it a fabulous ingredient for treating the delicate skin around the eyes.
We need to draw as much moisture as we can to the skin under and around the eyes in order to achieve plump, elastic and glowy skin.
We’re never going to completely erase lines and wrinkles, (nor should we, they show our character!) but we can fill them out and nourish the skin as best we can.
Moisturized, healthy skin looks just as young as taught, lineless skin, in my opinion!
How to:
You can either use Mānuka honey alone or mix with an eye-friendly oil such as rosehip.
Dab the honey mixture around the eyes very gently, making sure not to tug or pull at the skin.
You can also place eye pads over the mixture and lie back for an hour or so to let it sink into the skin before wiping off.
You could leave the honey mixture on your eyes as you sleep, but you may be asking for a sticky pillow!
5. Skin Brightening Mask
When the skin is dull, dry and tired, it’s hard to feel your best.
You can pile on highlighters and dewy foundations, but the skin beneath is still going to struggle. To brighten the skin, you need to remove the dull skin and hydrate the “fresh” skin.
The thing about soft, clean, revitalized skin is that it looks revitalized in texture and color.
To do this, all you need is to create a face mask with brightening, softening ingredients and simply let it do its thing.
Why Mānuka honey?
Mānuka honey is said to have brightening, lightening properties.
This isn’t going to change our skin tone, (and it shouldn’t as every skin tone is perfect) but it’s going to help restore it to brightness.
Because Mānuka honey has those crucial antimicrobial, antibacterial properties, it helps to get rid of blemishes to support clear, even-toned skin.
The moisturizing properties polish everything off with a good dose of dewy, silky smoothness.
The sticky, emollient texture of Mānuka honey is perfect for creating a thick mask which stays put on the skin. When you wipe the mask off, the stickiness helps to pull the dead skin away.
How to:
Combine 2 teaspoons of Mānuka honey, 1 teaspoons of lemon juice (extra brightening) 1 tablespoon of plain yogurt (gentle exfoliating thanks to lactic acid) and a few drops of rosehip or argan oil (heals scars and adds extra moisture).
Spread the mixture over the face and neck and leave for at least 15 minutes.
It’s wise to do this before you shower as it makes the clean-up so much easier!
Before you stock your cabinets with skincare products, turn to your Mānuka honey jar instead.
It would be a waste not to harness the anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, moisturizing and healing properties of honey when it’s so easy to use.
Have some fun in the kitchen combining your honey with soothing oats, blemish blasting tea tree and nourishing oils to create gentle yet oh-so effective skincare treatments.
