Best Botanicals For Your Skincare!!!

Organic beauty products are all the rage these days, and it’s easy to see why. Many makeup and skin care products use harsh chemicals that are harmful to your delicate skin. Most of us are turning to organic, natural remedies, which are friendlier to the environment as well as our skin. No doubt you’ve seen labels advertising tea tree oil, aloe, Shea butter or aloevera in their beauty products , lets see what they do for our skin..

Tea Tree Oil

The Plant. Melaleuca alternifolia, or the tea tree, is a native resident of Australia and New Zealand, and was given its name by Captain Cook himself. It’s a pretty, medium-sized tree (topping out at about seven meters) with slim, silvery leaves and bushy clumps of tiny white flowers.
The Extract. Tea tree oil is extracted from the fresh leaves of the tea tree. It’s pretty harsh stuff when raw, and can be toxic if swallowed, but after a few refinements, it’s one of the safest antimicrobials out there!
The Uses. Tea tree oil is fantastic at killing bacteria, so good that it’s becoming popular in treating skin problems. The bacteria killing properties make it an excellent treatment for acne and other skin infections. It’s also nutritious and moisturizing and has a bright, pleasant scent, so it’s found a lot of use in skin creams and dandruff shampoo. If you’d like to give it a try, it can be easily found online: you can see it often in Fabindia cosmetics.

Aloe

The Plant. Aloe vera, a spiky, low-growing succulent plant that makes its home in many deserts worldwide. It stores water in its thick, fleshy leaves in a clear jelly that has been used in medicine and beauty for at least 2,000 years! Even today, many chefs keep an aloe plant in their kitchen to ease the sting of minor burns.
The Extract. You can extract your own aloe gel simply by snapping the tip off a leaf! In the beauty industry, the leaves are cut up and boiled, and the thick gel is strained out. Because the leaves store so much water, this is a very efficient process: it doesn’t take many aloe leaves to produce a full bottle of lotion.
The Uses. Aloe’s soothing properties are often used to treat minor burns, especially sun burn. It both helps ease the pain and speed up the healing process. It’s also an effective moisturizer that has found its way into many skin lotions and hair conditioners, where it can help fight acne and dandruff as well.

Shea Butter

The Plant. The Shea tree, or Vitellaria paradoxa, is native to Africa, where it has been cultivated as a food plant for millennia. Cleopatra herself imported Shea butter to Egypt! These trees are small, tough, and thorny, and they won’t start producing fruit until they are ten to fifteen years old! Shea nuts themselves are about the size of a plum, and they have a thin layer of fruit around a large, fatty central nut.
The Extract. Shea butter is extracted from Shea nuts, which are packed full of vegetable fats a lot like palm oil. Making Shea butter is a social process, with elder women and young girls cracking and grinding nuts together. The nuts go through several rounds of roasting and grinding, and then they’re boiled. Shea butter leeches out and floats to the top of the pot, where it can be skimmed off and cooled.
The Uses. Shea butter has a long, long history. Ancient Egyptians discovered its moisturizing properties and used it on their skin and hair. Thanks to modern chemistry, we now know why. Shea butter is packed with vitamin A and vitamin E. Vitamin A is one of the best nutrients out there for healing and anti-aging. It can reduce wrinkles, age spots, and even stretch marks. Not only is it a great moisturizer, those nutrients help heal dry, cracked skin and rashes, including insect bites and plant rashes! You can even use it as a shaving cream for silky smooth legs and underarms.

“Info On a Silver Platter”

They’ve called Shea butter your skin’s best friend and aloe vera the cook’s companion, and many women now consider tea tree oil an essential for skin care . With so much of nature’s bounty available, there’s no need to treat your skin with harsh chemicals or expensive artificial medications: just take advantage of what these botanical beauties have to offer.