Tea for Healthy Skin
Before getting to the recipes, it’s important to understand what tea can do for your skin. Antioxidants, like polyphenols found in green tea, can fight off free radical damage to your skin which reduces common signs of aging like wrinkles and discoloration. These antioxidants, in particular, EGCG (epigallocatechin galleate) in green tea, even work for treating skin conditions like psoriasis, rosacea and acne. You get this benefit simply by drinking green teas. Recent studies show that white tea, which has the highest amount of antioxidants, can boost the immune function of skin cells and protect them against sun damage.
And now for the fun part! You can skip the expensive trip to the spa and make your own facial treatments at home. Draw a warm bath and add a healthy dose of white tea bath salts made of a mixture of salts and a loose white tea, like Silver Needle white tea. Or relax in your bath with soothing white tea eye treatment. To make the eye treatments, first prepare Silver Needle white tea in two filter bags. Then cool the used tea bags in the refrigerator and place them over your closed eyelids for 15 minutes. Silver Needle is a good tea for both of these treatments because it no scents or fragrances; it is just pure white tea. Click here to find more on DIY white tea skin treatment recipes from Associated Content.
Loose leaf green teas, like Sencha green tea, can also be used to make homemade skincare products. Skin products expert, Lina Tanaka, likes to use green tea as a facial toner, reports the Wall Street Journal. The next time you brew a cup of Sencha green tea, set aside a small portion of the tea and allow it to cool. For a refreshing skin toner, splash the cool tea directly onto your face or apply with a cotton ball. If you have any extra brewed green tea, put it in a spray bottle and spritz your face during the day to refresh your skin. Don’t worry, as long as you don’t add sugar or honey first, it won’t make you skin sticky. Again, choose an natural, pure green tea like Sencha or Gyokuro that doesn’t have added scents, flavors or other ingredients.
Last, BellaSugar has a sweet and healthy recipe for a Sweet Tea Antioxidant Facial Exfoliator by combining Teavana’s Matcha green tea along with brown sugar, almond or olive oil, and neem oil. Exfoliate for a deep clean that leaves your skin feeling smooth and resilient. Matcha works well in these types of treatments, since the tea leaves are ground up and mix easily with other oils or liquids.
On a side note, black teas can help relieve sunburn. Choose a strong black tea like English Breakfast black tea and draw a hot bath with enough tea leaves to make a strong tea. Allow the bath to cool before you get in, so it doesn’t worsen the burn. The tannic acid in black teas help to relieve the burn and cool your skin. If you just have a patch of sunburn you can soak a towel in strong black tea and simply lay it on the burned skin.
We hope you think twice before throwing away your used tea leaves. These natural leaves can quickly and easily be recycled into truly healthy and inexpensive skincare products. Have you turned your used tea leaves into a fabulous, healthy skin treatment? Post a comment and share your recipe!
This is a good article. I’ve already started to spritz tea on my skin. I’ve been using Oolong since I had some Almond Blossom Oolong on hand. But I’m going to switch to just Green Tea like Sencha or White Tea for my skin care. I’ve found that the tea even cuts hair oil in place of soap or shampoo. I’d like to read more science of what tea does to cleanse the skin.