The Essential Guide to Natural Skin Care: Choosing Botanicals, Oils & Extracts for Simple & Healthy Beauty

Nourish your skin with pure, natural homemade products

Treat yourself―your face, hands, hair, and lips―to vitamin-rich, toxin-free nourishment from nature. The Essential Guide to Natural Skin Care lists the wondrous qualities and uses of botanicals used in homemade beauty products, making it easy to customize your own lotions, creams, milks, body butters, face masks, lip balms, ointments, toners, and more.

Use this complete inventory of botanicals and other ingredients to make informed choices about eco-friendly vegetable oils and butters, infused and essential oils, aromatic hydrosols, and emulsifiers. Discover the beneficial beauty and healing properties of each, as well as practical traits such as shelf life and absorption. You’ll find ingredients that soften, tone, and hydrate skin and hair; tighten pores; fade scars; stave off wrinkles; help prevent and heal acne; promote hair strength; treat dandruff; fight infection and fungus; and repel insects. This compact DIY reference also includes practical advice and basic recipes that can be easily modified to your unique skin type, needs, and tastes.

Hélène Berton (Quebec, Canada) has been working with essential oils since 2000. Her training includes an apprenticeship at an artisanal distillery in Provence. She regularly gives workshops on natural cosmetics and related topics.