Haldi and Coconut Oil Mask FAIL!

Healthy Skin Face Mask

It's been rather hot these past few days and of course that's reflected on your skin. I thought I would pamper myself with a nice face mask and so started looking at recipes. I found this one, for which I had all the ingredients, and since it promised to clarify the skin I thought I'd give it a whirl. 

Find the recipe here :This is the Mask

The Ingredients

Turmeric - Turmeric or haldi is well-known spice in India. It has been used in skin care too since ancient times. It is known to lighten blemishes and have anti-bacterial properties and is also a strong anti-oxidant.

Coconut Oil - Coconut oil is smoothing, softening and lubricating the skin cells as well as helping to break down dead cells. It is helpful in the prevention of acne for this reason and because it contain healthy acids like caprylic, capric, lauric and mystiric acid. 

The Trial

The whole recipe seemed simple and straightforward and since I had all two of the ingredients on hand I got right to it. A word about my skin. Although it can get oily during the summer months, it is also very often dry depending on the weather. I have a decent skin care regimen, but I do get the occasional break out. However, the recipe didn't say it wasn't for oily skin so I went ahead.

This is what I looked like before

The first glitch appeared when I mixed the ingredients and wound up with not a paste but rather a runny, oily, violently saffron coloured oil. None the less I soldiered on. Valiantly applying the mixture to my face with the help of a teaspoon, I soon discovered that it was going to constantly run off my chin. Not only that but the colour of the haldi (I later learned they add artificial colour to haldi powder) was turning my lovely off-white basin a somwhat virulent yellow.

I finally got a thin layer of it onto my face, and was then faced with the task of keeping it there. Unless I wanted to spend the next 15 minutes bent over the sink (haldi is terrible if it stains your clothes) I needed another solution.

This was it

However, this doesn't prevent it getting in your mouth, and it doesn't taste great let me tell you. I gamely sat and waited with my tissue-covered chin and hoped fervently that I wouldn't end up the same colour as my washbasin. The time couldn't pass fast enough and all my hopes of a relaxing face mask treatment had gone up in a puff of saffron coloured smoke. When my upper lip started to burn however, I decided that enough was enough. 

This was when I discovered that my trials were far from over. If putting it on was a pain, getting it off was even worse. Not only the did the oil stubbornly adhere to my skin but the granules of the haldi were scraping over it as I tried to get it off my face. I had to scrub my face with my face wash and I came up a delicately tinged yellow. I then took a face towel and wet it and used that to wipe off my face.

This is how it wound up looking

To add insult to injury something in the mask (probably the artificial colouring of the haldi) aggravated my allergies and made me start sneezing. fortunately I haven't broken out yet, because that would be the final straw.

This is how I finally looked

Note the delicately jaundiced look around the mouth and nose where even the most diligent wiping hasn't managed to restore my skin colour. Apart from a yellow hue, I cannot see that the mask has made any difference at all. My pores are right there in beautiful relief, my blemish is not a whit soothed away and that lovely glow that was promised is more like a jaundiced tint.

Conclusions

Pros

• The ingredients are easily available
• This might conceivably work for people with dry skin

Cons

• The mask is difficult to apply and very messy
• The haldi stains everything, and I mean everything
• The mask is not easy to use in that it keeps dripping off your face
• It is not easy to wash off
• It leaves the skin stained yellow
• It leaves other things stained yellow (like your fingernails)
• It irritates the skin
• There's no visible differences

My Recommendations

DON'T DO IT! I know that this is an often recommended recipe and there could be extenuating factors and perhaps if you aren't allergic to it, don't use bought haldi powder and have dry skin it might work for you, but in my honest opinion there are much better options.

NB : I know about the added colour and that it's probably the cause of my allergy thanks to the input of a doctor friend who was good enough to take the time out to help me.