Home Made: Toner

Hello ladies!

   We all probably know that toner is essential in our daily skin care routine but some of us skip it either because we don't see the point in spending money on it, or we've had bad experience with some in the past and this is most likely because probably 70% or so of the toners out there on the market the ones you find in any store and that are somewhat cheap contain a significant amount of alcohol in them. Alcohol dries up the skin thus it is present in most toners for combination to oily skin (and even in some of the ones for dry skin!!) because it gives the false impression that it helps control the oils, when in reality it actually makes the skin produce even more oil because it dries the skin on the surface making it believe it has to produce more to compensate and moisturize the top layers.

   If you've faced this problem but you still want to use a toner to further cleanse your face to make sure you have absolutely no residue on your face before you apply your moisturizer well keep on reading.

   For the past 2 months I started using what I call my own home made toner which is really easy to to, is extremely cheap and I assure you will not dry your skin and you can adjust the contents to match your skin type.

You will need:

• Tea bags: any tea bag is essentially good but you can try: mint for oily skin, mint+chamomile for combination skin, chamomile for normal to dry skin.

• Water (tap or bottled)
• Kettle
• Apple cider vinegar (just for oily & combination skin) - or just lemon juice

• Empty bottle/container - preferably with a spray cap

Steps:

• You have to make a very concentrated tea (2-3 bags of tea for a medium size cup of water) : just boil the water, put the tea bags in, cover it and let it sit over night.
• In the morning you can pour the tea in the clean spray bottle and decide whether you want to use apple cider vinegar or not. If you want to use this as more than a toner, as a finishing spray over your makeup then don't use the vinegar because you can't apply it on your eye area; however if you only want this as a toner then I strongly recommend using a tea spoon of vinegar (or lemon juice) for combination and oily skin.

   This home made toner will give you the extra cleansing, will finish your skin care routine at night when you take your makeup off without drying your skin in any way and over time will help you with the excess oil that your skin produces.

Remark: You might find the smell of the vinegar somewhat disturbing but I assure you it doesn't stay on your skin. However if you can't stand the smell just skip this step and stick to the tea.

   You may also add a little bit of HONEY to the water after you boiled it before adding the tea bags to ensure that it adds a little bit of antibacterial properties to your toner if you have acne problems!

   I like to use this at the end of my skin care routine at night after taking off my makeup and I keep 2 bottles: one with apple cider vinegar which I use with a cotton pad to remove any residue makeup and one  containing just tea that I use after the previous one, let it dry on it's own then apply moisturizer and got to bed.

   A container of this toner should last you at least a good 2 weeks. I don't recommend keeping it more since it is very cheap and you can afford making a new fresh bottle pretty often to ensure you get the most out of the tea's properties.

Hope you find this useful and give it a try!

Let me know hot it works for you guys!